Briton Norris described his win as “stressful but rewarding”.

The first adjective was justified by the conditions in a madcap, crash-strewn, incident-packed race where one small error can spell disaster – as it very nearly did for Norris himself at one point.

The second adjective was a recognition of the fact that this was exactly the kind of race in which, last year, McLaren had proved less than perfect, and thrown away at least one potential victory, and perhaps another, too.

But in Melbourne they were as perfect as it is possible to be in conditions such as these – even the renowned rain-master Max Verstappen slipped up at one point. And Norris and McLaren came through the chaos unscathed.

The fine line between victory and defeat was underlined by an incident with 13 laps to go that defined the race.

Norris was leading from team-mate Oscar Piastri and Verstappen as a heavy shower of rain approached the track.

It hit as the leaders were negotiating the final corners on lap 44, with 13 to go.

Both McLarens ran wide on to the gravel at the exit of Turn 12, and Australian Piastri then spun through Turn 13.

Norris was able to continue without losing too much time, but Piastri ended up on the grass on the outside of Turn 12, where he sat with his wheels spinning helplessly for what seemed like an age as his hopes of victory at home evaporated before finally rejoining. He fought back to ninth by the end.

Norris immediately pitted for treaded tyres. That decision won him the race, and demonstrated how far he and the team had come since last year – they had planned that they would pit as soon as it rained, and acted decisively on the plan.

Verstappen stayed out and took the lead, but as the rain intensified he lost more time, and Norris resumed the lead when the Dutchman pitted himself two laps later.

Norris said: “It’s so easy to make a mistake, so easy to ruin everything. So quickly it can all have gone wrong within a second.

“Any second of the race, you lock up, you hit the white line wrong, you have a big snap. It was just very, very difficult at times to just not go into a hole or a tyre barrier somewhere.

“That’s a big enough challenge, but then when you’ve got the weather changing and the track conditions changing, knowing when to make the correct decision to change on to a slick tyre and stay out on the inter-tyre, and then even more when I’ve got Max behind me and Oscar behind me, it’s stressful.

“But that’s what makes it rewarding.

“We worked a lot over the winter to prepare for a race like this, because it’s where we threw away a lot of opportunities last season – Canada, Silverstone, where we were not the best at preparing and knowing how decisive we’ve got to be.

“Today we were very, very decisive, calling to box five metres before I boxed. But it was the right call in the end, and that won us the race.”

The race was not over, though.

In the final five laps after the final restart, Norris had Verstappen right behind him. The McLaren was hampered by significant floor damage – incurred either in the previously mentioned off, or in another in those final laps at Turn Six – but he hung on, despite Verstappen being less than a second behind, and having use of the DRS overtaking aid.

The 25-year-old Norris, for whom last season was his first fighting consistently at the front, underlined his inexperience when he said: “That situation was new for me. I’ve not ever led a race with five laps to go with Max behind me, trying to put me under pressure, and in these conditions.

“Maybe Max has had that a few times in his race against Lewis (Hamilton) a lot, and he can just deal with that probably better than I can.

“I’m happy I got through it and stayed calm. It’s something I improved from last year.”

McLaren’s performance was as expected. They were the quickest car all weekend and delivered on a status as favourites that Norris acknowledged both before and after the race was justified.

They earned it in pre-season testing, but Norris said that, while the long run in Bahrain two weeks ago had demonstrated their strong pace, the car was not necessarily as good as some felt it looked there.

The job, he emphasised, was only just beginning, and not all races would be like this.

“The car’s flying,” Norris said. “But we’re going to have races where we are going to struggle.

“[If] we race in Bahrain as round one, I wouldn’t be confident that we could win the race.

“But I’m confident that we’re going to, say, China next weekend, and we can be very, very strong, because we were strong there last year, with not a very good car.”

In the post-race news conference, with Verstappen and Mercedes’ George Russell either side of him, Norris also pointed out that he felt that Piastri’s presence alongside him was partly responsible for McLaren’s strong weekend, making a pointed reference to the rookie team-mates of his rivals.

“Let’s allow a few more races to take place before we start making any (predictions), but we’re the favourites, we are the team to beat, mainly because we have two drivers up there pushing each other,” he said.

“That helps. Do I think me and Oscar working together yesterday, in terms of pushing one another, allowed us to get one and a half, one 10th more than the two drivers here, because their team-mates aren’t as equipped and as experienced? Yes.”

Verstappen and Russell, meanwhile, were talking as if they know that McLaren will take some beating.

Verstappen was reflecting on the fact that he lost 15 seconds to the McLarens over the first stint as the track dried.

“As the tyres started to overheat we had no chance,” he said. “Yet basically McLaren just took off.

“We still have a lot of work to do to fight for a win, but I’m very happy that we are second here. It’s basically one place better than we should have been. We’ll do our best.”

Russell added: “They look pretty good and groovy at the moment, so we’ll see.”

Leclerc was fastest in the first daylight session at the Yas Marina circuit but Ferrari then revealed they had changed the battery in his car, a breach that triggered an automatic penalty.

McLaren’s Lando Norris was fastest in the floodlit second session, 0.234 quicker than his Australian teammate Oscar Piastri.

Ferrari are 21 points behind McLaren, who were last champions in 1998, with 44 still to be won in Sunday’s 24th and last race of the season with 2023 champions Red Bull out of the running.

McLaren principal Andrea Stella, who was previously at Ferrari, said there was no sense of the pressure being off, however. “We talk about Charles Leclerc. We talk about Ferrari. It’s a very strong combination,” he said. “I think even with the penalty, I wouldn’t be surprised if we can see them very rapidly fighting for the front, for the top positions. So nothing changes.”

Leclerc lapped with a best time of one minute 24.321 seconds, with Norris 0.221 slower. Norris’s best lap in second practice was 1:23.517.

Mercedes’ seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton and teammate George Russell were third and fourth in practice one, with Haas’s Nico Hulkenberg an impressive third in the later session with Carlos Sainz fourth for Ferrari and Leclerc sixth.

Sunday’s race will be Hamilton’s last for Mercedes before joining Ferrari as Sainz’s replacement, with the Spaniard heading to Williams. Hamilton was fifth later on with Russell 13th.

Alpine’s Pierre Gasly was fifth-fastest in session one, with new Australian teammate Jack Doohan only 19th in preparing for his first race as replacement for Esteban Ocon.

The pair were 12th and 19th respectively later on.Williams’ Franco Colapinto and Alex Albon will both have five place drops for mechanical changes, another blow to a team reeling from a spate of costly crashes that have pushed them to the brink on spares.

Colapinto, who will hand over his seat to Sainz for next season, hit a kerb and damaged his car’s floor in the second session.

In a Formula One first, two brothers took to the track for the same team in the opening session — Leclerc being joined by younger brother Arthur (18th) who was driving Sainz’s Ferrari.

Six of the 10 teams had a young driver at the wheel of one of their cars in the afternoon session, fulfilling an obligation to give them track time.

Japan’s Ryo Hirakawa replaced Piastri, Isack Hadjar drove quadruple champion Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, and Felipe Drugovich was in Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin.

Ayumu Iwasa stood in for fellow-Japanese Yuki Tsunoda at RB and Luke Browning for Albon.

Verstappen, last year’s race winner who has been engaged in a bitter row with Russell that has been the talk of the paddock, returned for practice two and was 17th with teammate Sergio Perez 14th.