Norris, the 2017 European F3 champion, will step up to the second-tier F2 series with the Carlin squad this year after taking rookie titles in each of the last three seasons.

But the 18-year-old says he is not under any extra pressure from McLaren to replicate 2017 F2 champion Charles Leclerc’s achievement of winning the series in his first year.

“Top three is the aim for the moment,” said Norris. “I think even if we don’t start well and we end well, top three is still the aim.

“And it’s not a championship I have to go and win – or, it’s like McLaren want me to just go in and win.

“They want me to learn as much as I can and try to just gain as much experience as I can and go about it in the way you would in F1, giving the feedback [how] a F1 engineer would want.

“Just so if I had the opportunity to step into F1 in the next couple of years, I’m already on the level I need to be – not trying to work up at the end of the season.”

Carlin is returning to F2 after skipping the 2017 season, and although Norris believes the British outfit could take time to get up fully up to speed, he reiterated he is targeting wins in 2018.

“I’m going in with confidence, of course, with Carlin, but it’s definitely going to be tricky – especially in the beginning of the season,” he said.

“We don’t really know where we are at all compared to the other teams. But, just like last year [where] we definitely came on much stronger in the middle of the year – that’s the aim again this year.

“I think wins are going to be what I’m going for. They could come in the beginning, they could come just at the end.

“At the end of the day, I want to win the championship but I think once we’ve done the first few races we’ll know where we’re actually at as a team – then it will be much easier to say what the goal is for the season.”