Carlos Sainz says the teams ahead are "within reach"

Carlos Sainz has said that the first day of the Chinese Grand Prix was a "good day for the team" and he thinks that McLaren will be able to push some of the top midfield teams for the position of 'best of the rest.' 

“Good day for the team,” he said to the official F1 website, “especially after a tough FP1 where we had a few issues in the car that we needed to address for FP2. But we definitely found a better baseline for FP2.

"Still, you know, it’s so tight that one or two tenths, is the difference in five or 10 kilos of fuel, so if anyone has selected to run a bit heavier or lighter, they’re all within reach in front and behind so let’s keep working hard and keep digging.”

Lando Norris was also positive after the practice sessions:

"It’s been a reasonable day,” he said. “Obviously it’s my first time here, so it’s never easy, but I got up to speed quicker than I did in Australia, probably because I’m just more used to the car and everything.

“We made some steps forward from FP1 to FP2, because we had some small, quite limiting problems in FP1 balance-wise, which we kind of fixed, but we just need to make sure we keep going in that direction for tomorrow.”

Sainz will hope that he can finish this race and get some solid points whilst Norris will be hoping to get into Q3 again and impress the Formula 1 fans at a new circuit for him.