Seidl: "We had the third fastest car"

All in all, McLaren can look back with satisfaction on a good race in Bahrain. Lando Norris reached the finish in fourth place and his new teammate Daniel Ricciardo, who had problems with damage to his floor, did so in seventh place. This performance puts McLaren in third place in the Constructors' Championship after the first race.

Yet team boss Andreas Seidl isn't entirely convinced of his team's position. "We shouldn't get too carried away by the performance in the first race," he commented at Motorsportweek.com.

"A P4 and P7 finish during the first race was exactly what we wanted during the first race of the season. After all, it earns a lot of points for the constructors' championship. It was encouraging to see, if you looked at Lando's race, that we had the third-best car," said Seidl, who thus argues that McLaren had the fastest car in the field after Red Bull and Mercedes during the season opener.

Lando Norris himself says he is not convinced that McLaren has the third strongest car. "If Tsunoda had been in Q3 they would probably have been ahead of us. Also we were ahead of Sainz and Ferrari, but if he had done a good lap he should have been ahead of us. So it's not like it's perfect. There's still plenty of work to be done."