Lando Norris says sixth place at the Bahrain Grand Prix proves McLaren are “on the way up”.
It was a rich reward for the Briton who benefited from Nico Hulkenberg’s late retirement to finish ‘best of the rest’ in the desert.
And certainly marks a significant improvement from the end of last year when McLaren was stranded near the back of the grid.
“It’s definitely on the way up,” he told Sky Sports.
“I’m sure they’d be happier with a first place, but, [yes] the steps we have taken from last year, to be two out of two in Q3 and have two opportunities to get into the points and a P6, I think from the outside we do have a better trend than what we did last year.
“The mechanics, the engineers, the bosses who are obviously here this weekend – I think we gave them what they all deserve.”
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Norris’ result also meant his first points in F1, which will be a welcome relief after the frustration of Australia, when he only finished 12th having started P8.
Teammate Carlos Sainz was also running well initially but would suffer a puncture from contact with Max Verstappen.
The Spaniard would eventually retire in the closing laps and later revealed an issue that would have impacted his race regardless of the incident with the Red Bull.
“We had a gearbox problem that was making us lose almost a second per lap,” he explained.
“So if I had overtaken Verstappen I would have been fifth and then suddenly I would have had the gearbox problem, then it would have been even more dramatic.”
