In Bahrain’s free practice, McLaren F1 outperformed expectations, with Piastri lauding the MCL38’s single-lap and race pace.
McLaren F1 did not expect such a good day in Bahrain during free practice. Oscar Piastri praised the MCL38 for its effectiveness on a single lap, as well as in race simulations.
“In FP2, the car was good, on both qualifying runs and race runs. We’re in a decent position, still a bit inconsistent, we don’t exactly know where we’ll end up but it’s similar for everyone. We’re about where we expected, we need to look at the stint data, but the feeling is positive,” the Australian indicated.
He’s not exactly sure where McLaren stands in the top 10: “We’re in the right group. Red Bull isn’t as fast as we thought, we’ll see how much sand they shake out tomorrow! It’s tighter than I expected, Mercedes is fast, Fernando is fast.”
“It’s hard to judge on a Friday. We’re in the points, but with all the teams around, it’s also possible to be towards the podium or towards tenth place. So, we’ll try to stay at the head of this group.”
The conditions were not easy, especially due to the wind that disturbs the F1 cars: “Yes. It always seems a bit pathetic to complain about the wind, but it’s difficult when there is some. The cars have a very different balance depending on the wind, it made things difficult and it should be the same tomorrow.”
On the other hand, Lando Norris confirms that McLaren is in better shape than initially expected in Bahrain: “It was a decent day, a bit better than we expected.”
“It wasn’t my best day, it was a bit confusing, but I hope I’ve done it and can do a better job tomorrow,” Norris stated. “A good day, we tried things, we made progress with understanding the car.”
However, he does not take the raw results of the day as an absolute truth: “With the wind, everything was a bit changing and everything will change by tomorrow and Saturday. It suits some cars more, others less. I think it’s clear that Red Bull is ahead, Ferrari is close.”
“Mercedes is a question mark but they’ll be there. It will be very tight in qualifying, even Haas is there while they haven’t changed their car much. It will be tricky, exciting too, but we need to find everything we can extract from the car.”
McLaren Bahrain Free Practice. McLaren Bahrain Free Practice F1 2024
- Horner Targeted? F1 Scandal Unfolds
- Following us on Facebook and Twitter.
