There were mixed feeling in the McLaren camp after Saturday's qualifying in Bahrain, where Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri ended the session respectively P11 and P18.
Ahead of the opening round of racing at Sakhir, McLaren's top brass had warned that the team was starting its 2023 campaign unsatisfied with the current state of development of its MCL60.
However, Norris' performance in the remarkably tight qualifying session was perhaps slightly better than anticipated although nowhere near where the Woking-based outfit ambitions to be
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"P11 in the first qualifying of the year, I would say I’m reasonably happy with that," commented Norris at the end of the day.
"I think we pretty much got everything out of the car. There maybe was a tenth left in it but I needed two tenths to gain any positions.
"It was a tough qualifying, it was very close between all the midfield and even the top cars, to be honest. It was a little bit better than I was thinking coming into the session, so we’ll take it.
"It’s a long race ahead tomorrow and a track we can overtake on, so hopefully we can move forward."
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There was no pressure on Piastri to outperform in qualifying, but the rookie was nevertheless unhappy with his session, pointing to the sum of his errors and an untimely red flag - caused by debris from Charles Leclerc's Ferrari - as factors behind his failure to access Q2.
"I made too many mistakes, especially on that second lap [in Q1]," he said.
"I think the red flag didn’t help us and kind of meant we had one attempt, but yeah, just too many mistakes on my side."
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Piastri nevertheless agreed with Norris that Sunday's race - the Aussie's first event since his final race start in F2 in 2021 - would offer opportunities to move forward.
"Yeah, I think we can try to make up some spots tomorrow, that will be the plan, definitely – we’ll see how we go," he added.
"I think our straight-line speed is probably not our strongest point. For me, it’ll be a good opportunity to get back into the swing of racing. It’ll be my first race for quite some time, so I’ll make the most of it.
"I’m excited. I wish today had gone a bit better and a bit higher up but tomorrow’s a new day and I think we can make up a few positions."
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