McLaren had "faultless days" in Bahrain pre-season testing

F1 Grand Prix, GP Qatar, Losail International Circuit

Having constantly refused to set eye-catching lap times, McLaren driver Lando Norris insists that the Woking-based outfit solely focused on collecting data for the upcoming season.

Despite not topping the timesheets on the second and third day of pre-season, the race simulation lap times put McLaren as the leading force in the same tone as last season.

Lando Norris racked up a total of 57 laps on the third and final day of pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit, posting a best time of 1m30.943s which put him 11th quickest on the order. However, his race simulation on Day 2 was over half a second quicker in average than what Charles Leclerc and Andrea Kimi Antonelli achieved at the same time of the day which means that all of them ran in comparable weather conditions.

“Much trickier conditions on track this morning with the wind and temperature. Once I was comfortable, we were able to work through our plan and collect more data.

"We'll now put it all together and look through everything we’ve completed over the last few days to make sure we’re ready for Melbourne," concluded Norris.

His team-mate Oscar Piastri is looking forward to his third season with McLaren. Although he looked less comfortable behind the wheel of McLaren's MCL39 than Norris, but his race simulation on the last day of testing also appeared to be a class above the ones of the Woking-based squad's direct competitors.

“That’s testing done. I think it was a productive three days. We tried a lot of things and learnt a lot. Some things felt quite good, others still need improvement but working through this is exactly what testing is for.

"The car ran pretty much faultlessly, which was a good place to be starting from. We've got a lot to review before Melbourne, but I think we’re going into it in decent shape.

"I don't think anyone expected rain in Bahrain, so that was a slight spanner in the works yesterday. But I think it is all going pretty well, and excited to get some more laps.

"Reasonably happy - we have been trying a lot of things and our programme is going pretty smoothly. In terms of pace, I don't know where we sit. Some runs have looked good, some haven't looked as good. But we are still pretty comfortable.

"A racing driver is always going to complain about a car, no matter how fast it is! It's been tricky in parts for sure, but nothing to be overly concerned about," said Piastri.