McLaren: We can be satisfied with our running

“It was a smooth Friday and we could complete our programme without any issues. Overall, the performance looks good and promising, but we know that tomorrow the others will turn up their engines, so we have to be cautious there.

“Happy with today. We just need to make sure that one timed lap is nailed a bit better to maximise the result in quali. Still some margin to improve the car as well so I look forward to tomorrow.”

“There are still things to improve upon but it’s been a decent start to the weekend. I feel more confident because I know the procedures a little more. I think FP1 went reasonably well: we got through everything we had to and I got a good feeling for the track."

"The track temperature in FP2 came down a lot meaning the car felt pretty different and obviously lap times were much faster. We ended that session with a small issue which didn’t allow me to do as many laps as I wanted – but I still did a longer run on the higher fuel plus short runs at the beginning of the session, so I got a decent feeling.”

Gil de Ferran, Sporting Director: “We can be satisfied with our running today. We went through both FP1 and FP2 relatively smoothly and the car is behaving according to expectations. Drilling into details, we were able to execute both quali simulations and longer runs as planned. The changing conditions between the sessions poses a unique challenge here in Bahrain, due to the big shift in track temperature.

“However, FP2, quali and the race are held at the same time. As usual, we have a long night ahead of us, going through all the information that we gathered today, in our quest to make the best possible decisions looking ahead to tomorrow.”