McLaren says fourth-fastest car limited its Sepang potential

McLaren said its car’s pace limited what it could achieve at Sepang, where Oscar Piastri finished sixth and Lando Norris ninth in the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. The team assessed its car as fourth-fastest at this stage of the season and said P6 and P7 were likely the best results available, regardless of race execution.

Rain delayed the start. McLaren had initially fitted medium tyres to both cars; Piastri switched to intermediates before the standing start, while Norris remained on slicks. Norris later said the collective decision to start on mediums was wrong in hindsight.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said even perfect decisions would not have moved Piastri above sixth. He added that the team could have scored a few more points with Norris had he not run onto the gravel at the second restart. Norris accepted responsibility, but said he was caught out when the pack checked up after George Russell stopped; he described the situation as unusual and unlucky. The excursion dropped him to 11th before he recovered to ninth.

Piastri said McLaren had improved on the hard tyres and was catching Charles Leclerc before the final safety car cut that run short. He said the team’s new parts were performing as expected, but rivals were improving too and McLaren was not currently in the fight for wins.