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McLaren ended the 2023 season strongly and spoke optimistically of its new MCL38 heading into pre-season testing last week.
The three days of track action in Bahrain offered a first glimpse of where the F1 field is, with Red Bull Racing the clear favourite.
From that running, McLaren appears to have held steady at the top of the midfield, much as it had ended last season, though it is short of the absolute front of the pack with Red Bull Racing and Ferrari.
“I’d like to think that we’re somewhere towards the front of the grid,” Piastri said when asked where he feels McLaren sits.
“I certainly don’t feel, at the moment, we’re in a position to challenge Red Bull – I’m not sure anyone on the grid particularly feels that way at the moment – but I think we’re somewhere towards the front.”
During the opening two days of testing, the McLaren MCL38 looked a capable car.
However, it appeared to suffer from some low-speed understeer, a weakness that was prevalent in last year’s MCL60. By the final day that seemed to have been dialled out.
Even still, rivals took note of the Woking squad’s single-lap pace, but questioned its long-run form.
“I think there’s certain aspects of that we’ve improved,” Piastri said of the new car’s characteristics versus the 2023 machine.
“We still have work to do on some things, but certainly some aspects of the low-speed handling, and just the handling in general, I think we have made a step forward on.
“We’ve not been able to tackle everything in the time that we’ve had in the off-season, so there’s still a lot of hard work going on to fully make the car a bit nicer to drive,” he added.
“I mean, it’s quite familiar from last season, as you would expect.
“Nobody’s car is going to be feeling wildly different to one another, so I think any differences are going to be pretty small, especially if you’re in the same team from year to year.
“So some improvements, but definitely some areas where we want to make some decent steps forward.”
The pecking order from testing was difficult to asertain. While Red Bull Racing looked fastest, and Ferrari likely its nearest rival, thereafter it was all extremely closely matched.
The MCL38 was not as sharp as the RB20 or SF-24, but was almost indistinguishable from the Mercedes and Aston Martin on track – though with a better ride than the Mercedes.
“It’s a bit hard to tell and I expect it to still chop and change quite lot, depending on the circuit characteristics,” Piastri said of the pecking order.
“It’s very hard to get a read on where everyone else sits at the moment.
“I think the only pretty clear conclusion from everyone at the moment is that Red Bull look strong.”
