Daniel Ricciardo is hoping McLaren’s poor form in the season-opening race turns out to be a one-off following their first points score of the season in Jeddah last weekend.
However he admits the team need significant upgrades to contend for anything better than the lower reaches of the points.
The McLaren drivers qualified 13th and 18th for the first race of the season, but took the sixth row in Saudi Arabia before Ricciardo was given a three-place grid penalty. Lando Norris took seventh in the race while Ricciardo, who ran ahead of him in the early stages, dropped out with a technical problem.
Ricciardo believes their more competitive showing in Jeddah was “down to the circuit characteristics.”
“So I’m really hoping that Bahrain was a bit of a bogey situation for us,” he said.
Prior to the race McLaren indicated it had brought no updates for its MCL36 in between the two rounds. “We didn’t really have much,” said Ricciardo. “I mean it cleaned up a few things in terms…