Fernando Alonso says he was encouraged to finish just outside of the points as he equalled McLaren's best result of the season in Bahrain.
Alonso finished the race in 11th position - beating both Sauber drivers, Nico Hulkenberg, Pastor Maldonado and the Manor Marussia pair - but the Spaniard believes that Jenson Button's failure to start the race due to an electrical glitch shows that the team still has a lot of work to do.
"No, I think we have to be realistic and happy with the race today," Alonso said when asked if he was disappointed to miss out on points.
"We had some concerns, Jenson could not even start the race, so it was important to do some laps and get some data for the three weeks ahead of us.
"We have three weeks before Barcelona to increase performance and reliability so [that] we do not have any more of these problems, but to finish the race and be more or less competitive is the most important news of the day."