McLaren-Mercedes
Kevin Magnussen believes that McLaren should be more competitive in Bahrain this weekend than they were in Malaysia, although concedes that they are unlikely to replicate the form they showed in Australia.
Magnussen and team-mate Jenson Button notched up a double podium finish for McLaren in Australia, while in Malaysia Button finished in sixth, with Magnussen back in ninth after making contact with Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.
But Magnussen reckons McLaren's performance will be somewhere between what they have demonstrated in the two races so far.
"Although the Sakhir track has several high-speed corners, it’s not as fast as Sepang so I’m hopeful that we’ll be slightly more competitive this weekend than we were there," he said.
"I still think the track temperatures and our lack of downforce will make it hard to get the car into the sweet spot we found for it in Melbourne, but I’m hopeful we’ll be able to achieve a decent balance for the race."
Button will start his 250th race this weekend and joked that reaching such a feat was 'crazy'.
"Sunday’s race will be my 250th grand prix start, that’s crazy," he said.
"Things never stand still in Formula 1, and we go to Bahrain facing another new challenge: the circuit’s first night race. It’ll be interesting to see what sort of race we have under the floodlights – racing at night always adds to the atmosphere and sense of occasion, and I think this weekend will be no different.
"We’ve scored some useful points in the first two races, which was always our objective for the opening quartet of fly-aways and I hope we can get some more points in the bag this weekend."
