\n<\/p>\n
Lando Norris played down McLaren’s advantage at the Bahrain Grand Prix after team-mate Oscar Piastri led him to a one-two in Friday practice.<\/b><\/p>\n
Piastri was 0.154 seconds quicker than Norris while Mercedes’ George Russell was 0.527secs behind the Australian in third place, ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.<\/p>\n
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, winner in Japan last weekend, was down in seventh, 0.825secs off the pace.<\/p>\n
Lewis Hamilton was one place further back in his Ferrari, 0.246secs behind the Dutchman.<\/p>\n
But Norris said he believed McLaren’s apparent advantage was purely down to McLaren’s rivals running their engines in a lower power mode.<\/p>\n
“Everyone just looks at the timesheets,” Norris said. “They have no idea on the information on who turns up (the engine).<\/p>\n
“It’s (worth) like 0.35secs around here. That immediately puts us back in the same position as the Mercedes, so at the minute I wouldn’t say we’re any quicker.”<\/p>\n
But Russell said he believed McLaren were “a big step ahead”.<\/p>\n
“They are a long way ahead in the middle sector, where the tyres are overheating,” Russell said.<\/p>\n
“A bit of work to do but I think we’re fighting for next best. I think it’s going to be close between us, Ferrari and Max. But unlike the first three races, I feel this race won’t be dominated by qualifying, it will be dominated by race pace and tyre degradation.”<\/p>\n
Ferrari have a revised floor which they hope will move them closer to the pace after a disappointing start to the season.<\/p>\n
Leclerc said it did what was expected, and Hamilton said it was “definitely working”.<\/p>\n
The seven-time champion added: “It’s good to see we’re taking steps forward and we are trying to extract more from it. I hope we can make the right steps tonight into tomorrow.”<\/p>\n
Verstappen said: “The gap was quite massive. I’m not entirely happy, just struggling a lot with grip. The balance wasn’t too bad.<\/p>\n
“Quite a bit of work to do also in the long run, just too slow every lap basically, not a lot of fun out there on the long run. A bit of drift practice there at the end as well.”<\/p>\n
McLaren’s advantage on the race-simulation runs appeared as large as on a single lap.<\/p>\n
Corrected for fuel load and engine mode, Norris was just over 0.2secs a lap on average ahead of Russell, with Hamilton a similar margin further back and just ahead of Verstappen.<\/p>\n
Piastri and Leclerc did their long runs on a different tyre compound so their times cannot be compared.<\/p>\n
Mercedes’ Andrea Kimi Antonelli was fifth fastest, from Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton.<\/p>\n
Briton Oliver Bearman was ninth fastest in the Haas ahead of Williams’ Carlos Sainz.<\/p>\n
The sessions were relatively incident-free on a track with which the teams were familiar after three days of pre-season testing a month and a half ago.<\/p>\n
McLaren also headed the first practice session, with Norris ahead of Alpine’s Pierre Gasly as six teams ran young drivers in their cars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n