Although McLaren showed marked improvement during the Chinese Grand Prix last week, Lewis Hamilton believes it will take another couple of races before they are fully up to scratch.
After failing to pick up points in Australia following Hamilton's exclusion from the race results, the team bounced back in Malaysia with the World Champion finishing seventh. In China they added another seven points to their total with Heikki Kovalainen and Hamilton ending fifth and sixth respectively.
Hamilton warns that although they are heading in the right direction it could take a fair few races before they are back to their best.
"We seem to have a solid direction within the team - all our upgrades invariably bring a laptime improvement and our direction on set-up and strategy shows what a strong group we still are," Hamilton said.
"I still think we are several races away from being truly competitive but a straightforward race at Bahrain would give us a very good opportunity to accurately assess where we sit among our rivals."
Team principal Martin Whitmarsh confirmed they will make updates to the MP4-24 ahead of this weekend's race and are once again targeting a points finish.
"The points we scored in China were encouraging because they showed that, even without a fully competitive car, we have lost none of our ability to attack over a race weekend and to maximize every opportunity that comes our way," he said.
"Until our package reaches full competitiveness, that must remain our aim for the Bahrain weekend. Once again, we will introduce a series of upgrades to MP4-24 and remain optimistic that they will once again deliver a further performance improvement."
Source : Planet F1
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