Lando Norris believes a resurgent McLaren are finally “on the way up” in Formula 1 again after an impressive Bahrain GP.

“It’s definitely on the way up,” Norris, 19, told Sky F1. “The steps we’ve taken from last year, to be two out of two times in Q3, to have opportunities to get into the points and a P6 – we do have a better trend than we did last year.

“We just had better pace than we thought we were going to have. We had a strong qualy but our pace in the first stint was very good, and after that it was still good. We had good pace and I enjoyed it a lot.”

Norris added to reporters: “We knew we could get points and we’ve managed to beat a Red Bull now on pure pace.

“Even compared to Vettel when he passed me, he didn’t pull away that much. I hope we can be in these positions later on in the season.”

“I had better pace than the Red Bull in front and it felt like I was faster than the Mercedes,” said Sainz.

“I’m still really hungry about having such a strong car.”