Will McLaren finish ‘best of the rest’ once again?

It has been 3 days since pre-season testing at Bahrain and one of the biggest talking points right now is how McLaren fares against the rest of the grid. And, the answer is, we don’t know. But let’s look at how they performed during the 3 days in the desert to give us an idea of where they might finish in 2021.

McLaren completed the third least amount of laps out of every team only being able to rack up 327 laps. 173 of those laps were completed by the new man at the team, Daniel Ricciardo, who had a really good weekend. The Australian managed to go fastest in the first session of the weekend, before handing the car to his teammate Lando Norris who put in the second fastest time of the day overall.

It was not smooth sailing for Norris though, as just like Ricciardo, he was learning the all new MCL35M, which has a new power unit in it. The McLaren team opted to replace their Renault engine that they ran since the 2018 season, for the dominant Mercedes engine.

Another part of the car that the British team was testing was their brand new diffuser.

The team found a loophole in the 2021 dimensional technical regulations. Formula 1 tried to decrease downforce on the rear of the car by shortening the stakes on the rear floor. But McLaren’s clever trick of making the end fences around the underside of the gearbox casing larger, which then meant that the stakes on the floor of the car were larger. Mclaren’s technical director, James Key said "It’s a normal design idea," and that “...we are maybe a bit surprised that we are maybe the only team with that”

On Day 2, Ricciardo went fastest yet again in the morning session, but just like the previous day, he got pushed down the pecking order once he gave the car to Lando.

The last day of testing was the most successful day for the orange outfit as they completed 132 laps, more than on any other day.

After testing the Australian said that he was still struggling a little with the cars braking and that he is “not driving to the limit yet. But I think the reality is, it does take a little time to execute it 100%. I think I’m certainly getting close, but am I truly at one with the car yet? Not yet”. With Ricciardo still not being able to eke out the most of the car's potential could we see McLaren be ‘best of the rest’ for the second season running? Could they even challenge for podiums? Or was testing just a fluke for the team from Woking?