Norris suggests that McLaren needs to take two significant steps in order to compete with Ferrari and Red Bull.

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McLaren is required to make "two significant advancements" in order to narrow the gap with Formula 1 competitors Ferrari and Red Bull, as stated by driver Lando Norris. Following Bahrain's season opener, McLaren found themselves as the fourth-fastest team, considerably behind Red Bull and Ferrari in terms of race pace but closely trailing Mercedes.

While it is premature to make a definitive assessment of McLaren's performance compared to Mercedes, especially given the challenges of the Bahrain circuit for McLaren and the overheating problems faced by Mercedes, Norris is of the opinion that his team needs to take two substantial steps forward to catch up with Ferrari and the leading Red Bull team.

"There's a big step between us and Ferrari on a circuit like this and then another step from Ferrari to Red Bull," Norris said after finishing sixth in Bahrain.

"We've got two big steps to make up but starting with one would be good."

He responded when questioned about whether he feels that achieving those steps is possible this year. "To Ferrari? Yes. Again, at certain tracks, we're going to do it and, at certain tracks, we're not."

For now, Norris anticipates Ferrari will challenge Red Bull occasionally despite Max Verstappen's strong performance in Bahrain. He highlighted that Charles Leclerc's Q2 lap would have secured pole position.

When questioned if Red Bull was in a league of its own, he responded: "I mean, they weren't. Carlos [Sainz] was not far behind.

"I know the Red Bull is very good on race pace and, on this track, you need to be good on tyres because it's so abrasive.

"They clearly are still ahead, that's for sure. I think, when you look at qualifying, they weren't obviously ahead.

"I think Charles had the quickest lap, so maybe between them they can battle a little bit."

Team principal Andrea Stella felt Ferrari and Mercedes were "within reach", but preferred to wait until this weekend's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix at the vastly different Jeddah Corniche circuit to draw more definitive conclusions about the 2024 pecking order.

"The gap to Max, it's not necessarily the main parameter we look at - I'm looking more at the gap to Mercedes and Ferrari, which seem to be within reach," he said.

"Let's see where we will be in Jeddah. That should be a more favourable circuit layout for our car and between Bahrain and Jeddah we will have a proper assessment in terms of our competitiveness.

"We have the Mercedes, then the Ferrari and [Sergio] Perez, then Max. There's some steps before we think about the victory, but those steps are not too big, which is an encouraging aspect that we take away from this weekend."

The team's success will largely depend on enhancing its low-speed performance, despite having already made some improvements. "at every speed".

"We did an overlay of qualifying in 2023 and in 2024 and we go 1.8 seconds faster," Stella said. "We improved at every speed.

"Even in low speed, we are faster because we added downforce overall, but most of the downforce was added in the medium range.

"The low speed still deserves some specific work and this is what in particular our aerodynamic group is working on."