Despite two Grand Prix wins, including a 1-2, in three race weekends, Oscar Piastri has warned McLaren they cannot be “careless” or “lay back” as rivals are nipping on their heels.

McLaren stood apart from the other nine Formula 1 teams in Friday’s practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix, the Australian racer leading the way ahead of Lando Norris with the team-mates half a second up on George Russell in third place.

McLaren 1-2 in Bahrain? Not if they take it for granted

It was an impressive showing, one that had rivals declaring the 1-2 has already been decided in Bahrain; they only have third place to play for.

“McLaren, they are just on another planet,” claimed Charles Leclerc, while Max Verstappen said McLaren’s gap is “massive”, and George Russell called the Woking team a “step ahead”.

The Woking team downplayed this as Norris insisted their rivals had not “turned up” their engines.

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“Everyone just looks at the timesheets; they have no idea about the information on who turns up, who doesn’t,” he said.

“[Engine modes are worth] like 0.35 seconds, 0.4 seconds around here. That puts us immediately back in the same position as the Mercedes, so at the minutes I won’t say we’re any quicker.”

But with the Woking team heading into qualifying not only as the team to beat but expected to lock out the front row, Piastri has urged McLaren not to take it for granted.

“I don’t think it changes much,” he said in Bahrain. “I think we have the quickest car at the moment. But our advantage is not enough to be careless and kind of lay back and not execute as best as you can.

“We saw Melbourne was a very strong weekend for us, but we also got the most out of the car and both of us felt we drove very well.

“I think China in the Sprint, Sprint qualy, Lando went on pole and I think China and Japan have both shown that it doesn’t take much to go wrong for us to not be at the front.

“We have an advantage in the race for sure, but in qualifying you have to still be on it because the gap is not much still.

“As we saw in Japan, Max put in a good performance and it was enough to be better than us.

“So I think that’s just another demonstration that it’s going to be tight the whole year and we’ve got to be on our best form.”

Despite having the fastest car on the grid in the MCL39, McLaren dropped points – and a 1-2 – in Australia when Piastri spun off onto the grass in the rain. In China, it was a mistake from Norris that cost them in the Sprint, while in Japan they lost pole position to Max Verstappen.

Although Norris is only one point ahead of Max Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship, with Piastri P3 by 13 points behind his team-mate, McLaren are already 36 ahead of Mercedes in the teams’ battle.

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