Lando Norris will find Max Verstappen's verdict on Red Bull title bid very interesting

Max Verstappen has admitted "definitely need to improve" if they are to rival this season, despite the fact the reigning champion is currently just one point behind in the drivers' standings.

Norris has enjoyed an excellent start to the new season, winning the Australian Grand Prix and finishing second in the Chinese and Japanese races. His McLaren team-mate emerged victorious in Shanghai, while triumphed in Suzuka.

However, Verstappen believes Red Bull remain off the pace set by McLaren and need to "improve our car quickly" to mount a sustained title challenge. "It's a good motivation for the team, but we are still looking into how we can improve our car quickly," Verstappen said when asked about his win in Japan ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix.

"It's nice to have that little motivation boost, but we are very aware of what our limitations are, and we know we still have to work on that. Hopefully every weekend we can make tiny progressions.

"If you look at everything, they [McLaren] are more all-round, and it just seems like it's a bit easier to set up [their car] as well. It's still a very long season, a lot of things that we want to work on with the car, and hopefully step by step we just make it more competitive."

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And when asked if he can win a fifth consecutive world title despite having only the second or third best car, Verstappen replied: "No, we definitely need to improve to be able to fight for a title.

"It's great that we are one point behind, but I think it's more that we just maximised our weekends quite well so far. To really fight for a title, we need to find more performance."

Norris, though, has claimed McLaren will struggle to deal with a challenge from Red Bull in Bahrain. "Unlikely, just from my feelings at the minute," he insisted ahead of the race.

"We've had a great start to the season and I know a lot of things are amazing, but it's a much slower speed circuit than the last few weekends. We still know that's one of our weaker areas. I'm not expecting bad things, I'm just expecting a trickier weekend than the last few.

"Red Bull are close; they're not that far off, maybe one-tenth or maybe two-tenths, but that's it and it's still not a lot of time. I think maybe this weekend potentially we struggle a bit more in Qualifying, and what was proved in pre-season testing was our race pace was strong.

"Maybe with the hotter temperatures our race pace can still be very strong, but I don't expect us to be as comfortable in Qualifying. But hopefully I'm wrong and it's an easy weekend for us.

"Oscar is doing a very good job so I'm not surprised he's won a race, and I don't think we've ever put Red Bull or Max out of the race. I'm not surprised he's also won a race. Did we have a better car last weekend? Yes.

"Should we have beaten them? Yes, but they and Max did a better job and they deserved it over us. We took it on the chin, it was not a good feeling, we were not happy after last weekend, but that's life sometimes and we try and go into this weekend and make amends."

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