Jenson Button says McLaren was not expecting to be so close to the likes of Williams and Force India after qualifying 12th for the Australian Grand Prix.
Button will line up behind Fernando Alonso on the seventh row of the grid, after McLaren showed signs of progress in the early sessions of qualifying and FP3. With Honda confident it has fixed 2015's power deployment issues, which cost the team upwards of 160BHP in a straight line last year, Button has a positive outlook for the race on Sunday.
"I think we've probably got a better race car than qualifying car so it's a change around from last year," the 2009 world champion said. "We now have pretty much the same deployment as others, almost as good. So it's going to benefit us in the race, especially at the longer races maybe not so much here but definitely Bahrain."
Button finished Q2 just four tenths down on Valtteri Bottas, who was one of the few surprise early eliminations from the session, and five behind Force India's Nico Hulkenberg.
Asked if points are possible, Button replied: "It's possible because it's the first race and so much can go wrong, not everyone is going to run smoothly. There's a Williams in front which I am sure we will not be racing but I think we are positively surprised how close we are to sort of the Williams and the Force India."
The new qualifying format came in for heavy criticism on Saturday afternoon but Button says the tweaked rules had no bearing on McLaren's qualifying performance.
"No, we didn't have any tyres left. I think in the end I think it all works out, you know, with the quicker cars at the front because they have saved more tyres through Q1 so nothing has really changed. P12 and P13 is slightly better than what I expected coming here so I don't think it's too bad a starting point, much better than we had last year."