Fernando Alonso admitted McLaren was lucky to come away from Bahrain with a double points finish, saying the team was "saved by the bell" in a race of multiple retirements to cars at the front of the pack.
Alonso and McLaren had been puzzled by its lack of qualifying pace on Saturday, where it failed to progress with either car beyond Q2. In the race Alonso was able to finish seventh, just ahead of teammate Stoffel Vandoorne, although he was behind a Toro Rosso, Haas and Renault, the teams who appear to be McLaren's main rivals in the midfield fight.
With both Red Bull drivers and Kimi Raikkonen failing to make the chequered flag Alonso refused to get carried away with the finishing position.
"We fixed [qualifying] on the opening lap, didn't we?" Alonso joked after the race. "When I looked in the mirrors and I saw [Lewis] Hamilton behind I thought 'I don't know what position I'm in but it can't be too bad if Hamilton is behind'.
"We were still lacking a bit of pace in the race to be with [Nico] Hulkenberg and to attack the Haas. A pretty difficult weekend saved by the bell at the last moment with two cars in the points and with good points for the team, but we know we have to improve because today was a bit of a coincidence."
Despite McLaren still lacking pace on Saturdays and Sundays, Alonso pointed out that the team is doing a good job of consolidating good race results -- he leaves Bahrain fourth in the drivers' championship, while the team is third in the teams' standings.
"The team did a good job with the strategy, the pit stops and reliability, we got the points, good points. Looking at how the weekend started and the pace we had it's clear we have to improve, to make a step forward. We need to raise our game, because what we have is not enough, but on Sundays we're delivering the results.
"Fifth in Australia, seventh here, that's 16 points, so it's good. What counts most is not your grid position, it's your race pace, your start, the whole first lap, your tyre management, your fuel efficiency, there are a lot of factors and we're handling better than just qualifying speed. We were too slow in qualifying and need to improve that because when we start behind we compromise our race result."