Lando Norris was pleased to claim the first points of his Formula 1 career in the Bahrain Grand Prix but says some of his overtaking moves were too hesitant.

The McLaren rookie started ninth but lost five places on the opening lap. Although he eventually recovered to finish sixth, Norris said he could have been more aggressive in his fight through the field.

“The pace, especially in the first stint, was very good,” he said. “I think I could be a bit more attacking.

“I was a bit soft sometimes into turn one I think I could have gone for an overtake but I didn’t want to risk a lock-up or something silly because I knew I had pace and it’s a long race.

“It was fun, much more fun than Australia. I managed to get past drivers this time, do overtaking and racing rather than just being lucky kind of thing. It was much more enjoyable”

Norris said McLaren has shown its potential with the team’s best result since last year’s Australian Grand Prix. “I’m [happy] not just for myself but for the team. It’s my second race, sixth is very good.

“The only let-down today was obviously Carlos [Sainz Jnr] getting the puncture, I don’t know what happened. Carlos has been strong all weekend so we definitely could have got two cars in the points.

“I had a bit of contact on the first lap and I got put down the order quite a bit so I thought it was going to be much harder than it was. It was still very hard to go from wherever we were, 14th, back up to sixth. It showed we had good potential. I had to push a little bit harder in some points of the race than I wanted to and that’s why Kimi was able to keep up as much as he was. But I was very happy with sixth.”

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2019 F1 season