- McLaren
Mercedes will be caught - McLaren
McLaren boss Ron Dennis is confident the gap to Mercedes will be closed, despite his rival's strong performance at the opening grand prix in Australia.
Mercedes' Nico Rosberg won by over 26 seconds from the McLaren of Kevin Magnussen after Daniel Ricciardo was disqualified. McLaren leads the constructors' championship thanks to both drivers finishing on the podium, but the gap in outright performance to the Mercedes cars is clear.
"The racing was pretty close between everybody other than Mercedes, but it's not the first time one team has had dominant form at the beginning of the season," Dennis said. "Clearly it's going to be challenging for all the other teams to catch that sort of performance lead, but it will happen."
He added: "Their pace is only apparent in qualifying and qualifying in Australia is always confusing. It's clear that they have a good 1.5 seconds on anyone else. That is challenging to close, but not impossible."
Dennis said McLaren would find another 0.5s a lap at this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix and he will not be happy until it is winning races again.
"We intend to be, as fast as possible, a winning grand prix team. If you're not winning, you are not where you want to be. The question is, is how do we catch up and how fast do we do it and what steps have to be taken. I'm very pleased with the changes that have been made over the last couple of months and the outcome is very positive.
"We will see where we are in a month or two, because obviously these inter-continental races limit how fast we can develop the car. Nevertheless we will give it our best shot and we are confident we will be 0.5s quicker at the next grand prix for a variety of reasons, but of course that is not going to be enough to achieve our goal, but it will keep the pressure on those teams that are chasing us."
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