Lando Norris believes world champions McLaren currently trail Ferrari and Red Bull on pace with four days of pre-season testing to go.
McLaren, who clinched a drivers' and constructors' championship double last year, and also won the latter crown in 2024, appear to have made a solid start to life with their new MCL40 car at the start of F1's new era of chassis and engine regulations.
Norris holds the second-fastest time of this week's first Bahrain testing, heading into Friday's final day, behind Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, while his 149 laps completed on Thursday were the most of any driver.
However, while confident the reigning two-time champions will continue to get better, he believes they have early ground to make up on two of their biggest rivals.
Speaking to Your Site after Thursday's running, his final day in the car this week, Norris said: "We did a good amount of laps, we're certainly not quick enough.
"Plenty of work for us to look into and try to improve on.
"I think today was our first bit of understanding on where we stand in terms of pace, against at least Ferrari, who did a full long run.
"We're not really close to them at the minute. We're certainly not bad, but we're not quick enough.
"It's still just testing and we've got plenty of things we know we can already improve on and work on, so nothing to be worried by, but a productive day for the teams and for myself, and that's the most important thing."
When speaking with the written media, Norris also highlighted the strength of Red Bull - who have produced their own engine for the first time, in conjunction with Ford - as a standout performer from testing so far.
"They have a very good power unit by the looks of things," said Norris of the team described by Mercedes' Toto Wolff on Wednesday as 2026's current "benchmark".
"They deploy and have a lot of efficiency [with their engine energy management].
"We need to understand how they have that. There's always things I can maybe do a little bit, there's some things on the McLaren side we can do a little bit, but also from McLaren, HPP [Mercedes High Performance Powertrains] side, and Mercedes, I think that they know there's certainly areas we need to improve.
"But the Red Bulls seem to have done a very good job, and the Ford powertrain seems to be very strong. Fair play to them. But, at the minute, they're a good step ahead of us."
After Friday's sessions, when Oscar Piastri will be in the MCL40, F1's expanded winter testing programme concludes with a final three days of running in Bahrain from Wednesday, live on Your Site F1.
Norris added: "I know we are going to improve and we're going to make steps forward, but I'm sure they are as well.
"So, yeah, we have to wait and see. There's no point in trying to guess these things.
"We'll do all the work we can and maximise our efforts at the minute. But we've got a pretty big step to make to be confident of beating them, that's for sure."
Formula 1's 24-round season starts with the Australian Grand Prix on March 6-8 when Norris will begin the defence of his maiden world title.
Test One: Friday 13th February
Test Two: Wednesday 18th, Thursday 19th, Friday 20th February
Watch every race of the 2026 F1 season live on Your Site, starting with the Australian Grand Prix from March 6-8.
