A tumultuous Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia witnessed the McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team recover from a chaotic start to make their way back through the field and score points with both cars.

It wasn't the race anyone expected, nor was it the race the team wanted. P6 and P7 was likely the best that was on offer today, regardless of how the race was executed, which is a result of our position as the fourth-fastest car on the grid at this part of the season.

Rain started to fall a few minutes before the cars went to the grid, thunder booming around the circuit while the rain became progressively heavier as the start approached, eventually requiring Race Control to delay proceedings. The formation lap finally rolled out behind the Safety Car, at 15:40, 40 minutes behind schedule. But this was a short-lived foray, with the Red Flag being thrown after two formation laps, with several cars limping on track. A long halt ensued, with the race finally getting underway at 16:33.

When the tyres were unwrapped from their blankets, the McLaren Mastercard cars were the only ones with Mediums fitted. The rest of the field was a mix of Soft and Intermediate compounds. Oscar made the call to box at the end of the first lap, swapping to an Inter ahead of the standing start. Lando kept going, but it became clear that the track wasn't ready for slicks. He and the other cars that hadn't fitted Inters dropped back through the field, and in the opening laps, were lapping around 15s slower.

Valtteri Bottas became stuck in the gravel on Lap 9, bringing out a Safety Car (SC) just as the dry runners started to outpace those on Inters. This imminent crossover point was poised to add further intrigue to the race, potentially rewarding Inter runners for a well-timed switch to slicks, while also posing the question as to whether those running on dries could extend their stint and regain some race time. Ultimately, the SC neutralised these questions and the majority of the grid aligned around a similar strategy.

Both cars pitted, Oscar from P10, Lando from P15, and both took on a Hard tyre. The middle part of the race featured some great midfield battles with both cars climbing through the field. The cars were running net P6 and P9 when the next round of pit stops began. At that point, the team split the strategies. Oscar taking another Hard tyre, Lando going to the other end of the range with a Soft.

They fell to P8 and P9 but had a significant tyre delta over the Ferraris and were catching Charles Leclerc, Oscar whittling down a 7.5s deficit to under two seconds, when a Virtual Safety Car (VSC) was deployed, Alex Albon suffering a suspected gearbox failure. The Ferraris took advantage of the VSC to stop, both McLaren Mastercard cars stayed out - but when marshals struggled to move the stricken Williams, and the VSC was upgraded to a full SC, both cars came in and double-shuffled. Oscar fitting a Medium, Lando another Soft.

The timing was a little unlucky, particularly for Oscar - but there was one more element of chaos to follow. George Russell stopped on track behind the SC, the pack closed together, and Lando, warming his tyres on the main straight, had to take avoiding action, and run into the gravel, dropping to P11. The race resumed with four laps remaining, he fought his way up to P9, while Oscar finished where he started, in P6.

The team will take the few days ahead of Singapore to reset and review before turning its attention to the Sprint event at the Marina Bay Street Circuit.

Oscar Piastri: "P6. It was a very mixed and chaotic race today. We took a gamble at the start with the slick tyres, and then immediately boxed for Inters, but the change was the right call, and the Safety Car timing allowed us to minimise the effect of it. We improved a lot on the Hard tyres, especially in the second stint where we were catching Leclerc, which the final Safety Car cut short. However, we just didn't have the pace we needed today to make a lasting impact.

"We know the work we have to do and that we need to keep pushing and bringing further developments to the car to close that gap - we can see the progress our rivals are making, which was clear from Red Bull's performance this weekend. Our new parts are performing as expected, but everyone else is also improving, so we are not currently in the fight for wins. We'll review it all and then focus on Singapore."

Lando Norris: "Ultimately, today boiled down to a few key issues. The initial gamble to start on the Medium tyres didn't work out; the grip just wasn't there as we had anticipated, it was a collective decision, and in hindsight, it was the wrong one. However, we also simply weren't quick enough, and we have to be honest about that. The car is lacking pace, and we need to improve it significantly if we want to be competitive. I don't think we could fight for more than P6 and P7 today, regardless of how we executed the race.

"The incident behind the Safety Car was my mistake. The pack ahead checked up much more suddenly because of the situation with George, and I just got caught out. It was a very unusual and unlucky situation, but at the end of the day, it's my responsibility to manage that. I know I could have done better today, just as the team knows we have work to do in making the car quicker. We will learn from today and turn our focus to preparing for Singapore."

Andrea Stella: "It was a race packed with incidents, just as we'd expected. Setting aside any assessment of the decisions made at crucial moments - the tyres at the start, the timing of the pit stops - the reality is that this weekend our car package was fourth in terms of performance. Even if we'd got every decision spot on, I don't think we could have achieved any higher than Oscar's sixth place. Of course, we could have picked up a few more points with Lando had it not been for his excursion onto the run-off area at the second restart, but in terms of assessing our overall performance, it wouldn't have made a difference.

"We need to analyse the results of the last two races carefully and work out how to get our performance back to the level we saw around the summer break, when we secured two wins and three Pole positions. Certainly, some of our direct rivals have taken a significant step forward - such as Red Bull - and now it's up to us to respond so that we can get back into the fight for podium places and try to improve our position in both championships."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Sepang here.