McLaren's chief engineer Tim Goss believes the British squad is now ready to match the pace of Red Bull Racing in qualifying trim.
Red Bull drivers Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel have scored all of this year's pole positions, as the squad has shown incredible pace in the grid-deciding sessions. In Turkey, however, Lewis Hamilton was very close to pole-sitter Webber, as McLaren took a stop forward in performance following the Monaco Grand Prix.
Goss says McLaren's progress since Malaysia has been very promising, and even reckons Hamilton was the quickest man during parts of the Istanbul race.
"Our car, from the Malaysian Grand Prix onward, we've found some really good pace," said Goss. "As chief engineer, I'm leading the program and we've been working seriously hard in the factory to close the gap. We were taken aback at the first race at how quick the Red Bulls were, and we're working hard to close that gap.
"Up until now, we've been a bit disappointed in our qualifying performance. In Turkey we showed we can almost match Red Bull in qualifying. We were only just over a tenth off Webber, we split the two Red Bulls, and our race pace is exceptional. You just have to see that we were, during the early part of the race, the quicker car, but Lewis was being held up."