The second and final day of the first in season F1 test at the Bahrain International Circuit was a much more productive day of running for the McLaren Honda team where regular driver Stoffel Vandoorne was back behind the wheel.
As soon as the green light signalled the pit lane was open at 09:00, the team was able to start its programme and run comprehensively throughout the day.
Stoffel managed to complete a total of 56 laps before a natural pause in proceedings around lunchtime, when the team took the opportunity to make lengthy scheduled set-up changes to the car, before returning to the track at around 4 pm.
The team spent much of the day testing a combination of set-up and handling configurations of the chassis, aero data correlation, and power unit driveability and reliability work, concluding the test with a valuable and trouble-free day of running at 6 pm after Stoffel had completed a total of 81 laps for the fourth best time overall.
โToday has probably been our best day this season so far. It's the first time that we've had a day without any big problems, where we could actually get on with our programme. I think we completed everything we wanted to do today, and we went through a lot of set-up stuff that we didn't manage to do in Barcelona,โ the young Belgian said.
โIt's been a very productive day and I'm very happy that we've been able to do so many laps. Especially after a difficult day yesterday and a difficult weekend, it wasn't looking great, but I'm very pleased. For the team, it's not been an easy week, after a double-header and then coming to the test with so many issues. They've been working flat-out, and they've done a very good job to get the car back out on track every time.โ
โToday was really good, but we need every day to be this good, and there are no guarantees that it will be like this next time. We need to learn very carefully from what we've done today, and hopefully carry that forward to the next event and see some improvements. It's been very good for both me and the team to be able to try a number of different directions with the set-up. There were some new bits on the car โ quite fundamental things โ that we wanted to try out, and learn about, so it's been really useful to see where the performance comes from, and very productive.โ
โToday and all weekend I've actually felt very comfortable in the car. The chassis is behaving well, and we'll bring some more new bits to the car over the next few races. The key is to be able to have a weekend where everything runs smoothly, which we haven't been able to do yet. If we can do that, hopefully we can show we are making progress. We just need to keep working hard and wait for the moment when everything falls together.โ