After two rather difficult days where their Honda power units failed to go the distance, the McLaren-Honda Formula One team enjoyed a more fruitful and productive day of running on day three of this week's four day scheduled testing session.
With Fernando Alonso at the wheel, the Woking based squad was able to work through a number of set-up configurations, and completed various aero correlation tests using rakes and flow-vis paint.
Even though it was a rather cold start to the day here in Spain, the Woking based squad was able to work through a number of set-up configurations, and completed various aero correlation tests using rakes and flow-vis paint. Thankfully track temperatures increased over the course of the day, enabling the team to carry out its scheduled run plan, although the wind did pick up across the circuit during the afternoon.
The team made the most of the dry weather, clocking up 72 laps with no major issues, and successfully completed its scheduled test programme for the day.
“The most important thing we can take from today is that we were able to do many more laps than both Stoffel and I could complete on our first days in the car,” Fernando Alonso said. “I'm happy that we were able to push through our plan for the day, gather a lot of new information, and learn a lot about the car, which is very positive after the issues we faced earlier in the week.”
“The car feels good, and we've already made a lot of tweaks to the handling and set-up of the car from the first day. So far, the car is responding well to our changes, and overall we are seeing small improvements here and there, day-by-day, in different areas. The team worked really hard today to make sure we completed a lot of work on our programme, and we covered a lot of ground, testing different elements and working on various set-up configurations. It's definitely been a valuable day for us.”
