Stoffel Vandoorne had another disrupted day of running at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya as more mechanical gremlins struck his MCL32, but the McLaren Honda Formula 1 Team driver still managed to complete 80 laps on Tuesday.
The Belgian saw his morning session affected by the car issues that required his mechanics to once again change the engine, heightening the teams’ fears about the reliability of the car still further.
Despite the issues, Vandoorne was happy to be able to return to the track in the afternoon session and work through a lot of their planned programme, although the team are still behind schedule due to the numerous issues that have befell them so far in Spain.
“Today was certainly a day of mixed fortunes for us,” admitted Vandoorne. “Having another issue with the power unit has been of course frustrating for everybody, but the team dealt with it extremely well and I’m pleased we managed to get back out on track this afternoon.
“Losing track time is obviously not ideal, but when we were on track we actually managed to get a large chunk of our test programme done, and we learned a lot more about the car today. We tried a lot of different things with the aero, balance and set-up, and also went through a lot of procedures and car behaviours that I will need to prepare in time for Australia.
“It hasn’t been the ideal way to start the second test, but considering the issue we’ve had, we’ve still managed to complete a good number of laps, and we go into tomorrow hoping for more track time and more solid data that we can take forward to Melbourne.”
