Stoffel Vandoorne has expressed his pleasure in the McLaren F1 Team‘s progress on Thursday after a rough start to the second test.
Vandoorne managed a very promising 151 laps over the course of the day, including a race simulation in the afternoon session without the electrical problems that plagued his Tuesday running.
“Today was a very positive day for us and we completed a lot of laps,” said the young Belgian.
“This morning was good – we went through a lot of set-up work, understanding about the tyre compounds, and did a lot of learning that we’d missed at the start of this week and also last week because of the bad weather conditions.
“This afternoon we completed a full race distance, which went smoothly and was good to get under our belt, to get a feel for the car in race conditions, and go through the different tyre variations.”
Vandoorne set the sixth fastest time of the day, a 1:18.855 on hyper-softs, 1.7 seconds adrift of Sebastian Vettel’s record breaking time in the Scuderia Ferrari SF71H. However, despite the time difference, Vandoorne has been pleased with the feeling he has got from the MCL33 – although there are a few known issues.
“The feeling in the car from the beginning has been very positive, and today’s running has confirmed that feeling,” he added.
“Obviously, there are a few areas we know we need to work on, and our car in Melbourne will be quite different as there are a lot of updates coming. It’s important now that everything we’ve learned here we carry forward.
“Today was very productive and it gives us the confidence to go to Melbourne with a strong package. It was also my last day in the car and now I’m looking forward to going racing. I feel 100 per cent ready.”
