Lando Norris has continued McLaren F1 Team‘s strong start to pre-season testing as he completed 104 laps in the MCL34.
The 19-year-old had his first full day of running behind the wheel of McLaren’s 2019 car where he posted the 2nd fastest time of the day, a 1:18.553 which was only three tenths behind Ferrari‘s Charles Leclerc.
The team spent the morning session working on aero correlation, data capture and consolidating information gathered yesterday by Norris’ team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr.
The afternoon session allowed the Brit to conduct a series of long-runs and get his first chance to carry out pit-stop practice with the team.
“Being my first time in the car, I’m pretty happy with how today has gone.” said Norris. “The team has done an awesome job getting everything together, and over the last two days we’ve done a lot of mileage, which is the best thing we can hope for.
“I’ve not done much long running in the past or pit-stops, so getting up to speed and talking to my engineers are the most important things for me to get on top of over the next two weeks. Laps, mileage and reliability are the main objectives, as well as getting to know the car. “
Despite ending the day second fastest, Norris is adamant that the team aren’t looking at the timing screens “The times aren’t important to us, it’s about getting through the plans we have to do, especially in this part of the season when there are a lot of new things on the car to test.
“There are still a lot of things we need to continue to work on and improve over the next few days. It’s definitely a work in progress.”
