Positive test for McLaren

From the outside looking in the Austrian mid-season test looked a positive one for McLaren Honda.

Stoffel Vandoorne, the 23-year-old Belgian driver, who is currently dominating the GP2 series with four consecutive feature race wins got in the McLaren on Tuesday and completed 77 ?trouble-free? laps.

Two-time Formula One World Champion Fernando Alonso then took over the car on Wednesday and completed an additional 104 laps.

For McLaren Honda to complete 487 miles of testing is a great achievement from the base that they have been working from.

As well as completing some good mileage on the Honda power-unit, McLaren also tested their new shorter nose design which Alonso briefly débuted in Austria before his crash with Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen as well as testing some new rear and front wings.

?Today was a positive day. The most important thing was to put some laps on the car after the problems we?ve had in the last couple of races, We managed to complete more than 100 laps, and, together with Stoffel?s laps yesterday, I think we finished the test with some good information. Alonso told the media on Wednesday.

?Now, we need to go back to the factory and analyse everything, but we definitely have a lot of data to go forward with. I?m pretty happy with how the test has gone.?

McLaren?s team manager Dave Redding added: ?Both days of the test have been productive ? and most importantly, reliable ? and we are now armed with lots of valuable data and useful feedback from both drivers, that we can take away and analyse in preparation for the next two races before the summer break.?