McLaren faces challenges on second day of testing in Bahrain

Lando Norris took on the second day of testing at Bahrain International Circuit for the McLaren F1 team, as teammate Daniel Ricciardo continues to recover from his illness, which was confirmed to be COVID-19. Putting in a best time of 1:34.609, Norris landed about 1.4 seconds off leader Kevin Magnussen for 8th on the timesheet.

Norris’ McLaren was cause for a red flag in the morning, as the car stopped on its way out of the pit lane. The issue was not major, as Norris was able to get back to running soon after. The team ultimately completed 60 laps by the day’s end. Norris lamented the windy conditions and minor technical issues, but said that the team was able to take advantage of the day’s running nonetheless.

“It’s been as good a day as it could be. There’s still a few problems that we’re working to resolve so, again, we made the most of what we could today. I don’t have a feeling for the longer runs yet, but on the short runs we’ve made some improvements again and did further aero tests. It’s been difficult with the wind changing so much and the sand getting blown onto the track. Despite the challenges we’ve made the most of what we could do today,” Norris said. 

Executive Technical Director James Key said the team were able to rebound from the technical problems, as their test programme went on smoothly from there. The team hopes to up their mileage tomorrow before the final stretch until the season’s opening weekend. 

“We had a bit of a slow start this morning, recovering from a couple of issues on our car. However, this stabilised and when we got going, we learned a lot from our time on track. The setup work we’ve done has been productive and interesting, given how different this circuit is to Barcelona. We ran through a programme of test items, which went well and as predicted, and undertook further aerodynamic measurements,” Key said.

“Lando’s feedback was precise and helpful, and that allowed us to make good progress today as we evolved our understanding of the car and introduced new developments. We’re looking forward to catching-up on some mileage tomorrow on the final day of pre-season testing, and then turning our focus to the first race of the 2022 season.”