After finishing in the points at Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix, Jenson Button returned to the cockpit of the McLaren-Honda MP4-31 as the team turned its attention to the first in-season test of 2016.
Yesterday’s test programme consisted of consolidation and preparation – with five races under our belt, the team reviewed and tested the upgrades brought to the car from the start of the season, putting in the necessary groundwork and evaluation of a number of different components as we continue our development through the European leg of the season.
Aero correlation was the name of the game this morning, with aero rakes making an appearance on the car early on. The car’s solid reliability meant longer runs and race simulations dominated the afternoon’s running.
Dave Redding, Team Manager
“Today was a seamless day of testing – with both the team and car working well throughout the day, it’s satisfying that we were able to complete day one of the test according to plan.
“We’ll look to run a similar programme tomorrow with Stoffel, refining today’s work and gathering yet more data ahead of next week’s Monaco Grand Prix.â€
Satoshi Nakamura, Honda R&D Co Ltd Principal Engineer
“Today’s power unit run programme consisted mainly of race set-up for the Monaco Grand Prix next weekend. The street circuit of Monaco has many slow corners which require stability in the engine’s low-revving range, so we focused on its driveability and the various modes of the power unit to bring out its full potential. Our plan is to continue to run similarly tomorrow.
We finished the day with 86 solid laps of trouble free running, and we are looking forward to the second day of testing tomorrow.”
Today Stoffel Vandoorne gets behind the wheel of the McLaren-Honda MP4-31 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
