McLaren improved after Button’s ‘scary’ race - Turvey

McLaren test and development driver Oliver Turvey says the team has rectified the issues faced by Jenson Button in Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix.

Button said after the race the MP4-30 had been “scary” to drive, believing there was something wrong with his car as team-mate Fernando Alonso was not experiencing the same issues. Turvey admits the comments didn’t fill him with confidence heading in to the test, but says the morning’s running saw the car in a much better state.

“Yeah, for me it was okay this morning,” Turvey said. “The rear of the car is sometimes a little bit nervous, but it's not too bad. He struggled a lot in the race, but we’ve only done short runs at the moment, so this afternoon we’ll do some longer runs, get a feel for that.

“When I saw his comments I thought ‘Maybe this is not the best track to be testing!’ But for me it’s a great chance to get in the car, to get a feeling for the car and to give feedback to the team. Obviously we have a lot of development to do on the engine and chassis side, so we are just trying to close the gap and help both Jenson and Fernando in the upcoming races.”

And Turvey says he was working specifically on new parts for the Canadian Grand Prix, during the morning session.

“We started with aero runs in the first couple of hours and had a few sensor issues which unfortunately made that programme a little shorter, but we still got some useful data from that. After that we’re working on more aero running, looking at the rear wing, running through some different rear wing options.

“We’re looking at the upcoming races so we ran a Canada-spec rear wing, just data gathering for the team, trying to drive consistent laps, not using the DRS on every lap. There were three data gathering runs, it would have been good to get a few more laps, but from my side I'm enjoying driving the car.

“It’s good to get some time in the car, my first time with the new engine, and with all the development work we’re doing in the simulator it’s important for me to correlate to the simulator. So every lap is useful for me and the team, to give feedback on the car and help them for the upcoming races.”