Vandoorne seeking 'another step forward'

McLaren's new driver Stoffel Vandoorne believes the troubled team is making progress, although he's not yet sure how they will fare in Australia.

"I’m still finding time in the car on every lap, feeling more comfortable," he said on Friday.

"I’m happy that the set-up changes are going in the right direction," he added after free practice in Melbourne. "The feeling with the car was okay today.

"It’s very difficult to predict where we’ll qualify tomorrow: I’m not really looking at the lap times at the moment. It’s more about the feeling, for me."

While he starts 2017 as a rookie driver, this weekend won't be the first Grand Prix for the Belgian driver.

The 24-year-old deputised for an injured Fernando Alonso in last year's Bahrain race. He even claimed a championship point on his maiden appearance. However, a repeat achievement seems impossible given McLaren's struggles in pre-season testing.

Alonso: 'I really don't care where we are!'

Vandoorne spent much of the first practice conducting aerodynamic work for the team. Large aero rakes were fitted to the MCL32 in the morning and he ran only 14 laps. Fortunately he completed over double that amount when the focus switched to tyre simulations after lunch.

"Obviously I missed a little bit of running in FP1," he said. "But I think we had a very good FP2, catching up on mileage.

"Getting laps was my main focus today. I wanted to get some times on the board, do some longer runs, and get a better understanding about the package we have.

"I made a big improvement from FP1 to FP2, so hopefully tomorrow will be another step forward."

GALLERY: all the pics from Friday's action

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.