McLaren has already set up shop in Bahrain where the team's new MCL60 took to the track on Tuesday for a shakedown run ahead of the start of pre-season testing on Thursday.
In a short video clip posted on social media, the Woking-based outfit's 2023 contender is seen exiting its garage with Lando Norris at the wheel.
McLaren launched its car last week but contrary to Williams, Mercedes and Aston Martin, team papaya did not conduct its shakedown at Silverstone, opting instead for a filming day at Sakhir.
Per Formula 1's regulations, filming days are capped to a maximum distance of 100 km, with runs conducted on control tyres supplied by Pirelli. F1 teams are allowed two such filming days during the season.
At last week's presentation in Woking, new McLaren team boss Andrea Stella declared himself "happy, but not entirely happy" with the current state of the MCL60's design, suggesting that updates will be implemented in the opening races of 2023.
Time to unleash the power. 💪
Our #MCL60 hits the track for the first time! pic.twitter.com/hFVWmWr6Ra
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) February 21, 2023
"Assessing our performance last year and looking at competitors, we identified multiple areas of opportunities," Stella explained.
"The good news is that pretty much all of them have been addressed. I wouldn’t want to be too specific, but they have to do predominantly with aerodynamics.
"Aerodynamics is the name of the game in F1 so no mystery. But there’s some more areas, for instance, in terms of interaction with the tyres, there’s some work that we needed to do and this was done over the weekend.
"There’s some other areas of the car that, like I said, will be influenced by developments in the early stage of the season.
"So we are happy, not entirely happy, for what is the launch car but optimistic that we should take a good step soon."
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