McLaren admits pre-season testing has been 'challenging'

For most teams, the three days of pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit has been an encouraging process. But with less than a week to go before the first race of 2023, it's not been so positive for McLaren.

The squad has been forced to admit that the development of the new MCL60 has fallen short of expectations, after losing further time track time on Saturday addressing more reliability concerns with the front winglets on the car.

The repairs were ongoing on Saturday, limiting Lando Norris to just 37 laps and Oscar Piastri to 44 laps, compared to the 136 laps completed by Alex Albon who had the Williams to himself for the day.

“The final day of pre-season has been challenging," admitted new team principal Andrea Stella. "We had some downtime during the repair of a minor ongoing issue.

"We are not concerned about the issue for the race but it required some attention today to ensure we could complete as much of our run plan as possible.

"Despite those small setbacks we could still get some good information about the car in representative night-time conditions," he insisted. "We were able to see that we have made some steps in terms of performance across the test."

• Read also: Brown admits McLaren 'didn't hit' MCL60 development goals

Norris appeared visibly frustrated by the setbacks, having come into 2023 hoping that this would be the year the team would make a breakthrough allowing him to challenge for race wins if not outright titles.

Journalist Will Buxton noted: "I actually saw him leave the garage and walk to the little driver's room on the side, and - very unlike Lando - he actually punched the flimsy, makeshift wall as he walked through.

"That little bit of frustration. You can tell it's not quite right," Buxton added. But after the test concluded, Norris was clearly determined to put on his game face about the situation.

“A decent three days here in Bahrain," he insisted. "First of all it’s good to be back in a car. Second of all a big improvement from our test last year, getting so many laps under our belt, so the team have done a good job.

"We know there’s a few things we still need to improve on, but we’re in a reasonable place heading into race week. We’ve gathered a lot of data, which we’ll be analysing thoroughly ahead of next week."

This will be Norris' first season as undisputed team leader at McLaren, after Daniel Ricciardo departed the team at the end of 2022 to be replaced by F1 rookie Oscar Piastri.

Piastri was still getting to grips with the car on Saturday and went for a big spin in the morning coming out of turn 9. Fortunately there was no damage done to the car, with Piastri gathering it up before it hit the barrier.

"It wasn’t the smoothest of mornings as we had a few issues with the car," the young Australian admitted. "I didn't get as many laps in as we would have liked, but nonetheless we still got some good running.

"I'm still learning all the time, which is good. I think we’re in reasonable shape for next week, some more laps would be lovely but that’s always the case.

"It’s been a good few days of working with the team, getting the season underway, thanks to them for their support. I feel like we’re in a pretty good spot and I'm looking forward to getting out for my first race next week.”

Norris and Piastri will be back on track on Friday for the first free practice session of the season, ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix which takes place on Sunday, March 5.

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