McLaren moving forward despite 'unconventional Friday'

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella said his team managed to complete a large part of its running programme on Friday and gain a good understanding of its car's potential for this weekend's Canadian Grand Prix despite the day's disrupted schedule.

After FP1 was neutralized in the opening minutes of the session and eventually abandoned due to a significant CCTV technical issue, F1 teams were forced to make the most of the late afternoon's extended 90-minute session at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

McLaren's drivers both clocked in at the end of the day outside of the top-ten, but Stella reckoned his team had put itself on the right track in terms of optimizing its MCL60 contender.

"We couldn’t do everything that we wanted but despite that, I think we’ve gained a good understanding of performance potential, set-up direction and the behaviour of the tyres," said the McLaren boss.

"The rain at the end also allowed us to check the Intermediate tyres, so taken all together we’ve gathered quite a lot of information from practice today.

"We’ll study it overnight and try to be ready for whatever we face in qualifying and the race."

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Oscar Piastri was the fastest of the McLaren pair in FP2, the Aussie setting the 11th quickest lap overall, just 0.815s adrift from Mercedes pacesetter Lewis Hamilton, a spread that indicated the tightness of the field.

"We had a decent session this afternoon and seemed to be pretty solid out of the box, the pace seemed to be reasonable," commented the young rookie who is running for the first time in Montreal.

"It’s a fun track, very bumpy, but I enjoyed getting some time out on-track. The weather came in pretty suddenly at the end, which gave us a taste of wet weather running.

"We’ll see what the rest of the weekend throws at us but I’d say a reasonably encouraging start."

Lando Norris was P13 in the pecking order at the end of FP2 and the Briton was satisfied overall with his session.

"We had an OK day, it was actually good to get out in mixed conditions," he said.

"We’ve been working hard trying to find a good set-up. A good balance with the car to feel comfortable is the most important thing, and we were making steps forward.

"We’ll continue to do that into tomorrow and work hard for a good result in quali."

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