McLaren identifies concerns encountered in Abu Dhabi

Post-season testing at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi was complicated for McLaren. The Woking team was not able to collect much data with the hybrid MP4-29 powered by Honda since the car led by Stoffel Vandoorne was only able to complete a few installation laps before being stopped by reliability concerns. Éric Boullier, Team Principal of McLaren, nevertheless announced that the origin of the problems has been identified.

The Frenchman explained that these problems did not surprise the team and that they could be quickly corrected. “We changed our program a bit and brought the car and staff from Honda and McLaren back here (to Woking) to develop the analyses. They worked very hard the following week but figured everything out. Some of the issues have already been resolved. We will have to carry out further tests on the bench to validate all of this. »

These problems are common when getting started witha new 6l turbo/hybrid V1.6, but McLaren and Honda must still obtain a good level of reliability as quickly as possible in order to start the next season with a good level of performance for Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button. “There wasn’t a specific problem. The problems came from the hardware, which had repercussions on the “software”. We first had to adjust the hardware to resolve the software issues. »