- Jerez Test - Day Four
MP4-30 will be quick with engine turned up - McLaren
McLaren is confident it has a competitive car this year despite its slow lap times at the opening test in Jerez.
In the hands of Jenson Button on the final day, the Honda-powered MP4-30 clocked a 1:27.660 which was nearly seven seconds off the pace of the Ferrari. However, McLaren was focussed on aero tests for much of Wednesday and the Honda power unit has yet to be run at anything near full power.
"It would be nice to be a little further up [the timesheets], but we've obviously got great simulation tools these days and we know where we are in terms of our performance because we are not running at maximum performance at the moment," engineering director Matt Morris said. "If we look at that and add on where we should be then I'm not too worried really. It would be nice to be further up the time sheets but nothing really to worry about. That's as fast as we are going at the moment and that's where we are."
But mileage was still limited to just 35 laps on Wednesday and 79 laps over the entire week.
"We had a bit of an operational issue just with oil level this morning," Morris added. "Again, it was an annoying little problem that lost us two hours, but now got back up and running again and we were working through an aero programme.
"There's lots of things we can do on the simulators and on the dynos [before the next test]. The main thing coming out of this test was check that the car architecture and package worked. That was key because obviously if we've got a problem there then it's a lot of work in changing coolers and installation. Actually the main aim was to come here and check that, which we've done. We've obviously got all the aero bits coming over the next two test, so we will be pretty busy over the next few weeks to a month.
"We're still carrying a few issues from our side and Honda's, but we've got a plan in place to get those fixed before Melbourne."
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