- First Barcelona Test - Day Two
McLaren 50% behind on test schedule - Boullier
Eric Boullier says McLaren is 50% behind schedule on its testing schedule after another limited day in Barcelona.
A broken seal on the MP4-30's MGU-K on Thursday limited Jenson Button to 21 laps and does not receive parts to rectify the problem until Saturday. That mean Fernando Alonso completed 59 laps on Friday, the team's best in one session but still the lease of anyone in the day.
Boullier admits the MGU-K issue has been a significant setback to its plan.
When asked how far behind schedule McLaren-Honda is, Boullier replied: "I saw your comments, you said a month but I don't know. It's difficult to say, I can tell you that in our development and plan for testing we have missed about 50% today. But that's logical because we didn't do enough laps. In terms of development globally I have no idea.
When pressed on the question Boullier added: "We did maybe 50% of the laps we were expecting to do so in terms of plan we are 50% behind on our plan."
Mercedes and Red Bull both managed to complete a race simulation in the afternoon alone, while McLaren is still limited to short runs. Boullier says it is still too early into McLaren's renewed partnership with Honda to expect longer runs as it slowly builds towards reliability.
"We still have one test to go and I think it's a little bit maybe premature to start going into a race simulation. If by one of the late afternoons [this week] we see the potential we will put it in the plan but we have so many system checks to do before that we want to cross off. A race simulation is the plan if we can do the other one first."
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