Due to the high temperatures around the Sakhir track, McLaren found that their brake cooling was insufficient, which is why their long runs were seriously compromised.
During the week of testing in Bahrain, the team received new parts direct from the Woking factory for use on Saturday. However, they were only a temporary solution, and the team is still looking for a method to alleviate these setbacks before the start of the opening round next weekend.
With Daniel Ricciardo in isolation after testing positive for COVID-19, Norris was tasked with being behind the wheel of the MCL36 for the three days, completing 50, 60 and 90 laps respectively.
That left the English team with a great lack of mileage, much less than expected, as team boss Andreas Seidl acknowledged: “We had an unexpected problem in the front axle with the brakes, and that limited our running quite a bit, especially in the long runs.”
“It puts us a step behind, but I think we were still able to do good laps to work more on the car and get performance,” he continued. “We could also improve the car, so that was positive.”
“We have that setback, and we are against the clock if we want to update the car to solve it, which we can do but not in a total way. We hope that with the new parts that we get for next week the problem will be solved and we will be there again, ” explained the German engineer.
With those words, Seidl confirms that they have not yet resolved what has limited the McLaren tests, and thus continued: “We have taken measures, but with the time we have, we were only able to make a few changes, also with the support we have from the factory”.
“That has allowed us to go back to do some longer runs in the morning (on the last day of testing in Bahrain), to try to repeat it in the afternoon, but the real solution will not be available until next week,” he explained.
“With the configuration of this track and the high temperatures, what we had was not enough, and it was not enough in terms of time to get the new parts, so we have to wait until next weekend.”
“I’m sure we can figure it out, and then we’ll come back to performance talk,” insisted Seidl, who also said Lando Norris’ work was productive in all three days at Sakhir.
“We left Barcelona after some positive tests, and I think also what we have seen here, when we did the long runs, we have a solid structure for this new era of Formula 1,” said the German.
“We missed out on a lot of things in these three days due to constraints, so we’re not entirely happy,” said Seidl, who warned how difficult it was to judge where McLaren stood against its rivals despite their suggesting they are the third or fourth car.
“In terms of order, I think it’s too early or difficult to say where each of us is. Some cars look very strong from Barcelona, like Ferrari, so the main thing now is to focus on ourselves and fix this problem.”
“I’m sure Mercedes knows exactly what they’re doing, and they’ll be there next week for sure, so it’s hard to know what position we’re in. Until next weekend starts we won’t know.” .
