New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\nThough Norris set a reasonable 76 laps on Wednesday, McLaren\u2019s daily average lap count is the lowest of the established teams to have turned up in Barcelona bar latecomer Aston Martin. Only newcomers Audi and Cadillac have been less productive.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course it\u2019s a shame we could not run in the afternoon, as every minute of track time is precious at such an early stage of the season,\u201d McLaren performance technical director Mark Temple said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe discovered a fuel system problem, which meant we haven\u2019t been able to do all the running we would like.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe car is very complex, so we decided to bring the car back into the garage and strip it down to fully understand where the problem is coming from ahead of tomorrow\u2019s running.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a shakedown and is meant to help us identify any issues so we can understand and solve them going into Bahrain, so that\u2019s our big focus as we go into the final day tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Temple said there were also \u201cpositives to take away\u201d about the preliminary signs of the car\u2019s performance potential. Unofficial timing data suggests Piastri was fourth quickest for the day despite not being on track in the afternoon, when conditions were warmest.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a good understanding of where the car is from a baseline point of view,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, we haven\u2019t encountered anything too unexpected. The behaviour and handling of the car is in line with what we thought, so nothing is catching the drivers out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just about learning and getting to know it, and then as we get more time, we\u2019ll look to try and tweak or tune the car.\u201d<\/p>\n
Piastri stars in hilarious new ad | 01:10<\/p>\n
Piastri said he had been eager to get his pre-season underway given the sweeping regulations changes tipped to open the competitive order, and the Australian said he already had ideas to improve the car despite the truncated day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of challenges this year up and down the grid, so it was good to get stuck in,\u201d he said. \u201cThese cars are completely different to what we\u2019ve had the last few years. That\u2019s part of what this test is about.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve already identified a few things that we can try to improve on the car to make it feel a bit nicer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have one more day of running tomorrow. We\u2019ll continue to get used to the car and get a good read on how different things feel. Then we\u2019ll find a good direction to make the car quicker and feel nicer.\u201d<\/p>\n
McLaren did not complete a private shakedown before arriving in Barcelona, preferring instead to run whole-car dyno testing in the build-up to the first test.<\/p>\n
Team boss Andrea Stella said the strategy was to maximise development time to put as mature a car as possible on the track in the opening test, with few upgrades scheduled between now and the opening grand prix in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
While Thursday was an early setback for McLaren, there are still six more testing days scheduled in Bahrain, in more representative conditions, before the Australian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
Mercedes has also proved through its relentless three days of testing that its power unit has no obvious major reliability issues, which will stand customer team McLaren in good stead.<\/p>\n
McLaren will split its final test day between Norris and Piastri.<\/p>\n
Only Mercedes and Racing Bulls have exhausted their three-day testing allocation for the week. All teams bar Williams, which is skipping this test due production delays, will be on track with McLaren on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri\u2019s first run in McLaren\u2019s 2026 car has been cut short by a fuel system problem that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[13273,1724,64,63,689,231329,936,937,231323,16185,231318,81133,2057,817,231319,813,816,231331,231320,231330,231322,1737,141158,231326,225377,647,945,677,167764,225387,12022,231332,231324,3595,2020,85,231325,228931,231327,16234,231321,660,12000,231328],"class_list":["post-446147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-andrea-stella","tag-asia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-average-lap-count","tag-bahrain","tag-barcelona","tag-constructors-title-rival","tag-customer-team","tag-due-production-delays","tag-engine-supplier","tag-europe","tag-f1","tag-final-test-day","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-fuel-problem","tag-fuel-system","tag-fuel-system-issue","tag-fuel-system-problem","tag-lando-norris","tag-lunch-break","tag-mark-temple","tag-maximise-development-time","tag-melbourne","tag-mercedes","tag-oceania","tag-penultimate-day","tag-preseason-testing","tag-province-of-barcelona","tag-reliability-issues","tag-representative-conditions","tag-southern-europe","tag-spain","tag-sports","tag-sweeping-regulations-changes","tag-testing-allocation","tag-totals-set","tag-track-time","tag-unofficial-timing-data","tag-victoria","tag-western-asia","tag-whole-car-dyno-testing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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