{"id":397554,"date":"2026-01-29T21:47:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T21:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/397554\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T21:47:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T21:47:14","slug":"fuel-system-problem-curtails-mclarens-day-at-barcelona-f1-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/397554\/","title":{"rendered":"Fuel system problem curtails McLaren\u2019s day at Barcelona F1 test"},"content":{"rendered":"

McLaren<\/a>\u2019s second day of running at Formula 1\u2019s Barcelona pre-season test was cut short by a fuel system issue.<\/p>\n

With teams allowed just three days on track within the five-day test, taking place behind closed doors from Monday to Friday, the MCL40 first emerged from the garage on Wednesday with Lando Norris<\/a> at the wheel.<\/p>\n

The Briton completed 62 laps \u2013 according to SoyMotor\u2019s timing data \u2013 as he spent most of the afternoon in the garage. On Thursday, his team-mate Oscar Piastri<\/a> took over but covered just 48 laps, as a fuel system issue ruled him out of the action for the remainder of the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\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 performance technical director Mark Temple said. \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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other than those mechanical gremlins, Temple said McLaren \u2018didn\u2019t encounter anything too unexpected\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe behaviour and handling of the car is in line with what we thought, so nothing is catching the drivers out,\u201d he added. \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

\"Oscar <\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri, McLaren<\/p>\n

Photo by: McLaren<\/p>\n

Speaking to F1, Piastri said the priority was \u201cjust trying to iron out all these bugs, find the problems\u201d, but he unfortunately wasn\u2019t pressed on the fuel system issue or any other loosely mentioned gremlins by the interviewer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we’ve already identified a few things we can try and improve on the car to make it feel a bit nicer, you know they’re all going to be different to what we’ve had, so just trying to find all the bugs, all the problems and then try and make the car faster,\u201d the Australian subsequently commented.<\/p>\n

Piastri\u2019s fastest lap on Thursday was, again according to unofficial timing, a 1m18.419s, which would be nearly two seconds slower than George Russell<\/a>\u2019s benchmark, a 1m16.445s.<\/p>\n

McLaren\u2019s end-of-day press release features an interesting statement: \u201cFrom these very early hours of track time, it looks like some competitors have set a very high bar for performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

This will no doubt point to Mercedes<\/a>\u2019 relentless running with a potentially ominous pace \u2013 though it obviously is too early to draw any conclusions.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

We want your opinion!<\/p>\n

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?<\/p>\n

Take our 5 minute survey.<\/a><\/p>\n

– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren\u2019s second day of running at Formula 1\u2019s Barcelona pre-season test was cut short by a fuel system…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[138593,138594,372,149009,49,1469,50,1470,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-397554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-barcelona-catalunya-pre-season-testing","tag-circuit-de-barcelona-catalunya","tag-formula-1","tag-fuel-system-problem-curtails-mclarenu2019s-day-at-barcelona-f1-test","tag-headlines","tag-mclaren","tag-news","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}