McLaren 'not overly concerned' by F1 testing issues

McLaren Formula 1 racing director Eric Boullier has downplayed the recurring issues that caused the team to suffer three on-track stoppages during the opening day of the second pre-season test in Barcelona on Tuesday, saying the team is "not overly concerned".

Stoffel Vandoorne suffered two electrical issues in the morning session before a hydraulic leak sidelined him for a third time later in the day, forcing McLaren to end its programme two hours early.

Vandoorne managed a total of 38 laps through the day, putting McLaren just 10 laps ahead of its total at this point last year in pre-season testing, but Boullier is not concerned.

"Today wasn’t the day we had hoped for on track, but, despite this, we aren’t overly concerned about the issues that we’ve faced today," Boullier said.

“It’s obviously not the productive day we had planned, but the problems – a battery issue and a hydraulic leak – are the types of niggles that we almost hope and expect to face during testing, in order to prepare us properly for the season ahead.

“We are here to test, and today is what sometimes happens in testing. It’s not ideal, and we would have liked more track time, but we’re working on it, we’re learning from it, and we’ll return to the track tomorrow armed with more information."

Renault chief technical officer Bob Bell confirmed the French manufacturer was responsible for the battery issues that hit McLaren and fellow engine customer Red Bull.

"Those problems could have affected any of the three teams, so of course it's an issue for us," Bell said.

"But the reason we do this testing of those components before going to Melbourne is to find the ones that have got problems, so that when we go to Melbourne we have a stock of batteries that we are completely confident in.

"It's the right thing to do, we have found some that are not fit for purpose and that's great."

"Today was challenging because of the issues we had which interrupted our running for today. We had a few stoppages on track, and we’ve been working through each one to make sure we’re fully prepared for tomorrow," Vandoorne said after losing the bulk of his track time on Tuesday.

“The kinds of issue we’ve had weren’t particularly serious, but have taken a relatively long time to fix, so we weren’t able to run as much as we planned. The conditions this afternoon were quite tricky due to the wind, so the running we did wasn’t so representative.

“We’re hopeful the issues have been fixed and we can have a more productive day tomorrow."

Fernando Alonso will take over for Wednesday's running in Barcelona, due to start at 9 a.m. local time.