McLaren has completed a “super important” test of its new MCL60 Formula One car in a bid to keep design secrets under wraps for the time being.
Twelve months after the disastrous Bahrain test and disappointing opening race, which saw McLaren suffer serious brake overheating problems, the team have made efforts to ensure that these problems are not repeated this time.
Aware that there is only one test ahead of the first race of 2023 in Sachir, McLaren booked one of its two days of shooting in Bahrain on Tuesday to check the new Formula 1 car could run without problems.
Formula 1 star Norris satisfied so far
Although the run was limited to a maximum of 100 kilometers and doubled as a film day, it was enough to give the team an important indication of whether there were any issues that needed to be addressed before the actual test start on Thursday.
After the day of shooting, Lando Norris said the day was very important for McLaren to ensure the team didn’t start the test with a setback like last year.
“I think it was a very important day for us, especially because we need to start better this season than last year,” said the Briton. “So far we’ve done just that and I’m glad the team is happy.”
“There’s a lot of hard work to make sure we have a smooth start and we’re starting with reliability and getting everything right where it should be. They’ve done exactly that, so yeah, that’s super important .”
Formula 1: McLaren covers up underbody design
The shakedown also generated a degree of interest as McLaren went to great lengths to ensure some of its new car’s design secrets were not yet shared with the competition.
The video footage and photos of the new MCL60 released after the run were carefully cropped to ensure it was not possible to analyze the specific details of the underbody edge – an area critical to the performance of the current generation of cars.
When the car was filmed in areas of the track where the underbody design would have been clearly visible, McLaren intentionally blurred that area of the car. McLaren isn’t the only team that hasn’t shown too much of their car this year. Red Bull in particular showed almost nothing of their new RB19.
The team unveiled a version of last year’s RB18 at its event in New York earlier this month, while the only images of the new RB19 from its shakedown were severely limited, with no specific details on the changes to its latest car.