(McLaren-Honda)
McLaren Honda’s Jenson Button got his first opportunity to
drive the new MP4-30 on Monday when he took to the Jerez circuit after team
mate Fernando Alonso drove on the opening day of winter testing.
Button managed to complete just six laps of the Jerez
circuit and set the seventh place with a fastest time of 1m 54.655s as the team
discovered a minor ancillary issue which took the engineers the afternoon to
rectify, however the team are hopeful that the situation won’t show up again on
Tuesday when Fernando Alonso gets back in the car.
Speaking about his first day in the car, Jenson Button
stated:
‘We
expected this test to be tricky - and the next two days probably won’t be plain
sailing, either. But people have short memories. Look at last winter - the
first test of 2014 was very tough for everyone too.
“So there are no real worries at the moment. We’re just hopeful
we’ve solved our issue – the last run of the day seems to have sorted the
problem out, so I hope tomorrow will be a little easier. It’d be nice to get
some laps on the engine, and to begin to find out where we are in terms of
engine driveability and car development.
“This is a very complicated power unit, but its packaging is
unbelievable - very tight - and we haven’t had any temperature issues. That’s a
massive positive for us, so well done to Honda for that.
“There’s
a very positive atmosphere about the place: the team isn’t McLaren and Honda,
it’s McLaren-Honda. It’s
everyone together.’
(McLaren-Honda)
Honda R&D senior managing officer
– chief officer of motorsport, Yasuhisa Arai commented on the second day of
testing saying:
‘Today was
another tricky day, but we feel like we’ve overcome the main issue that
affected our running during the first two days of the test.
“Despite our lack of mileage, it’s been an important learning
process for our engineers, who’ve really started to develop a close working
relationship with everybody at McLaren - that’s a big positive.
“For tomorrow, we’re hopeful that we’ve moved on, and that we
can get some more laps completed.’
Fernando Alonso
will be back behind the wheel of the MP4-30 on Tuesday before Button completes
the test programme in Jerez on Wednesday.
© Ben Johnston 2015
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