Positive day for Alonso and McLaren

Editor

Fernando Alonso declared himself "pretty happy" with McLaren's performance at the two-day Austria test.

After Stoffel Vandoorne completed 77 laps on a trouble-free opening day for the team, Alonso followed it up with 104 laps on Wednesday while he also didn't experience any breakdowns behind the wheel of the MP4-30.

The Spaniard finished the day 1.605s off Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg's time of 1:09.113, but it was another good day for McLaren.

"Today was a positive day. The most important thing was to put some laps on the car after the problems we’ve had in the last couple of races," he said. 

"We managed to complete more than 100 laps, and, together with Stoffel’s laps yesterday, I think we finished the test with some good information. Now, we need to go back to the factory and analyse everything, but we definitely have a lot of data to go forward with. I’m pretty happy with how the test has gone."

McLaren-Honda team manager Dave Redding says Alonso focused mainly on aero testing on Wednesday.

"Our aim after yesterday’s test was to continue the positive momentum into today, and we have definitely managed that," he said. 

"The morning session began with data and system set-up checks followed by aero correlation tests, which included fitting the new shorter nose. The afternoon session was dedicated to further aero testing of a range of new bodywork components, tyre assessment, and further power unit functionality tests.

"Overall, we were able to make the most of the good weather and dry track conditions to complete solid sections of the test programme to our satisfaction."