Bahrain II, Day 4: McLaren test report

A difficult final day for Jenson and the team.

The engineers were able to carry out some significant set-up work during the morning’s early laps. However, the team’s attempts to understand the behavior of its Melbourne-spec front wing – which arrived this morning – were curtailed by a late-morning red-flag.

After lunch, Jenson only managed a few laps before suffering a high-mileage internal combustion engine failure, which kept his car in the garage for much of the afternoon while the unit was replaced.

At the end of the day, any further attempts to run were hit by an as-yet undiagnosed control electronics problem – the result of which is that the team had no driver feedback upon which to evaluate the new front wing. The engineers will be able to evaluate its strengths using the limited run-data we accumulated during the day.

Jenson was able to run a final lap under the Bahrain International Circuit’s spotlights – the session was extended by 30 minutes to allow the new system to be tested ahead of next month’s night race.