Stoffel Vandoorne labelled McLaren-Honda’s running during the opening in-season test day in Hungary as “very productive”, despite a stoppage prior to the lunch break.
Vandoorne set the quickest time in the morning on Ultrasofts before stopping on track as a precaution due to a suspected fluid leak.
McLaren traced the leak back to the engine, meaning the power unit had to be removed from the MCL32 for checks, denying Vandoorne the opportunity to return to action until halfway through the afternoon session.
Vandoorne improved on his morning benchmark after a sequence of laps on the Ultrasoft tyres, though was shuffled down to second late on after Charles Leclerc posted a quick time.
“It’s actually been a very productive day for us, despite the stoppage,” he said.
“We’ve put some new things on the car to explore throughout the day and I feel they’ve been positive – we’ve definitely moved in the right direction as the day has progressed.
“It’s good to see that when we bring new parts to the track, they respond and improve the performance of the car.
“Obviously, this is testing, and it doesn’t mean a lot, but it does give us useful data that we can analyse and help our learning.
“We have a busy programme over these two days and hopefully after the summer break we can show that we’ve made another step forward and make further improvements for the rest of the season.”
Vandoorne will hand over to Lando Norris for Wednesday’s running, with the 17-year-old Briton set to receive his first taste of Formula 1 action.
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