McLaren has made its best start to a new season in “many, many years” according to its boss, with more updates planned for the MCL35 at this week’s second test.
McLaren rose to finish as Formula 1’s midfield pace-setters in 2019, claiming fourth in the Constructors’ Championship, with Carlos Sainz Jr. logging a podium in Brazil.
It came after years of underperformance amid sub-par chassis, inconsistent development, and an abortive relationship with power unit supplier Honda.
McLaren completed the fourth-most laps through the first test and Team Principal Seidl was boosted by the squad’s early progress with the MCL35.
“We are really, really happy with how it went so far for various reasons,” he said.
“If you look at the number of laps and the reliability that we have shown so far, it is by far the best start in many, many years for McLaren going into a winter test.
“It is simply a great reward and a sign for the team that all the hard work that we have put in in the last month in order to make this step is paying off.
“I am also very happy that we could already tick off a lot of boxes on our job list. Without having this reliability we could not go through the run plan every day.
“We focus on ourselves, not lap times. We continuously bring new parts for the car as well with deliveries from the factory back home.
“So far the car is doing what we expect from it. So it is great to see this correlation.”
Looking ahead to this week’s second test, which begins on Wednesday, Seidl said: “We have a programme lined up continuously bringing new parts to the track in order to get as much performance out of the car as possible before we head to Melbourne.
“In terms of performance so far, it is still early days. We are happy with what we’ve seen so far. The car is performing as intended, so we don’t have big question marks on this.”
