McLaren to skip practice at Barcelona on Thursday - Formula 1 update
The British Formula 1 team, McLaren has decided to skip the third day of practice at the Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona, on Thursday.
The fourth pre-season test session started this morning (Tuesday) and is scheduled to continue for five days. However, all the teams are only allowed to participate in any of the four days out of five.
Some of the other teams like, Ferrari, Mercedes, Williams and Hispania have declared to skip the first test session and will begin the practice on Wednesday, ending on Saturday. However, the rest of the teams will carry the tests from Tuesday to Friday.
McLaren is the only team that will not be seen on the middle day of testing.
The team is one of the four teams on the 2011 formula 1 grid that ran the first pre-season test session at Jerez, with the interim version of last season’s car. The team’s new car MP4-26 was launched on the 4th of February in Berlin, Germany,
a day after the first test ended. Last year, it was Red Bull and Force India that skipped the initial test, while Force India also launched its current year’s car after the first test.
At the start of the year, McLaren said that it wanted to launch its package after the others because it wanted it to be really competitive. However, the early few tests have not shown a very strong team car.
Both the team drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button showed their concern over the pace and reliability of the team car. Although Hamilton said after the cancellation of the Bahrain Grand Prix that the extra two weeks will help them improve the car, yet,
it does not seem close to the pace of the leading teams, Red Bull and Ferrari.
On the other hand, the 2009 Champion, Button said earlier today that he wants to begin the title battle this year, from where he ended last year. Button lost his title to the Red Bull driver, Sebastian Vettel at the last race of the season, the Abu Dhabi
Grand Prix.
Tags: