With Honda engines out and Renault engines in, this was supposed to be the year where McLaren would come good. The car would run reliably, be fast, win races and take the championship. At least, that’s what the team would like to believe.
The only problem is that in testing so far, things haven’t been going brilliantly. On the very first day, a loose wheel nut caused Fernando Alonso to spin off, and an exhaust issue curtailed Vandoorne’s running on day two. Now, there’s been another issue as on the first day of the second test, Vandoorne’s car had a problem on the installation lap. The team thought it had been fixed but then after three more laps of running the MCL33 ground to a halt, bringing out the red flags.
#F1Testing update: we suffered a power shutdown during Stoff’s last run, meaning we lost data. The team are investigating, but we’ll be back out as soon as we can. pic.twitter.com/OYQxEZ8OKm
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) March 6, 2018
The car stayed stuck in the garage until just before the lunch break, losing vital running time. Things aren’t going brilliantly, are they?
To make matters worse, those terrible old Honda engines McLaren was so keen to get rid of are now in the back of the Toro Rosso, a team which racked up more laps than anyone else in the first test and has been running well again today. Toro Rosso poked a bit of fun at McLaren with this ‘typo’ in a tweet.
Working*
— Toro Rosso (@ToroRosso) March 6, 2018
Woking is of course where McLaren’s headquarters are located. Subtle? As a brick. Hilarious? Absolutely!
