McLaren is behind "where we need to be" after brake issues severely limited running during the Bahrain Formula 1 pre-season test.
In hotter conditions, and with more severe braking zones around the Sakhir circuit, the Woking-based team discovered temperatures in the front brakes were unexpectedly high.
Though temporary fixes and measures have been put in place, McLaren had been restricted to short runs before the arrival of new parts on Saturday allowing for slightly longer stints.
Under the lights. ✨ #F1Testing 🇧🇭 pic.twitter.com/Ibfke3iLyE
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) March 11, 2022
But even so, Lando Norris, who has driven all three days due to teammate Daniel Ricciardo feeling ill with what was confirmed as Covid-19 on Friday, admits the situation has been far from ideal.
“Although I’ve done two and a half days now it’s not been the smoothest of tests for us,” he told the media on Saturday.
“It’s been quite limited here in Bahrain. I think Barcelona was a good one, but here we’ve encountered quite a few more problems which have limited the amount of laps we’ve done by quite a huge amount, especially on the long-run stuff.
“The lower fuel and shorter runs we were able to do but not the high fuel runs.
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“So we’re behind definitely from where we want to be, where we need to be. And where we can say we’re confident in any way going into the first race.
“Not great, but we’re still getting through as much as we can. We’re definitely making progress but definitely not the position we want to be in.”
Despite the setback, McLaren boss Andreas Seidl is confident a final solution will be in place for the first race of the season in Bahrain next weekend.
However, having completed the fewest laps of any team this week, the expectations that were high after Barcelona may have to be tempered.
