Alonso's McLaren finally on track on day three of testing
The double world champion completed 16 laps in Barcelona without any issues after engine failures marred the team's opening two days. Cavaliers @ Warriors live
More of the same. That was the phrase of Wednesday morning and the question was when. And the answer was ‘not yet.’ Fernando Alonso’s McLaren MCL32 did not malfunction in the morning session.
McLaren Honda struggles
The previous two days of testing at Barcelona’s Montmelò circuit had been a trial for McLaren Honda. On Monday a fuel system issue affected Alonso’s car and a day later loss of engine power cut short Stoffel Vandoorne’s track time. For that reason no news was good news in the first two hours of the morning session on Wednesday as Alonso completed 16 laps and chalked up the fourth-fastest time.
Mercedes and Ferrari leading the way
Alonso is treating his car with kid gloves, circling with minimum power to avoid any failures in an engine system that needs to be remodeled. The double world champion put in stints of two or three laps at a time in an effort to be able to lap with more reliability. McLaren need to recover the time lost in the first two days of testing and are behind other teams in their preparations, notably Mercedes and Ferrari, whose individual duel with Valtteri Bottas and Sebastian Vettel posting the fastest times of the morning, although not as quick as Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen a day earlier.