McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne was delighted to enjoy his first trouble-free Friday of 2017 after a woeful start to the season, plagued with reliability issues.
Vandoorne retired from the Chinese Grand Prix due to an oil pressure issue and failed to even start in Bahrain, once again courtesy of an issue with his Honda power unit.
However, this weekend has so far seen Vandoorne complete 60 laps, 42 more than he managed in Bahrain.
“I’ve definitely had one of my best Fridays so far,” Vandoorne said.
“It’s the first time that I’ve had a Friday this season without any big problems – we ran through our programme without any big issues, so that was good.”
By contrast, Vandoorne’s team-mate Fernando Alonso lasted just one lap in the opening practice session.
“Everything ran smoothly on my side, however, we saw that on Fernando’s side it was a bit more complex,” he added.
“Unfortunately, he missed FP1 and didn’t do so many laps in FP2, so it still shows that reliability is one of the key issues we have to work on for the next few races.
“We’ve brought quite a few upgrades to this race, but at the moment it’s different to judge any of them individually.
“At the moment, everything is working pretty much as expected, and tonight there’s a lot to analyse to see exactly how the day ran.
“Hopefully tomorrow we can fine-tune everything a bit, and extract a little bit more.”
