Seidl and Sainz hail team's start to testing with new MCL35
Monday 24 February 2020 18:31, UK
McLaren have described their start to F1 2020 as "not far from 10" after a successful first test with the MCL35 at Barcelona.
Although the team were not among those to post the most headline-grabbing times at Test One, they were one of just four to complete more than 400 laps across the first three days of running ahead of the new season.
And asked by Sky Sports News how he would rate their first week out of 10, team boss Andreas Seidl replied: "I would say not far from 10.
"It was great to see we could do a lot of laps. Reliability is great and it's by far the best start for McLaren into a winter testing campaign since many, many years.
"So a great reward for all the people at McLaren because we have put in a lot of energy this winter to get from this point. That is great to see."
Significantly, McLaren also described the MCL35 as "behaving as expected".
Seidl added: "Very, very happy we could tick off a lot of boxes on the job list, but at the same time it's still early days and still a lot of hard work ahead of us."
Fourth in last year's championship - their highest finish for seven years - McLaren are bidding to further consolidate their position and further reduce their deficit to the leading three teams.
"I think we have a decent car underneath us, an evolution of last year," said Carlos Sainz. "We know that the '34 was a very good step compared to its previous cars, so we wanted to build on a decent car and introduce some new concepts."
Asked how he viewed the likely midfield fight after Racing Point started strongly with a car influenced by last year's title-winning Mercedes, Sainz replied: "You need to analyse everything carefully and you can see teams who have done very big steps compared to last year, but our concern is not the other teams it's our distance to the top teams.
"So if last year we were on average 1.2s away and this year we manage to be below one second we will be happy."
For the first time ever, BOTH weeks of F1 Testing are being shown live - meaning you also won't miss a minute of the second week of action at Barcelona.
Coverage of Test Two starts on Wednesday at 7.55am, with the track sessions running from 8am-12pm and then 1pm-5pm. Subscribers can watch on Sky Sports F1 and the Sky Sports app, while the Live Blog on our digital platforms will include the latest updates and free-to-view video clips across all three days.
Wednesday, February 26
7.55am-12pm: Test Two, Day One Morning Session
1pm-5pm: Test Two, Day One Afternoon Session
5pm-6pm: The Story So Far
Thursday, February 27
7.55am-12pm: Test Two, Day Two Morning Session
1pm-5pm: Test Two, Day Two Afternoon Session
5pm-6pm: The Story So Far
Friday, February 28
7.55am-12pm: Test Two, Day Three Morning Session
1pm-5pm: Test Two, Day Three Afternoon Sessio
