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Stoffel Vandoorne has reflected on what he sees as a positive first day at the Budapest test for McLaren on Tuesday, as development driver Lando Norris steps into the MCL32 for today's running.
Vandoorne ended Tuesday morning with the quickest time of all, only to stop on track afterwards with a problem that needed to be traced in the garage. The team eventually concluded that it was an engine fluid leak after removing the engine altogether; this confined Vandoorne to the sidelines until much later in the day.
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When he did emerge again, the Belgian was still able to lap quickly, equipped with the Ultrasoft tyre - though he was ultimately no match for Ferrari's Charles Leclerc. Despite the mechanical issue, Vandoorne ended the day pleased with McLaren's progress, saying: "It's actually been very productive for us, despite the stoppage.
"We've put some new things on the car to explore and I feel they've been positive - we've definitely moved in the right direction as the day has progressed. It's good to see that when we bring new parts to the track, they respond and improve the performance of the car. Obviously this is testing, and it doesn't mean a lot, but it does give us useful data that we can analyse and help our learning.
"We have a busy programme over these two days and hopefully after the summer break we can show that we've made another step forward and make further improvements for the rest of the season. A test after a race weekend is always very valuable for the team. It provides a good opportunity to validate things that did or didn't go well, and introduce new parts that might have been too much of a risk during the sessions. It's been a pretty good week for us in Hungary, and positive to be consistently running in the top ten."
Mason Hawker
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