With issues for Fernando Alonso on the opening day of play in the USGP on Friday, the McLaren team opted to flip the Spaniards test programme onto his teammate Stoffel Vandoorne's car in an effort to gather as much data as possible, which meant a very busy but productive session for him.
The Belgian's run plan consisted of aero correlation, set-up changes with new components and tyre tests, which were completed successfully and he finished the first session in fifth place after 26 laps.
He had a more productive second session, completing longer runs and making various set-up changes during a number of practice pit stops, completing 31 laps to finish 15th overall on the timesheets.
โToday was a reasonable Friday overall. This morning we faced tricky conditions to start with, but in the end it dried up and we had a really busy first practice session trying out some new aero parts. I feel that I put in a good performance, especially considering it was my first time driving on this circuit,โ he said.
โFP2 was a bit more difficult for me. We struggled during the session with some traffic and I wasn't 100 per cent happy with the car balance, but the long-run pace looked reasonable โ I was a bit happier with our long-run pace than qualifying set-up. All in all, tomorrow we have a lot of margin to improve, but we know what we have to do and hopefully we should be lot closer."
