With most teams enjoying a strong opening day of the second Formula 1 preseason test in Barcelona, the spotlight fell on McLaren’s woes on a day in which the new Renault powered MCL33 packed up on track on three separate occasions.
But team chief Eric Boullier is adamant that the issues are minor and told reporters at Circuit de Catalunya, “It’s not important, we just have to put some more protection somewhere and that’s it. It’s not a showstopper.”
The Renault power unit, which McLaren are using after ditching Honda last year, is heating to the point of burning the engine cover which is forcing engineers at Woking to come up with a solution.
McLaren is set to modify the internal cooling of its Formula 1 car after suffering minor bodywork burning problems during testing.
Boullier confirmed, “We’re working on a new package with a new engine partner, so we have to detect the heat soak pockets.”
“While we find some other way to redesign the cooling inside the car, we are using some very quick fixes now. We might keep it actually, we don’t know. Maybe we need to redesign some ducts somewhere, or whatever. It’s normal – not only the engine but the car itself [is new].”
“A couple of teams in the pitlane have a full-scale dyno, so they can detect it because they run a full car. The other ones can’t, so you have to run to detect your issues.”
Despite the issues and niggles Boullier maintains, “We are every year fixing new targets, so far we have achieved them and now we know we can achieve them on the track as well.”
“I don’t know if it’s good enough to be in front of which teams, because I think everybody is sandbagging a little bit, but the car is good and looks solid on track,” insisted the Frenchman.