Vodafone McLaren Mercedes

Test Report - Valencia - Day One

Date
Tuesday February 1 2011

Driver
Gary Paffett

Location
Circuit de la Communitat Valenciana Ricardo Tormo

Track length
4.005km

Weather
Warm and dry throughout. Maximum ambient temperature 15.2°C, maximum track temperature 26.7°C

Laps completed
91

Kilometres covered
X364km

Best laptime
1m14.292s at 16:07

Programme
With the launch of our 2011 chassis scheduled for this Friday, this week's three-day Valencia test centres on Pirelli tyre development using one of last year's MP4-25 cars.

"The car we ran today ought to allow us to get the right loadings on the Pirellis to understand how they behave," said Gary Paffett at the end of the day. "The tyres have changed since we last ran them in Abu Dhabi last year, and they'll change again before the start of the season.

"Today was about trying to understand the tyres - we established a good baseline and then did some long runs. Happily, the wear issues we experienced in Abu Dhabi have definitely improved; we saw better wear patterns and fewer problems with the tyres.

"It's useful to understand how the tyres go off, and how the balance changes once they do. The Medium seems to last the longest and the Super-soft the shortest, but that's exactly what you want from a tyre - and it should lead to different strategies once we start racing."

Lewis takes over at the wheel tomorrow, continuing our programme of understanding and developing the new Pirelli rubber.