A productive first day for McLaren it seems, despite some problems. The McLaren team didn’t seem too worried on Thursday evening after an opening day marred by a few “minor” problems with the MCL60 that forced Lando Norris to stay in the garage for a long time.

With 92 laps of the MCL60’s first day of winter testing in Bahrain on Thursday, McLaren had a productive day despite some minor issues with the car.

While Oscar Piastri was able to run his programme without any problems in the morning, this was not the case for his team-mate Lando Norris in the afternoon, as the British man was kept in the garage for a long period of time due to a “minor” problem that had to be rectified before he could continue testing.

“It was a productive day in Bahrain which went largely according to plan,” explained McLaren team headmaster Andrea Stella on Thursday evening.

“Despite some very minor issues, which are common in testing, we got a lot of information and were able to complete a lot of test items.”

“There were some minor delays caused by the team wanting to reinforce the bodywork in certain areas to avoid a failure.”

“These were preventative measures, but we thought they were helpful in being able to run safely and reliably for the rest of the day.”

“Overall it was a positive day. We hope to continue like this for the second and third days so that we are ready for the first race of the season.”

At the end of the first day of testing, Lando Norris set the fifth fastest time at the end of the day, while his teammate Oscar Piastri finished eighteenth overall.

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