McLaren's start to F1 testing 'the best for many years', says Seidl

The team was seventh fastest in the order on combined times during the first three-day test at Barcelona, and concentrated more on reliability running - recording 423 laps, the fourth-highest total in the opening week.

Seidl said he was delighted by the way the first test went, especially because McLaren did not suffer any major mechanical problems.

"To be honest, we're really, really, really happy with how it went so far, for various reasons," he explained.

"First of all, if you look at the number of laps and the reliability we have shown so far, it is by far the best start for many, many years for McLaren going into a winter test.

"This is simply great reward and a sign for the entire team that all the hard work we have put in the last month in order to make this step is paying off, so I'm very happy about that.

"In terms of programme and test points, I'm also very happy that we could tick off a lot of boxes already of our job list.

"Without having these reliability [issues], we simply could go through the run plan every day as planned."

Although Carlos Sainz Jr's best lap of the week was 12th fastest overall, Seidl said the timesheets mattered little for the team so far.

"We focus on ourselves, we don't focus on lap times and so on," he said.

"We continuously bring parts to the car as well, with late deliveries back from the factory.

"It's great to see this momentum that we are having.

"[On Friday], we tried a new front wing for example in the morning. And so far the car is doing what we expect from it.

"So it's great to see this correlation. I'm very happy."

• More F1 testing analysis
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• What we've learned from the first test

Seidl said there would be a push next week to bring more developments to the car as it prepares for the season opener in Australia next month.

"We have a programme lined up with continuously bringing parts to the track, also next week in order to get as much performance out of the car as possible before we head to Melbourne," he said.

"In terms of the performance, so far I think it's still early days. We're happy with what we have seen so far.

"The car was, as I said before, performing as intended, so we don't have question marks on this."