Bahrain International Circuit, Thursday, 12 February

Find out what happened on Day 2 of Pre-Season Testing 1 in Bahrain, and get the thoughts of McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 driver Lando Norris and Technical Director Neil Houldey.

McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team concluded another productive day on track with 149 laps completed by Lando Norris, the most out of all drivers on Day 2 of Formula 1’s Bahrain Pre-Season Testing 1.

The 2025 Drivers’ World Champion piloted the MCL40 throughout both sessions on the second day in Sakhir, starting the morning with planned aerodynamic testing that included running aero rakes for a scheduled proportion of time before moving on to completing longer runs that gained important mileage and setup learning for the team’s 2026 challenger.

The afternoon session focused more on race preparation and simulation, with Lando successfully completing the programme. During the stints, Lando had the possibility to experiment with the behaviour of the car in traffic and in overtaking manoeuvres, which gave him an insight into what racing could look like for the upcoming season under the new set of regulations. This activity continues to put the team on target for valuable learnings across the week as work is undertaken to gain knowledge on extracting maximum performance from the car setup and the different power unit modes. The team also completed further live pit-stop practice towards the end of the day’s running, which is an important part of our season preparation.

The team were honoured to be joined in the garage by guest of the Bahrain International Circuit and Tennis ATP Number 1 Carlos Alcaraz, who watched on following his 2026 Australian Open success. Team Principal Andrea Stella, gave the career Grand Slam winner a warm welcome to the McLaren Mastercard garage, giving Carlos a behind-the-scenes look at the world of Formula 1 as he spectated the Number 1 car take to track. Oscar Piastri will return to action in the MCL40 tomorrow as the team concludes its running on the third and final day of Bahrain Pre-Season Testing 1.

Lando Norris

“A productive day, with lots of laps and lots of learning. It’s been useful to get so many laps in, and we’ve learned a significant amount about the car and about the regulations, which gives us some more data to analyse and work on. Thanks to the team for the hard work over this first test; being able to do the most laps today is down to their hard work. We’ll be back tomorrow to understand more from Oscar’s runs and then start to get prepared for the second test next week. I can’t wait to get back in the car.”

Neil Houldey, Technical Director - Engineering

“Our second day on track during Pre-Season Test 1 in Bahrain is complete, and we can be pleased with the overall amount of learning we’ve achieved today. It’s been one of the most productive days of pre-season so far, and we collected lots of important data.

“We’ll continue to work with the information collected to tweak and refine the car in terms of how it operates, especially following Lando’s race simulation this afternoon. That data is very useful from a car engineering perspective and will play an important part in car development as we seek to get more performance from these regulations.

“We look forward to seeing Oscar back in the car tomorrow as we conclude our final day on track with lots of work planned to continue building a solid foundation for the team ahead of the Pre-Season Test 2 in Bahrain next week.”