McLaren shows the new MP4-31

McLaren has released the first pictures of the MP4-31, ahead what will surely be a critical period of testing for the team and engine partner Honda.

“The guys have shown intense dedication throughout the winter period, and the result is that they’ve successfully kept our aggressive build and development programmes on schedule,” said Eric Boullier. “As such, all our team members are a credit to McLaren-Honda, and consequently we’re incredibly grateful to everyone involved in the development of the MP4-31.

“But we’re never satisfied, which is why we’ve continued to strengthen our engineering team in recent weeks and months, and we’re confident that the changes we’ve made will improve and accelerate our car-development progress in the future.

“So the two Barcelona tests will merely herald the continuation of the huge collaborative task that all departments have been engaged in during the off-season. We’ll be aiming to spend the four days of the first test carefully and methodically, extracting the maximum from the time available, and concentrating our efforts on proving out our central systems, operational procedures and electronics checks.

“We’ll need to verify our work in the garage before we can expect any miracles on track – essentially, to ensure we walk before we can run.”