While the assembly of the 2023 single-seaters is proceeding in the factory, several teams have planned test days to kick off their activities in the new year and remove some rust accumulated during the break.
Over the last few seasons, the wake-up test during the winter break has become a classic for several teams, an opportunity to allow the drivers to regain confidence with the cars and the mechanics and engineers to get back into the usual procedures.
At the end of January Ferrari took to the track at Fiorano with both the official drivers and the reserve Robert Shwartzman, almost simultaneously with AlphaTauri, which had instead chosen Imola as its reference track to continue preparation for the championship.
Like the two Italian teams, McLaren also chose to get back on track before the start of pre-season tests, opting however for the Barcelona track, with milder temperatures than Silverstone. In fact, the British team has launched training days for its drivers with the MCL35M, the 2021 single-seater that falls into the “previous car” category granted by the regulations.
The ball was kicked off by Lando Norris, who in this championship will be behind the wheel of a McLaren car for the fifth consecutive year with the hope of being able to collect more than a 2022 season in which he was one of the protagonists.
For Oscar Piastri, on the other hand, it will be a chance to accumulate kilometers before the debut in Bahrain, gaining ever greater confidence with the McLaren procedures and the settings of the Mercedes Power Unit already tested at length on the simulator.
This is the second outing with the AlphaTauri colors for the Australian, having already ridden in the tests dedicated to young drivers in Abu Dhabi at the end of 2022, although in which case he had had the opportunity to ride with the 2022 single-seater, the first of the new era of ground effect cars.
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