McLaren Honda driver Stoffel Vandoorne had a much more productive opening free practice session than his teammate, Fernando Alonso, the Belgian rookie being able to complete the usual set-up changes and aero correlation work over 29 laps, and finishing with the 11th-fastest time.
In FP2, fortunes were somewhat reversed however.
Stoffel had a smooth start to the session and was able to take to the track soon after a planned floor change.
Then the team detected an issue with the MGU-H shortly before the end of the session, which curtailed his running by 15 minutes.
The issue is now under investigation. Despite that, he managed 20 laps and finished the session in 19th place.
“Today has been a bit of a tricky day for the team. On my side, the first practice session went pretty well, and I was able to spend time getting to grips with the track as it's my first time driving here. First off, the asphalt was quite dusty, but it improved quite a lot through the session. In the end, I was feeling quite positive and had a reasonable feeling in the car,” he said.
“In FP2 I started well and felt that the set-up changes we'd made between the sessions had gone in the right direction. Unfortunately, on the Ultrasoft I had a spin towards the end – and then, shortly after, we discovered an issue with the MGU-H, which finished our afternoon's running.”
“All in all, it hasn't been a trouble-free day, which is a shame, but hopefully tomorrow everything will fall into place again and we should be able to improve our position.”
