A good number of laps for McLaren's updated car.

By Parminio
June 25 2004

It's been a tough row to hoe however, as the 4-19 clearly lacks pace and is still somewhat unreliable. For the first time this week at Jerez, McLaren had two MP4-19B's on track and they look to be in good shape.

On the first day, Wurz and De La Rosa were at the wheel and put in 48 and 28 laps respectively. That was to change dramatically the next day with De La Rosa putting in 148 laps, and Wurz running up 153 laps. The next day, David and Kimi took over and again pounded out the laps with Kimi putting in 117 and David adding 105.

It's been quite a while since McLaren have put in that many laps in a test session. In fact, it's the highest laps total for a test session in recent memory. Although one never knows what fuel loads are run by which teams, making speed hard to know for sure, the great news is that both new McLaren put in nearly two complete race weekend distances with no failures.

The big question now is will the B spec run at France? Given the outcome of the Jerez test one would have to think so, but as yet no announcement has been made. One has to wonder what McLaren have to lose at this point that would prevent them from using the car at France.