Lando Norris has outlined the ‘main thing’

In advance of pre-season testing, the Woking team visited Silverstone on Wednesday to log their maiden laps on their newest vehicle. This year's Formula 1 has only one three-day test scheduled for Bahrain on February 21–23. On March 2, the Bahrain GP will mark the first of racing at the track. With a race to forget for Norris and Oscar Piastri in 2023, Bahrain was not a nice hunting ground for McLaren. During the 57-lap race, Norris went to the pit lane six times to refill his air tank following a pneumatic leak. After 13 laps, Piastri had to retire from Formula One due to an electronics problem.

According to team principal Andrea Stella, McLaren performed a "good job" of building the MCL38 for Norris and Piastri during the winter. Additionally, the Papaya team is "confident" about their ability to "hit the ground running" in Sakhir. To enhance the MCL60, however, they did not solve "all" of its issues.