Jerez McLaren testing notes

Last week David Coulthard and Alain Prost attended their first testing session for the Marlboro McLaren Mercedes team. The following are comments from the test which took place in Jerez:

Alain Prost's comments on his first day as a member of the Marlboro McLaren Mercedes technical team, testing at Jerez:

"This testing session is run most importantly for David to adapt to the car and to the team. For me, it is a matter of observing both the driver and the team at work, establishing a closer contact with David to help him as much as possible whenever possible, and of course following the testing programme with the new car in mind - the development of which I hope to be able to contribute over the winter both at the factory and during testing. Even though we are running the old car, which is not in the 1996 confirguration, it is very important for me to be here in this first testing session to develop relationships, as it is the human side of things which matters most at the moment."

Comments from David Coulthard after two days of testing:

What are your first impressions on the MP4/10?

"I was actually quite surprised with the overall balance of the car - aerodynamically, it seems too nice to drive. Mechanically, there is still a bit of work to do to make it really competitive. From an engine point of view, the Mercedes V10 is very smooth. I did not feel any vibrations. Powerwise, the mid and top ranges are very good, whilst the bottom range needs to be improved to make the car more driveable. But overall, I find it encouraging for next season."

What have you especially tested over the last couple of days?

"The main thing really was for me to feel the changes in the car, as we made a number of small modifications."

It was your first day with Alain Prost in his new role in the technical team, what can you say about this new relationship?

"I am very happy with Alain's arrival in the Marlboro McLaren Mercedes team because he was the driver I admired most when I was younger. The information he can bring to the team will help me as a driver to relay what I feel on the track to the engineers to and this accelerate my learning curve. In our conversations today, we compared his testing of the car at Silverstone with my first two days here, so we are at the same level of experience of this car."