New livery makes track debut

The new Team McLaren Mercedes livery made its track debut at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia today. Juan Pablo Montoya and Pedro de la Rosa were present in Spain to conduct shakedowns with chassis's two and three of the MP4-21, which arrived from the McLaren Technology Centre over the weekend. Work for both drivers today focused on initial systems checks, prior to proper testing with the two cars starting tomorrow.

Pedro de la Rosa completed 102 laps of the 3.94km Valencian circuit, putting over 400km on his MP4-21, including two long runs of 26 laps. The Spaniard set a quickest time of 1m11.633, during a run of 10 laps mid-afternoon, which put him third on the timesheets for the day.

Juan Pablo Montoya covered 190km during today's session in the other MP4-21. He ended the day fourth on the timesheets, with a 1m11.701, having completed 48 laps over a series of multi-lap runs, including a 15 lap stint at the end of the day. He started running shortly before 14:00, as the test team had been completing the engine and gearbox installation.

Kimi Raikkonen will join Juan Pablo on track in Valencia tomorrow to continue the test session.