McClaren - Lewis thinking of the Algarve

With 325 days of sunshine a year, Portimão has been an obvious choice for Formula 1 teams to conduct testing and along with a state-of-the-art race track, and rival Barcelona will now be hard-pressed to hold on to its current title as the top winter testing track in Europe, while the foundations could also be laid for Portimão to become a Formula 1 race venue.

New testing in Portimão emerged in the wake of the Singapore Grand Prix, and as the other nine Formula 1 teams had already committed themselves to testing at Barcelona next month, McLaren jumped at the opportunity to be the first in the Algarve to take a car from 0 to 300km/h in under 9 seconds. While McLaren have declared themselves willing ‘guinea-pigs’ some of the remaining nine Formula 1 teams are travelling to the Algarve this month for official winter testing.