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Tester Pedro de la Rosa was at the wheel of McLaren's 2009 challenger in Portugal on Saturday as the MP4-24 was given its first-ever run, following its Friday launch. Despite a delayed start to the day, De la Rosa covered 18 laps of the Portimao circuit and set a best time of 1m 28.719s. "It's always an exciting moment when you get behind the wheel of a brand new car for the first time - and, given the extent of the rule changes we've addressed over the winter, it was more tense than usual,? explained the Spaniard. ?However, I'm happy to report that the car behaved just as we believed it would from our data and we carried out a number of runs, gaining in confidence as we ran through a number of systems checks.
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Tester Pedro de la Rosa was at the wheel of McLaren's 2009 challenger in Portugal on Saturday as the MP4-24 was given its first-ever run, following its Friday launch. Despite a delayed start to the day, De la Rosa covered 18 laps of the Portimao circuit and set a best time of 1m 28.719s. "It's always an exciting moment when you get behind the wheel of a brand new car for the first time - and, given the extent of the rule changes we've addressed over the winter, it was more tense than usual,? explained the Spaniard. ?However, I'm happy to report that the car behaved just as we believed it would from our data and we carried out a number of runs, gaining in confidence as we ran through a number of systems checks.
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