McLaren schedules one of its two filming days at Los Arcos, a circuit located in the Spanish region of Navarra. The date: February 22.
As the Spanish sports newspaper MARCA published, McLaren will take one of its two filming days at Navarra this month. It will be the just before the team shows the MCL33 to the world.
These filming days are very important to the teams, as they are very limited due to the current regulations of the Formula One championship. In 2009, the FIA banned private testing in a bid to try and find a way to control costs. This also led to filming day limitation, as several teams used them to test new parts.
In this case, it is unknown whether Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne will be at Los Arcos. They are expected to, as they are the main drivers of the team, but their presence is not confirmed. These filming days, beyond testing few aspects and parts of the car, are useful to the teams in order to show their sponsors and record promotional videos.
The length per filming day consists in 100 kilometers, about 20 laps in a 5 kilometer circuit. As MARCA published, it is unknown where the second and last filming day for McLaren will be, but it is expected to be done before the beginning of the preseason testing at Barcelona.
Los Arcos is a circuit graded 2 by the FIA system. However, this gradation has an exception; the infamous 1T gradation. This 1T means that, even though the track is in the Grade 2 list, Formula One cars can use it, albeit just for testing sessions. The other facility granted with a Grade 1T is the Ricardo Tormo Circuit, in Valencia.