RacingLeonardo Fornaroli turned 68 laps at Silverstone on April 7 in McLaren’s 2023 MCL60, a second, more advanced test that pushes his F1 prep forward. Despite winning F3 and F2 back-to-back without an F1 race seat, he has now logged nearly three Grand Prix distances across two McLaren outings.
This latest Silverstone run followed his late-March debut in Barcelona, where he banked 110 laps and more than 500 km. Put together, the two days add up to 893 km in F1 machinery under McLaren’s TPC and Driver Development Program, all aimed at building him toward an official reserve role in 2026. The team is moving quickly to give him miles, procedures, and pressure in a car that can punish small mistakes and reward clean execution.
McLaren raised the bar for Silverstone. The run plan stretched to longer stints and also sampled lower fuel loads. Engineers rotated through different set-ups, and Fornaroli worked both ends of the tire range on hard and soft compounds. That mix is designed to deepen how he reads the car and to broaden the feedback he can give when grip, balance, and track evolution shift across a day.
Speaking after the April 7 test, Fornaroli said the second outing’s advanced plan helped him take another step. “We tried different set-ups and fuel levels and I continued to make improvements,” he said, adding that he felt more comfortable in F1 machinery as the day progressed. The 68 laps at Silverstone, totaling 393 km, came without the headline glare of a race weekend but with the same demand for accuracy on a fast, wind-sensitive circuit.
McLaren will keep the program rolling with further outings at various circuits, using the MCL60 to stack more references in different conditions. Between tests, Fornaroli is set to support the race team trackside and in the simulator, matching procedures, starts work, and car behavior from the track to the virtual world. The goal is simple: keep him operationally ready as a reserve option and keep his learning curve steep as the team builds a clear path toward the top level.