Michelle Alonso: “We didn’t do too much to the side of the car. We just wanted to get the car tuned to its best shape for the race so that at the start we could hit the wall and then once we got past it we could do what we needed to get out of there because we weren’t going to go to the wall.”

In the final lap of the race, Jenson Button’s Williams powered McLaren made its third and final pit stop.

Thereafter Michael Schumacher was still in a car that went on to finish 12th, more than five seconds back. McLaren is expected to defend its title in Japan with a third successive triumph.

“We’d also done some new bits since that day, so we’ve had to work a lot to deal with the new cars and the more parts there are the harder it is to fit them all on,” said McLaren’s David Coulthard.

Team boss Ross Brawn: “We had a very strong engine package after Suzuka – it’s certainly a step up from the car that was running in qualifying at the end of that, so I’m not too surprised.

“The engine has been fine and we have to make sure we take that advantage and not let it get to the cost of the car which meant we were always pushing to be quick.

“It doesn’t make any mistake that this car is what I would consider an F1 car. It has always been a great team, I really enjoy working with them.”

A day later, McLaren also had an F1 car on a track in China.