MONTMELO, Spain — McLaren’s misery mounted after another malfunction left Jenson Button stranded Thursday as Felipe Massa steered Williams to the fastest lap during Formula One preseason testing.
A hydraulic leak that McLaren says will require it to change its new Honda engine limited Button to a session-low seven laps and slowest lap time.
McLaren’s latest setback came four days after Fernando Alonso crashed, ruling the Spaniard out of the final tests with the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in less than three weeks.
Massa clocked the fastest lap so far through five combined days of running at the Barcelona-Catalunya Circuit with a time of 1 minute, 23.5 seconds.
Defending champion Lewis Hamilton only got in half a shift due to problems with his Mercedes.