The McLaren Formula 1 Team have announced they will debut Honda’s new F1 engine at a promotional event at Silverstone on Friday.

McLaren’s development car, the MP4-29H/1X1, will lap around the Silverstone Circuit alongside two other McLaren Honda’s. The Woking based outfit have been working on the MP4-29H to test the installation and integration of the new turbocharged V6 Honda unit ahead of the 2015 season. The promotional event at Silverstone, which is limited to 100km of running and may only be run with demonstration tyres, will give the team a chance to learn about the car and the engine and various other systems before the Abu Dhabi test which will take place after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Honda are confident that they are ready for the test after releasing pictures and announcing their readiness a few months ago.

“To make sure that we are ready at the launch of the new cars in 2015 we’ve decided to build a development car, as Honda needs to check all the multiple systems,” explained McLaren Team Principal Eric Boullier.

“We also need to check the IT link between track and Woking and between track and Japan. So as not to have to focus on these things too much in the test season, we’ve decided to run a development car programme.

“In terms of car design it will be very similar to this one. We don’t want to burn money on unnecessary areas. We just have to make sure that some technical options for next year are already on the car.”

McLaren test driver, Oliver Turvey, will be the first one to take the wheel of the MP4-29H/1X1. Test driver Stoffel Van Doorn will also be given a chance at the wheel of the new car.

With the demonstration day tomorrow, the mystery of who the two McLaren drivers will be for 2015 still remains. Fernando Alonso has been tipped to be their first driver but there is still not word on their second driver. We are expecting an announcement very soon.