Formula One: Hamilton Professes McLaren’s Formula One Goals under Threat
Lewis Hamilton is apprehensive; his championship hopes are under threat after a fruitless weekend for the McLaren squad at the Hungarian Grand Prix. McLaren travelled to Hungary dominating the constructors’ championship and their two British drivers, Hamilton and Jenson Button, ranked first and second in the race for the drivers’ title. However, following their worst campaign of the year, with Jenson Button securing a disappointing eighth place finish and Hamilton abandoning the race due to a gearbox failure, McLaren have relinquished the lead to Red Bull Racing.
As the Formula One community has retired from action for the sport’s traditional summer break, McLaren have had to shut their production unit at Woking, for two weeks. No doubt, the team’s top personnel will spend this fortnight wondering what it will take to bridge the ominous gap.
With Lewis Hamilton now four points adrift of Hungarian Grand Prix winner and championship leader, Mark Webber, with seven events to go, the 2008 Formula One world champion is now sceptical whether he can emulate his feat of two years ago. Hamilton believes the next 10 campaigns are going to be exceedingly challenging for his side. The Englishman said McLaren’s position amongst the top five contenders for this year’s title was highly precarious. Hamilton elaborated he was particularly wary of the threat posed by Red Bull, and said that if the Austrian side continued in its present form, there was little hope for McLaren to have a realistic go at the 2010 championship trophy.
Hamilton stated it was cause for serious concern that his side was struggling at this point in the season. The Englishman said that to have come so far as establishing a championship lead and then squandering the mantle after not being able finish a race was a particularly bitter pill to swallow. Hamilton revealed it was crucial for the McLaren technical department to step up progress, as the team was still in the title hunt and it would be a bitter disappointment to go downhill from the top of the table. The 2008 world champion betrayed a sense of panic in the McLaren camp after revealing the team could not afford to shrug off the recent dip in form in the hope that future campaigns would be more productive. Instead, Hamilton stressed McLaren needed to be completely unified and to exhaust all means at their disposal if the side were to make a comeback to form.
This is not the first time Lewis Hamilton has faced such a situation. The previous season, McLaren started off over two seconds slower at the beginning of the year before regaining momentum around the time of the 2009 Hungarian campaign. Although McLaren are running out of time, Hamilton believes it is still not too late for the team to rediscover winning form.
The Englishman expressed his faith in the team to bounce back, saying as soon as the activity resumed after the break, the entire McLaren staff would be reeling to take on the competition. Hamilton said he would be there to motivate and egg on the team engineers to redouble their efforts to ensure a fruitful endeavour.
After falling behind Red Bull and Ferrari in the previous two runs, Hamilton feels relieved the summer break has come to the rescue. The McLaren man believes the hiatus will give the team precious time to analyse the situation in a rational, cool-headed way.
Hamilton’s team mate Jenson Button shared his sentiments, concurring the RB6’s qualifying pace was absolutely stunning. Button said ups and downs were an inherent aspect of the Formula package, and there was nothing too unique about the nature of troubles McLaren faced at present. Button emphasized things were not irrevocably bad for his side, but there was an urgent need to plug the gap to Red Bull. The Englishman said he had complete faith in the team to turn things around and promised he would give his utmost to aid the process.
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