Formula One: Singapore Grand Prix – 1 race, 24 different reactions! (Part 3)
McLaren Mercedes
The feature moves forward with news from the McLaren camp.
Jenson Button started his race rather tentatively, looking to save his rear tyres. The McLaren hadn’t been too lenient on its rubber during the weekend which made it a sensible decision. The Briton believed that taking it easy enabled him to push in the
latter half of the first stint when he was making ground on his teammate driving in front. The switch to the hard compound tyres did not solve issues either; the rear end took a beating because of it. The gulf between the McLaren and the Red Bull on the day
could be judged quite easily as the Renault powered car was still able to display its sheer speed and performance with 30 extra laps on its tyres while the McLaren still struggled to keep up on new ones. However, the former BAR Honda and Brawn GP driver conceded
that the Red Bull was understood to be quick, based on the nature of the Marina Bay track and felt that the result was pretty much expected and he was happy with his fourth heading to Japan.
While talking about the race that lay in front 2 weeks from the Singapore outing, the team had managed to engineer a new upgrade for Suzuka. While it would have been a gamble slapping on the upgrade in the previous race due to reliability issues, Button
felt that they would be able to come up with a good setup in the fourth last race. The McLaren driver therefore felt hopeful for Suzuka but did concede that his championship hopes were rather dented as he finished behind championship leader, Mark Webber. However,
with the point gap pretty much a race victory away, it is all to play for in the dying part of the season – no team can now afford a mistake from this point onwards.
The 2007 champion, Lewis Hamilton was still unsure as to what happened between him and Mark Webber at turn 7. All he could gather was that he saw the Red Bull driver make a mistake and was further delayed thanks to the back markers in front. Realizing the
opportunity, the Briton felt he was in a position to slipstream him. Taking the outside line into turn seven and knowing that Webber was in his blind spot just behind, the McLaren driver had to rely on instinct to gather that he was sufficiently well past
him in order to judge his braking. Turning in, while still leaving enough room on the inside, the next thing that Hamilton knew was being clipped at the back, realizing a blown tyre and ultimately feeling the extent of the damage. Displaying maturity far beyond
the expectations from a 25-year-old, the British driver felt that it was merely down to fate – such things happened in motor racing and one had to get used to it.
Looking at the championship, Lewis gathered that there were still four races to make his mark. The difference from championship leader, Mark Webber was 20 points away – a reasonable gap but not an insurmountable one. Voicing out his plan for the season,
the youngster hoped to keep his head down, do what he does best on track and eventually, hope for the best. The Briton added that he would much rather be finding his route on the track than to devote half of his mind in calculating his affective championship
standing lap after lap – that’s the score keeper’s job. Otherwise, he should just enjoy the rest of the season to the fullest and get ready to accept whatever happens in the end. However, staying true to his core, he will fight till the very end.
As Henry Ward Beecher once said, “The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't.”
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