Jonathan Neale: McLaren expecting better results from Ferrari and Mercedes GP – Formula 1 news
McLaren’s managing director Jonathan Neale has recently stated that Mercedes GP and Ferrari are going to be more competitive as compared to their Australian Grand Prix run where both of the teams failed to produce results expected from them.
“Although we didn't win the race we were pleased with the performance of our car; that was a confidence booster. But we're not for one minute thinking that we've seen the best of Ferrari or the best of Mercedes at this stage. We watched each other carefully
through winter testing and I'm absolutely sure both of those teams have more to bring,” said Neale.
Both of the teams delivered some pretty good results during the pre-season testing period while McLaren on the other hand, failed to make the most of this period and as a result, their new car was not looking so good comparatively.
However, it seems that the story was entirely different at the season opening race as McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton was the only driver to challenge the pace of Sebastian Vettel’s RB7 while Fernando Alonso of Ferrari finished in 4th place followed
by his teammate Felipe Massa in 7th. Both of the Mercedes GP drivers on the other hand failed to finish the race as both of them retired after resisting damage on their respective cars.
It was expected that Michael Schumacher would be at the top of his game this season but after the Australian Grand Prix where he failed to qualify better than his teammate Nico Rosberg even, the beginning of the 2011 Formula 1 season seems quite similar
to his 2010 run.
Nevertheless, despite both of the teams’ disappointing performance, Jonathan believes that since this was just the season opening race of the season, Mercedes and Ferrari are going to improve their respective cars before the Malaysian Grand Prix and give
a better performance comparatively.
“In terms of the nature of the circuit, once we get to a circuit such as Malaysia with much hotter track temperatures and certainly to circuits like Barcelona which is pretty challenging, we can test the cars more fully,” added Jonathan.
Other than that, he stated that he is still not satisfied with McLaren’s performance as he believes that there is still a lot of work to be done in order to catch Red Bull Racing team who are apparently more than 7 tenths faster than the McLaren according
to the qualifying results of the Australian Grand Prix.
As it was expected that four teams are going to challenge for the titles this year, it seems that only 2 of them have been able to perform up to the mark. It is believed that both Ferrari and Mercedes GP will improve and join Red Bull Racing team and McLaren
in the hunt for the titles in the coming few races.
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