KERS-powered McLaren-Mercedes overpowers KERS-less Red Bull – Formula 1 news
So far so good, the McLaren team managed to win their first Grand Prix of the 2011 Formula 1 season, beating the Red Bull team.
Although a win is a win, but Lewis Hamilton’s victory in the Chinese Grand Prix over Sebastian Vettel was more technology-induced.
From the pre-season testing sessions, it was evident that no team is a match for the Red Bull team, both in speed and reliability. On the other hand, McLaren were a complete mess in the pre-season testing with all the reliability issues which curtailed their
true pace.
The answer to that question can be sandbagging of the McLaren team, which they keep as a virtue, or the technology boost they get from their own factories. McLaren’s 2011 car, MP4-26, has all the modern toys necessary to take the lead over the best cars
on the 2011 grid, while Red Bull lack development in their camps which made them look like a smaller team in the Chinese Grand Prix.
From the Qualifiers of the last three races, it is evident that Red Bull are still the fastest team as Vettel has won all the three Qualifiers in Australia, Malaysia and China. Red Bull still hold the speed advantage on straights from all of the 2011 cars,
which was depicted brilliantly by Mark Webber in the final stages of the Chinese Grand Prix.
However, technology wise, the McLaren team has faced less reliability issues than the Red Bull team.
In the season opener in Australia, both Vettel and Webber were facing an issue with their Kinetic Energy Recovery System device after which the team told them not to use it for the rest of the race distance. Vettel was able to hold on to his lead from Lewis
Hamilton after the Brit had an accident in which his car’s floor was broken.
Hamilton gave up and Vettel won the race but still the fear factor of not having the KERS remained in the Red Bull team camps.
Similar incident happened in the Malaysian Grand Prix when Red Bull’s KERS failed on both cars. Both RB7s struggled to keep up with the fast approaching McLaren’s MP4-26. This time Jenson Button was in pursue of Vettel.
Vettel was not using KERS and in the process was losing almost 2 seconds per lap to Button. Nevertheless, Vettel saw the chequered flag but the gap form the chasing car of Button was only three seconds. Had there been two more laps, who knows, Button might
have taken the lead over the defending champion.
The KERS failure hat-trick was completed in Chinese Grand Prix and once again both Bulls were on their own to race without the 80bhp boost.
Vettel was leading the race in the final parts of the race but Hamilton took the lead in the final 4 laps of the race and won.
No doubt the fastest car on the grid is still the RB7 of Vettel but the technology downfall has hindered his performance on the track.
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