Lewis Hamilton joins Jenson Button in criticising 2011 McLaren car MP4-26
Former world champion Lewis Hamilton has expressed his reservations about the new McLaren MP4-26 car. Earlier, his teammate Jenson Button had also expressed dissatisfaction with the new car. Hamilton believes the new car is not a finished article and a lot
of work needs to be done before it can really be used to win a world championship.
The car was unveiled belatedly last month and since it has gone through several changes, but the problems persist. The final pre-season testing at Barcelona also saw the two McLaren drivers having problems with the car.
Hamilton said he did not believe that he had the right car that could actually win him the title. He added though, that it did not mean that the car could not be shaped into one that could win the championship.
Earlier, Jenson Button, the 2009 world champion said that he did not think that he would be able to challenge teams like Ferrari and Red Bull at the Australian Grand Prix with his car.
Jenson Button clocked 0.366 seconds adrift of Mark Webber of Red Bull in Barcelona. But he did not drive his car in the afternoon session due to a problem with the car’s exhaust.
Lewis Hamilton, the youngest world champion ever, was fourth quickest behind Sebastian Vettel, the defending world champion. Hamilton’s car was also not able to stay on the track for long after having some reliability issues.
Hamilton said that for the moment, he was not at all happy with the car and there were clearly a lot of areas where the car can be worked on.
The 2008 champion’s run was cut short in the pre-season testing by a problem in the hydraulics, and the same problem was also faced by Button earlier.
Later on, another problem in the car’s exhaust of the car forced him to spend most of the time in the garage. He made it back on the track and clocked a time of 1:22.888 that was still 1.023 behind Vettel.
It is clear that McLaren will be at a disadvantage as the season starts, but Hamilton is trying to remain optimistic. “It has been a tough day in the sense that we've not done enough miles@," he added.
"I came here hoping to do more laps, to get in a good 100-odd laps, to get in a race distance. Usually at this time of the year this is when we come with pit stops and one or two race distances a day, but we were nowhere near even completing one.”
Last season McLaren were the 3rd team in contention for the world championship. As Red Bull took everyone by surprise, at the start of the season with blistering pace. Ferrari did well to catch on, but McLaren took a lot longer to get the modifications and
upgrades right. By the time they thought they were ready to compete the two teams had taken a big lead ahead of them. Apart from that there have been well publicised internal issues within the team. The two former Champions in the team, Lewis Hamilton and
Jenson Button have fallen out from time to time. And the most famous incident last season was seen at the Turkish Grand Prix. Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber ran into each other, Hamilton and Button took advantage and got first and 2nd place respectively.
When the team asked both to slow down and consume fuel, Button overtook Hamilton and even though Hamilton got his place back and won the race. There was a lot of bad blood between the two drivers. So McLaren would have to work not just on the car, but on
the relationship between the two drivers if they look to mount a serious challenge for the championship this season.
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