Martin Whitmarsh blames strategy for poor weekend in Canada – Formula 1 news
Martin Whitmarsh believes that a wrong tyre strategy cost McLaren a chance to score any points in the Canadian GP.
According to the team boss, “The whole weekend was a difficult one. We weren't quick enough. After qualifying, which didn't go well for us, it was difficult for us to recover from that. With hindsight we should have started on the prime, and we should have
pushed harder on the prime because it was a much more durable and much quicker tyre than we anticipated.”
He added, “We could have got into the points, but we didn't. We didn't plan it well, but we certainly weren't quick enough anyway to be up with the frontrunners. We should have scored some points, but we weren't fast enough this weekend.”
Before coming to Canada, McLaren were confident of scoring some solid points, as the team had improved their pace in the previous round of the season in Monaco. Both their drivers Jenson Button and Sergio Perez managed to cause problems for their rivals
in the narrow streets of Monte Carlo, but the latter was unable to finish in points because of an accident towards the end of the race.
Despite that, there were a lot of positives for the British outfit and it appeared that they would be in a position to fight for the top-six positions in Canada. However, that did not happen because of a poor qualifying show from the drivers followed by
poor planning on race day.
This would have been extremely disappointing for the entire team, which was fighting for the championship last year. They had high hopes from their drivers this year, but the car was simply not fast enough to battle at the front.
As a result, Force India have managed to stay ahead of McLaren in the Constructors’ Championship. The former of the two teams encountered a few issues during the qualifying session in Montreal, especially with driver Paul di Resta, who was knocked out in
Q1, managing the 17th fastest time.
However, a good tyre strategy helped the British driver secure seventh place in the race, which was a surprise for some of the other teams like McLaren.
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