McLaren adamant to beat Mark Webber in Korea
The British team, McLaren could not afford to have anything less than a 1-2 finish at the upcoming Korean Grand Prix in order to come back to the title contention. Or on the other hand, they need to wish some hard luck to the Red Bull driver, Mark Webber
for if he ends the day ahead of the two McLaren drivers; their chances for the title would die out.
The British driver, Lewis Hamilton currently stands at 4th place in the Drivers’ Championship, being 28 points shy of Webber, the charts’ leader. Whereas, the second team driver, Jenson Button timidly stands at fifth place in the championship,
31 points adrift the apex.
With only there more races to go this season and just 75 more points to play off, both the team drivers now need to finish at the podium to bounce back in the tug of the title in full force.
McLaren has not been able to show great pace in the past few races often being far from catching Red Bull, especially at the last two races. Now, as the team moves ahead for yet another very awe-inspiring and nerve-tickling race, the team's principal race
engineer Phil Prew openly showed concern for the pace of their car in comparison to the Red Bull’s RB6.
Of course, the team knows that they have to finish ahead of both the Red Bull drivers, Weber and Sebastian Vettel and also there is the big threat of Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso. The Italian team has also shown great pace in the past few races and above
all their car has a great adaptability at all types of tracks.
The characteristics of the last two tracks in Singapore and Japan, did not suit their MP4-25 well as they stood behind both their competitive teams. However, now they have better hopes from the forthcoming race in South Korea. Though the early reports of
the track show a very positive picture yet one cannot say anything for certain about the track as it is yet to hold its maiden race.
As per the initial reports of the track it theoretically suits the teams’ package as Prew says, "To be honest it's a very good combination of quite a few different sorts of circuit. It has some long straights with big stops, which is not dissimilar to Canada
and should suit our car. Sector two is a bit like Turkey, where we performed quite well and the final sector would typically be on a very high downforce circuit, a bit more like Hungary perhaps.”
He further continued telling, “If I had to say which car it would favour, I would actually say it was quite a neutral circuit and there are aspects of the track that will favour every one of the top teams. It just depends whether we can gain enough in the
high-speed section to compensate, perhaps, for the strengths of the Red Bull in the long corners that we see towards the end of the lap.”
Moreover, McLaren is also running the last of its updates for the 2010 season at this race. Though these upgradations were actually planned to be used in Japan however, due to the series of mishaps they faced at the last round in Suzuka they were not able
to utilise it to the best.
Prew concluded saying that the problems they faced with its new rear wing earlier this month at the Japanese Grand Prix have been fixed. They would use the new rear wing at the first practice on Friday while further tests, that were cut short in Suzuka will
also be carried this weekend.
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