McLaren hopeful for a strong comeback in 2011 with its MP4-26 car
After having struggled for pace all through the 2010 season, the British team, McLaren seems pretty confident for its 2011 car. The team’s chief engineer, Tim Goss proclaimed earlier today that things are "looking very good" and
there is a lot of space for the team to come up with innovative designs to challenge their rivals next year.
The British team’s factory is very busy preparing for next year’s car. Only yesterday (Friday) both the team drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button went to the team’s Head Quarters to have their seat fittings. What the drivers see so far, in their next
year’s car, the MP4-26, feels very impressive to them. However, the chief engineer reckons that the boys will be happier once they see the final product, although he didn’t want to make any claims beforehand.
While talking to the media earlier today he said, "It's looking very good. We can't say much about it at the moment, but Doug [McKiernan, chief aerodynamicist] and his team have done a great job of creating the aerodynamic platform for the car, and it is
looking good."
Moreover, it is sad for the team that the f-duct will be banned for the upcoming season, as McLaren was the pioneer of it on the 2010 grid. However, they believe that there still other reasons to be happy about. The return of the Kinetic Energy Recovery
Systems (KERS) in the sport after a year’s time is very encouraging for the British squad. In 2009, McLaren ran the system along with some of the other teams but at the start of this season KERS was banned by FIA due to cost optimisation. However, last year
also McLaren had the best system in the series and the team is once again hopeful to be very strong with this system again next season.
While talking to the media earlier today Goss said, “It is good, and it is nice that there are still those niches around. There is always room in the regulations for innovation, and making Championship winning cars is about doing that. [The F-duct] was a
grey area and we had to properly explore the regulations. All credit to Charlie [Whiting] and the FIA that they didn't back away from it. They heard the arguments, believed them and let us get on with it. They were fully up to speed before we raced it."
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