McLaren keeps fingers crossed for Singapore
Martin Whitmarsh believes that forecasting any name for this year’s Formula One world title is a tough thing at the moment even though the season has reached its last and final stage.
The top five drivers of the season stand at a difference of just twenty four points from each other so far. Mark Webber, the Red Bull driver leads the charts with one hundred and eighty seven points, while McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton
follows him, short of just five points. The third place has been recently occupied by Fernando Alonso with one hundred and sixty six points while Jenson Button of McLaren stands a place behind him, with a difference of only a single point. Sebastian Vettel
of Red Bull has taken fifth place, shy of only two points from Button- a strange and exciting situation indeed.
With fourteen races of the season already gone and only five remaining, awe and suspense for the title is reaching its climax and one can say only one thing for sure, the suspense will keep mounting till the last race of the season.
Such a tight situation has not been witnessed in Formula One since 1981, when the top five drivers separated from each other with just seven points.
Whitmarsh while looking at the charts proclaimed that he has not witnessed such a situation many times in his entire career and now he is thrilled with the way the battle is shaping with every passing race as normally there are
only two strong teams or two drivers that carry on the fight during the last few rounds.
Such simple races might be great ones for the teams or the drivers however the drama and action brought by the drivers this year, always excites the fans and race followers much more. Five drivers and three teams at the tug for
the title means thousands and thousands of fans being involved in every race, busy biting their nails as their jaws get dropping after each lap.
He excitedly added, "So to predict the outcome of this championship would be a very brave thing to do."
He further kept on saying that for this year there is only one key to success, "If you're confident or complacent then you really will not get the job done.”
He says that at this situation a little stress is important to keep them on the move, "You can never be confident because Red Bull and Ferrari are strong teams who are going to keep improving their cars, so we've got to keep improving
ours. We've just got to continue striving to make our car quicker and better, to try and minimise mistakes because that's how you win championships."
The fifteenth race of the season is scheduled to take place this weekend in Singapore which will be very essential for McLaren as the Marina Bay is a low-speed, high-down force track that is not expected to suit McLaren much.
The Marina Bay Street circuit is much similar to Monaco and Hungaroring tracks and at both these venues the British team has shown poor performance earlier this year, bagging only ten and four points respectively.
However, Whitmarsh believes that the changes brought to the package since the Hungarian Grand Prix in August will work well for the team or otherwise their hope for the title can be dimmed badly.
"It's the first race at a low-speed, high-downforce track since the Hungaroring back in August. It is also the first high-downforce track we've visited since the FIA tightened up its regulations on flexible bodywork. So it's likely
to give us a much clearer idea of the respective pace of the leading teams after two less representative events in Belgium and Italy.”
Well, three more days to go and we will witness cruel battle of cars at the brutal arena of Marina Bay.
Tags: