McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale defends sporting director Sam Michael – Formula 1 news
McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale has defended the team’s sporting director, Sam Michael who has also been blamed for the issues which hindered the performance of their drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button in the last three grands prix.
The fans of the Woking based team held Sam liable for all the mistakes happened in the last several races. However, Neale has showed support for Sam and said that he has been working really hard to improve the performance of the team.
“Sam is settling into a very different role from his previous one and he's doing very good job. He's spending most of his times looking at operational excellence and also sporting decision support during race weekends helping Martin on the frontline,” he
said.
McLaren are presently standing at second place in the constructors’ championship with 108 points. Moreover, they are 38 points behind the defending champions, Red Bull Racing and 22 points ahead of Ferrari and Lotus.
Meanwhile, Hamilton has been one of the most consistent drivers in the season until now as he secured third podium finish in the first three grands prix. Contrarily, he faced difficulties with the poor pit stop strategy in two of the last three races due
to which he lost some crucial time and could not convert his competitive grid positions into a podium finish in either of them.
On the other hand, Button took an amazing victory in the season opener and secured an impressive second podium finish in the third race. However, he could only score 2 points in the last three races as he struggled with the car’s setup and tyre management.
Nonetheless, Neale said that they are trying to make the essential advancements and the necessary preparations to improve the pace of their car for the season ahead. He also said that they are confidently looking forward to perform well in 2012 Canadian
GP.
“In Formula One, when you've put car on front row or on pole position, any operational mistake is incredibly painful and costly. But anyone who is actually doing maths and charting where quickest stop times are coming from, you'll see that we are consistently
improving and will improve again during the course of this weekend,” he said.
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