McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale says team on track with MP4-27 for 2012 – Formula 1 news
McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale says that the team is taking calculated risks in order to come up with the right balance for the their latest edition of the car for the 2012 season.
While Red Bull dominated much of the 2010 and 2011 season, McLaren were the only team to come close to it, although the gap was still wide enough that they were not able to give them any trouble in claiming their second back-to-back title.
McLaren though are wary of their adversary and are trying to come up with a car that can give them the pace and reliability required to trump the leaders of the grid. At the moment, Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari are the stand out teams who are considered
the favourites for the top three slots.
Neale said McLaren are trying to close the gap with their MP4-27, but conceded that he is expecting to see a number of different ideas on show during the first pre-season test.
“We're in the business of taking controlled risk,” Neale said at the Autosport International Show. “F1 is not a business where you can afford to relax at any moment of time. At the moment, we have no idea of the competition. There will be various interpretations
of the rules as set out by the FIA, as we saw at the beginning of last year.”
Some of the regulation changes made by FIA means that all the teams will be starting almost equally but it is the research and development that has been done over time that produces good results and so far Red Bull has led the way with the evolutions of
their successful RB5.
“If you don't keep that relentless pressure of development up, you go backwards. Red Bull, Ferrari, ourselves and Mercedes have, over the years, got quite good at that development,” Neale explained.
It will be an interesting sighting come February when the first pre-season tests will take place. So far, Mercedes are the only team to have confirmed that they will not be participating in the first test and most teams have said that they are on track for
the first outing.
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