McLaren not willing to change its strategy for the 2011 season
McLaren has been performing pretty well this season however, the team has struggled vitally to perform consistently and it seems that they are having a tough time racing at the Asian circuits in the second half of the 2010 season. The team has not been able
to match the pace of Red Bull, the constructors’ champions this year and it seems that they were not even trying to figure out what the problem was with their car.
McLaren seem satisfied with their car and performance as a result in the 2010 season even though they have not even been able to match the pace of Ferrari. It was quite clear that the Ferraris were comparatively much faster than the two McLarens and Lewis
Hamilton and Jenson Button are just trying their best to finish behind the Red Bulls and Ferraris rather than finish ahead of them.
The team is struggling to perform aggressively even though they vow race after race that they will compete actively and competitively against the Red Bulls and Ferraris. However, it seems that McLaren has a very good piece of machinery but they are struggling
to pull out the best performance out of it.
Despite their inconsistency, McLaren stated that they have no plans of changing their approach for the coming year. The team has been unable to achieve the constructors’ title since 12 years and since Lewis Hamilton has the most unlikely chance of winning
the title at the final race in Abu Dhabi, McLaren’s chances of winning the drivers’ title also seem bleak.
"[Team Principal Martin] Whitmarsh has said previously that if you want a fundamental change in the outcome, you need a fundamental change in the process. Well, processes are put in place by people so presumably there will be changes afoot?” David Coulthard
told the media after judging the team’s performance in the second half of this season.
David thinks that McLaren are not a team in a situation like this and they cannot do anything else to enhance their performance. McLaren’s managing director Jonathan Neil echoed Coulthard’s number but hopes that the team evolves constantly.
“We change all the time. Certainly we'll go back and look at where we might have made more gains, but I wouldn't say we do that just after the last race,” Jonathan told the McLaren Mercedes phone-in.
He believes that McLaren constantly work for new ideas and methods throughout the year and the team hopes to achieve unique results in the future. However, the team has not ruled out its chances of winning the drivers’ title in Abu Dhabi.
The managing director is aware that Red Bull had a much quicker car than McLaren since the beginning of the season as they scored 5 1-2’s and their performance has been quite epic in terms of stats and pace. The main reason why McLaren was unable to match
Red Bull’s pace was that they had a lot of reliability issues and unlucky incidents in the final half of the season. However, the team clearly has what it takes to get back on the top in the coming seasons.
“We're in there fighting with Ferrari for second place in the constructors' championship, which isn't bad at all, and we're going to go and do that to the best of our ability this weekend and treat this race like we do every other race - we'd like to win
it. That will be our objective,” said Jonathan.
He is aware that it is going to be a tough and unpredictable race at Abu Dhabi and since Formula 1 always offers a unique experience each year, one can expect anything to happen at the grand finale at the Yas Marina circuit.
“I think rain is unlikely, so it should be a conventional race in that sense. I think reliability will play a big part as we get closer to the end of the season, people are taking risks. It'll be hot, dry and dusty; it's going to be close,” Neil said.
It is going to be pretty tight in Abu Dhabi as the top four will battle it out to determine the 2010 Formula 1 world champion.
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