McLaren optimistic about tests
McLaren is one of the strongest teams in this season as the team is currently in 2nd place just 8 points behind Red Bull with 304 points. The team scored its best performance in China, Turkey and Canada scoring 43 points in each of these races. The team was not able to perform well in the Hungarian Grand Prix and has been concerned about it since.
McLaren introduced an innovative creation by the name of F-duct that helped the team secure the lead in the beginning of the season. But have fallen behind in the 2010 development race after introducing their version of the blown diffuser. They have struggled to match their rivals Red Bull and Ferrari in recent races and that caused the team to lose its lead in the last round.
McLaren’s team Principal Martin Whitmarsh believes that the team will tap into the performance gains, which are buried within their car MP4-25 and its latest updates, before this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix.
“As we’ve always stated, we believe there are some large areas of performances locked within the car and its recent upgrade, and we are confident that our solid-engineering approach will enable us to fully unlock them sooner rather than later”, Martin said.
Professionals criticized McLaren’s delay in technological advancements as their rival teams Red Bull and Ferrari have moved on to the ‘flexible’ front wings. McLaren has still not perfected the blown-diffuser concept that was introduced by Red Bull in the beginning of the season while Ferrari’s has it working for several races now.
“While we believe our recent upgrades have given us a down-force improvement, it appears that the package hasn’t yet delivered to its full potential, particularly in terms of providing the drivers with a consistent, confidence-delivering platform,” admitted Whitmarsh.
McLaren will not be able to test their technology further before next weekend at Spa-Francorchamps in order to optimise their updated MP4-25 package. The team might have conducted significant development over the summer break as the teams were obligated to shutdown their factories during this time.
Whitmarsh explained that the team was able to carry out some useful evaluative tests during practice in Hungary that provided the team with some useful data and avenues for their experimentation. He added that the team will have to take those results further in Spa and run floor rakes during practice to supply the team with more information.
The other reason why McLaren is optimistic about the future is that the downtime since Hungary, enabled the team to maintain work on their wind tunnel. Spectators believe the stricter front wing rigidity tests will be introduced at Spa that could play into McLaren’s hands, as it will force their rivals to revise their cars.
Keeping aside their recent woes, McLaren are still in the hunt for both titles as they trail Red Bull by just 8 points. Button and Hamilton are also in the hunt for the Drivers’ title as they are in 4th and 2nd position, respectively.
McLaren started its journey in Formula 1 in 1966 and won its first Championship in 1974. The team used the Ford engine until 1983 before shifting to TAG. The TAG engine proved to suit the team as they won 2 championships during this time. McLaren shifted to Honda in 1988 and won 4 Championships with the help of the legendary Ayrton Senna, Alan Prost and Gerhard Berger. In 1995 the team shifted to Mercedes and has been using its engines ever since. The team has won 8 Championships in its 43 year journey and hopes to win another this year.
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