McLaren struggling to score quick lap times in Brazil
Both Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button were able to give a decent performance during the second practice session on Friday but they were clearly nowhere near the two Red Bulls in terms of pace.
McLaren has been struggling when it comes to qualifying and strangely enough; they have not scored a single pole position since the beginning of this season.
Statistics
Lewis Hamilton finished in 3rd place in the first session while his teammate Jenson Button finished right behind him in 4th place. In the second practice session on Friday, the McLarens looked comparatively sloppy as Lewis finished
in 4th place behind Fernando Alonso while his teammate finished in 7th place behind Robert Kubica. Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button qualified in 4th and 7th places respectively for the inaugural Korean Grand Prix
but Lewis managed to finish in 2nd place thanks to the retirements of the two Red Bull drivers.
Season’s statistics
Lewis Hamilton is currently in 3rd place in the drivers’ standings with 210 points while his teammate Jenson Button is in 5th place with 189 points. Jenson is 42 points behind the championship leader Fernando Alonso while Lewis is just
21 points behind him.
Analysis
Lewis Hamilton recently admitted that his McLaren is still not performing up to the mark and its downforce needs to be adjusted in order to match the Red Bulls and Ferraris in terms of pace.
The British driver believes that if the Brazilian Grand Prix has a wet qualifying session, he might be able to take the edge on his rivals but that is not likely to happen this time. However, according to the weather forecast, rain is expected to hit the
track sometime in the weekend.
“The car felt good today - I'm getting everything out of it - but I still felt it needs just a little more downforce. Still, I'm optimistic for qualifying tomorrow - especially if it rains, which I'm told it probably will,” said Hamilton.
He believes that this year’s car has been performing up to the mark in wet conditions and McLaren is better than the Red Bulls to say the least in wet conditions.
“In terms of pure pace in the dry, the Red Bull looks very quick. But a number of factors will play a part in deciding how things pan out in the next two grands prix - weather, engines, reliability - so it's all still up for grabs,” he added.
However, his teammate Jenson Button believes that McLaren has been struggling vitally in terms of pace as the team has not been able to secure a single pole position in 17 races this season. McLaren has clearly not been the fastest car on technical tracks,
even though they have one of the fastest straight-line speeds this season thanks to the F-duct they introduced, but the team has been struggling to hit the right braking points flawlessly. Maybe it’s the cars, but could it be the drivers? Either way, the team
needs to work on its qualifying performance if they want to win either of the two titles.
Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel have been the ultimate duo this year as they have exchanged a number of poles and wins throughout the season. However, the team has been having some conflicts within itself recently, which is never good before a race weekend.
Nevertheless, McLaren’s team boss Martin Whitmarsh stated that both of the drivers are satisfied with their cars and McLaren will race to win. McLaren desperately needs a win to recover from the point’s deficit, otherwise the team will have a tough time
recovering in the final race and since McLaren is on the edge of a nail, they must at least finish the race and secure some good points to take the championship run to the grand finale in Abu Dhabi.
Tags: