McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh praises Pirelli: Formula One news
McLaren’s team principal Martin Whitmarsh has praised Pirelli for developing tyres that have provided competitive and thrilling racing to the Formula One fans. He also gave some credit to the Drag Reduction System (DRS) and the Kinetic Energy recovery System
(KERS), which have helped the drivers in overtaking manoeuvres.
Whitmarsh stated, “What has been developed now, and you have to give credit to Pirelli for it, is that with a combination of Pirelli tyres, the DRS and KERS, we have now had two races at circuits that historically without rain have not generated excitement
and we have had two cracking races.”
The Brit further added, “It is easy - you are on a knife-edge of trying to determine strategy. You get it a little bit wrong and it is sufficiently tight that you really suffer from it. The tyres are a challenge – but that is a challenge for the teams, a
challenge for the engineers and a challenge for the drivers.”
However, Whitmarsh was not worried about the challenge, saying that it was good for the sport. McLaren were able to win their first race of the 2011 season in China and claimed that strategy was as important as the upgrades.
The Vodafone sponsored team brought some changes to its floor and exhaust system for the Chinese GP, but they were still unable to match the pace of Red Bull in the qualifiers.
Reigning champion Sebastian Vettel scored his third consecutive pole of the season in as many races. He was followed by McLaren drivers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton. Although the British drivers were unable to outpace their rival in the qualifying session,
they managed to do that in the race.
All teams had to decide between a two and three-stop strategy and the outcome of the race clearly indicated that the teams stopping thrice benefited the most. Unfortunately for Vettel, his team chose to change his tyres twice and that cost him the opportunity
to win the race.
Red Bull’s team principal echoed the words of Whitmarsh, saying that strategy would be crucial in order to determine the outcome of the season. He claimed that his team was one of the best when it came to determining race strategies.
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