McLaren unsure about F-duct at Monza
After the success of McLaren’s famous F-duct invention, MP4-25 according to experts is expected to be the best car in the coming two races at Spa-Francorchamps and Monza. McLaren’s Managing Director Jonathan Neale stated the team is not concerned about the decision regarding the use of F-duct at Monza. According to some reports this week, it was concluded that McLaren might not use the F-duct at Monza, keeping in mind Monza is the track where the drag-reducing device will provide the biggest advantage. However, according to Neale, The decision is still pending and the team will check how it performs at Spa.
“I'm certainly not worried. I read that on Monday morning, as well and there were a few of us raising our eyebrows when we were looking at that. We have the option to either run it or not. I think that at the moment we are just looking at all the options, I think it's incorrect to assume that we have made any decision of whether we are or whether we are not - we will have the choice. We will watch carefully where the end-of-straight speeds come out during the Spa weekend, see how competitive we are and then we will make decisions in the following week but the nice thing is that we've got options”, Neale told the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes phone-in.
McLaren started its journey in Formula 1 in 1966 but was not able to score its first win until 1968. The team won its first Championship in 1974 with the help of Emerson Fittipaldi. The team used the Ford engine until 1983 before shifting to TAG. The TAG engine proved to suite the team very well as they won 2 championships in the years 1984 and 1985. McLaren came very close to winning the title again in the following two years as they finished at the second spot and helped Alain Prost win two titles as well. McLaren shifted to Honda in 1988 and won 4 Championships with the help of the Legendary Ayton Senna, Alan Prost and Gerald 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 out of which it won 1 with the Mercedes engine and hopes to win another this year.
However, McLaren’s Managing Director said that the decision of taking the F-duct off the vehicle could be made if the team believes that the MP4-25 can achieve better results by setting a normal low-downforce wing configuration.
“It all depends on where you want to be for total aero efficiency. Monza and Spa are lower downforce circuits but there does tend to be a little bit of a herd instinct going on in F1 as to where downforce is set or where end-of-straight speed is set. Also I think that other teams have F-ducts and other teams are performing quite well in a straight line. So if we think we can get an advantage from it we will run it but if by either taking the weight out of the system or by making the rear wing inherently more efficient and still achieving the same on the end-of-straight speed that we can run a different wing for Monza then we will do that. But it's in the fine tuning, it's certainly not going to make a difference between winning and not. It's relatively small stuff because it's such a low downforce circuit”, Neale added.
McLaren is still in the hunt for both titles as they trail Red Bull by just 8 points and Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton are in the hunt for the drivers’ title as they are in the 4th and 2nd position respectively. Lewis is just 4 points behind leader Mark Webber and Jenson Button is 14 points behind the Australian. These decisions will matter the most and McLaren should play their cards carefully if they want to win more titles.
Tags: