McLaren’s first impression of the Korean International Circuit
The teams arrived in Korea this week as they are expected to hit the track this weekend for the inaugural race at the Korean Grand Prix.
McLaren had no major concerns about the surface of the track in Korean after they inspected the track after arriving for this weekend’s grand prix. However, they are expecting various grip level changes as the weekend progresses.
The Korean International Circuit was approved by the FIA inspection team just two weeks ago after the final surface layer was delayed due to bad weather. There were many concerns that the tarmac has not had enough time to cure and it could
result to an oil overflow to the surface or the track or it could break up altogether.
Nevertheless, after taking a look at the circuit, McLaren’s principal race engineer Phil Prew seems satisfied and said that it looked up to spec.
“I actually walked the circuit this morning with the other engineers, and I have to say I was very impressed with what I saw. The track itself and the kerbs and run-off all looked pretty good. The track surface itself - although it has
been recently laid and it is a bit of an unknown - I don't think looked too bad and it wasn't particularly greasy underfoot,” he told the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes phone-in.
He believes that it looked smooth from what he could see and it was well laid making it consistent all the way round the circuit. The engineer stated that it would still be a challenge for the teams but not an impossible task.
“In terms of how it develops and how the cars interact with it, it is going to be guess work. It's going to evolve very quickly through the first session and then we can expect it to continue to improve all the way through qualifying and
the race,” he said.
For McLaren, this means that they would have to be careful about their set-up work and the changes they make will be vital as whatever they do could be influenced more by the track’s evolution than the changes made to the car as a result.
The team will face the same problem during the qualifying session. They will have to be prepared that the track could be improve quickly and therefore a lap set at the beginning of Q1 might not be sufficient by the time the teams reach
the end of Q1 necessarily.
“Even in Q3, the desire to do your lap right at the end of the session will be there. I think track evolution will be the big player and we just have to do what we always do and adapt the car to the conditions that we might find, but
we might just have to adapt more quickly here,” he added.
He claims that there was also an opportunity to take some risks with the set-up by predicting how the grip levels are constantly changing on the track. Prew thinks that if the track’s grip is poor then a higher down force solution may
work but some of the risk taking drivers might want to go with a lower down force level and expect the grip level on the track to improve with due time to put themselves in a strong position to overtake. There are many possibilities about the set-up of the
cars and McLaren would be looking in to all of them after evaluating the conditions of the track in order to take the advantage of the best possible opportunities during the race.
McLaren is currently 45 points behind the constructors’ championship leaders Red Bull. However, both McLaren drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button have a great chance of winning the title as they are in 4th and
5th places respectively in the drivers’ standings. With just 31 points separating the top 5, the Korean Grand Prix is going to be one of the ground-shaking races of this season.
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