McLaren out-gunned in development war

Many veteran F1B’ers will know that I am a Ferrari fan but they also will know that I have the utmost respect for McLaren and their ability to develop a car during the season…especially with no in-season testing. The team have come a long way over the years and have even seen their share of misfires with the still-born MP4-18. Although that was a low point, the team have always been terrific at engineering a car and the last few years have seen no exception. Today’s comments from McLaren Managing Director Jonathan Neale have to be a bit difficult to admit:

“I think we were out-developed around Easter time by some of our competitors and I think we have out developed our competitors through June,” Neale said. “July and August are still being played out so we will see. There is only a tenth or two separating each car over a lap, so it is still very marginal. “It is exciting for the fans and spectators with many different drivers winning different races and different teams coming to the fore and dropping back again and we look forward to that. “The last race was obviously very pleasing. It was the 150th pole position for the team which we should be very proud of. Lewis showed good pace in Hungary. I think that the updates we brought to the car in Germany and Hungary have definitely increased a degree of competitiveness to us, but we can’t take anything for granted.

“It was very pleasing to see Jenson in fourth place having a strong qualifying as well. So we have reasons to believe we are making progress but it was a very tight race and I think it will be in the next few races as well.” Pit-stop blunders cost McLaren points during the first half of the season, but, they bounced back to regularly top the stop times, including the fastest ever stop in Hockenheim. “I am really pleased with how the team have got around the pit stops,” Neal added. “Obviously it is nice to have quick pit stops, but, we want to have consistency. There is no point in having 2.31 seconds one week then six and seven seconds the next.”

Judging by Jenson button’s recent surge and Lewis Hamilton’s win in Hungary, you’d have to agree that the team may be on the verge of a serious development comeback and could be the team to beat in the second half of the season but as McLaren have progressed, so too have Red Bull, Ferrari and quite refreshingly, Lotus F1.