It’s been quite a while since we’ve spoken of McLaren in flattering terms and that’s not by choice, mind you, rather a lack of things to talk about. I was reading Ben Anderson’s nice piece over at AUTOSPORT today and was pleasantly surprised to be honest.
It seems that everyone’s favorite head of vehicle performance (no, not Seb), Rob Smedley, says that he’s very keen to examine just how McLaren were able to blow Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas back like Marty McFly with his Chiquita guitar and giant amplifier in Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix.
You have to feel a little flattered to have another team intent on figuring out why you’re so fast in the rain. I guess Jenson Button doesn’t factor in the equation for Rob because he said:
“When you have so much water on the track and the corners become so much longer and the straights so much shorter, they’re bound to have a better car.
“From a performance point of view, what we have to think about is the McLaren, because they were certainly very quick, and that’s not the case when we go to street circuits.”
I’m going to just throw this out there, Rob. I suspect Jenson is, as has been proven, a bit of a rainmeister and he can hustle a car in the wet. The McLaren has better performance in the wet and in a higher downforce configuration because of it. That’s been played out quite a bit this year on high downforce circuits where the Williams hasn’t faired as well.
Let’s just scrap the technical stuff and chalk it up to Jense and foster some notion of saving his career in F1 shall we? Okay, maybe it’s not all Jenson but he’s like Rain-X out there. Stuff just sheets off of him and he even makes it look kind of easy at times. Not Easy Bake Oven easy but still, a 100 watt light bulb and cake batter nonetheless.
Hat tip: AUTOSPORT
