McLaren F1 is Struggling to Convince Doubters and Detractors.

by charlesolaleye | March 21, 2011 at 09:48 am

158 views | 2 Recommendations | 0 comments

By Charles Oladeji.

Four days before Australian GP practice, six days before the actual race, and McLaren F1 still finds itself struggling to convince its fans, it detractors, its competitors and objective commentators, that the 2011 season will be anything but uncompetitive washout for its U side-pod MP4-26.

Despite drama and high expectations accentuated by the delay in the car’s public launch, the 2011 car has failed to convince many outside McLaren that it’ll stand a chance against its opposition’s battle readiness. Add to that, adapting to new tyre compounds with high level of degradation.

If it was just about tweaking car at this late stage, then that would be somewhat acceptable. It’d give Mclaren ‘watchers’ some sense of confidence in the cars’ competitive edge. However, what is currently taking place is a profound structural change that’s been described as ‘dramatic alterations’, in order to keep the pace with Ferrari and Red Bull.

Recent news that McLaren has decided to shelve a radically designed exhaust and adopted simpler design with less than a week to go till the 2011 opening race seems to fall in line with a negative narrative being attached to McLaren’s failure to measure up to its competitors during testing. Only one F1 team, Hispania Racing Team (HRT) put in less testing laps than McLaren before the Bahrain GP got cancelled earlier this month. Hispania Racing is so far behind, it will use the Australian GP as a test ground for their new F111 car.

Yet, McLaren still insist that they have a car that can compete while time is runs out. Pessimism is beginning to gain ground amongst supporters, who can’t help but notice that Ferrari and RBR seem ready to rumble, even if Team Principal Martin Whitmarsh and Lewis Hamilton insist that they have a good car.

Nonetheless, Martin Whitmarsh acknowledges that McLaren is cutting it thin saying ‘we hope the risks we have taken come off and we are competitive’. But, ‘hoping’ things come out right against Alonso, Vettel, and Pirelli tires simply won’t do, McLaren know it.

The discouraging news that a much anticipated game changing radical exhaust has been scraped for a ‘simpler design’ is another cause for despondency amongst Mclaren admirers who can’t abide Ferrari’s cocky confidence in its F150. What’s more, the floor of the McLaren car will also undergoing changes, while the team searches for a way to address the car being about ‘a second’ off racing pace.

Regarding the exhaust, the F1 rumour-mill (Blogshpere) had been hinting an engineering loophole that would provide Mclaren with an advantage going into 2011, before eventually being discovered by the FiA. There’d been a rumour of ceramic boxes, multiple exhaust outlets called the ‘Octopus’, and ‘creative ideas’ involving a heat resistant material called ‘Pyrosic’ (which is on the FiA’s banned material list).

But optimism is dissipating as the ever changing MP4-26 set up has proved one bad fit following another. The time consumed has made it almost impossible counter critics like BBC’s F1 pundits. The Drivers’ general assessment of the Pirelli tyres during the limited testing laps hasn’t been encouraging either; so even if they get the car structurally competitive, McLaren still need to find the right tyre strategy.

On the other hand, Red Bull Racing is ready, Ferrari are ready and angry; Pirelli has launched it tyre wall colours, Red, Yellow, White, Silver, Blue, Orange. Pirelli appears ready. What will McLaren bring?