Saturday Report: McLaren Mercedes: A Good Step Forward
McLaren Mercedes had a poor start to the year, with a car that was neither reliable nor fast during winter testing. The team worked very hard to solve their issues, and the good performance of McLaren seen in Melbourne is confirmed this weekend.
After a practice session where Lewis Hamilton showed his good form along with his McLaren, he and Jenson Button confirmed this impression during qualifying by securing positions on the first two rows.
Lewis Hamilton 2nd 1:34.974
« It wasn’t a perfect lap – I lost a tenth and a half in turn 14, so we are closer to the best than we thought, which is good for us. I’m really happy to be so close. I hope I have a better start than I did in Melbourne, so we can have a real fight and I’ll have a chance to challenge Sebastian at the first corner, and during the opening laps.
It looks like it’s going to be a 3-stop race tomorrow. The weather was dry the last two days, so I hope it will be the same tomorrow. Being in front helps when it rains, and it also gives us more opportunities to make a step forward. I have no doubt that we can outpace Red Bull in the development race, it’s just a matter of time. We need to keep pushing and bring new elements for the races, we need to push the car to the maximum.
Jenson Button 4th 1:35.200
« I just would have hoped that Q2 was Q3, but it wasn’t the case. I had a bit of oversteer in Q3, but it was due to the direction I took with my settings. The balance was quite good, but I pushed the tires a bit too hard in the last sector, and that dropped me to fourth place.
It might be good tomorrow, we are closer to the Red Bull than most people thought, and there’s a good gap between us and the people behind us, so it should be a race between the four of us tomorrow.
Our start wasn’t great in Melbourne. I hope we’ll be better this time, we have a very good KERS system, so hopefully, that will help us really attack in the first corner. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow, the weather has been calm for the last two days. And if it’s a dry race, we should really be able to compete with the Red Bull.
Martin Whitmarsh
« Our two drivers really drove well this afternoon. Lewis missed the pole by just a tenth of a second, and Jenson qualified right behind in fourth position. Clearly, we are encouraged by our position here, but there is no magic. Formula 1 truly happens on all fronts, and I want to thank everyone in Woking for working so hard to enable us to improve our performance as we saw today.
We believe that our race pace should be good enough to allow us to aim for the victory, and that is clearly our goal. But it’s going to be close with the Red Bull, there is no doubt about it.
Since the race started at 4:00 PM, rain has been a possibility, as it rained quite a bit at this time earlier in the week. But we, at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, hope there will be no rain because we believe we are on pace if the race takes place in dry conditions.
