Berger: “McLaren is the best team”
Even though it was Red Bull that dominated the titles in the last two Formula 1 seasons, Gerhard Berger believes that the Austrian team is not yet on McLaren's level. The Woking team is the current benchmark in F1 according to him.
Gerhard Berger believes that the McLaren team is the best Formula 1 team at the moment, even though Red Bull has been dominating the sport for the past two seasons. The former F1 driver, who raced for McLaren from 1990 to 1992, considers the Woking team’s structure to be the most advanced.
Even without a genius designer like Adrian Newey, McLaren’s engineers always manage to design good race cars. For Berger, it’s a sign of the team’s technical strength.
Currently, McLaren is the best team. They don’t have (Adrian) Newey, yet they consistently manage to build good cars. This shows that they have a very strong team of engineers, Gerhard Berger told Auto Motor und Sport.
Beyond the presence of very good engineers, Gerhard Berger believes that the Mercedes engine is also a great help, as well as the two very good drivers currently racing for McLaren: Jenson Button, 2009 world champion, and Lewis Hamilton, 2008 world champion.
«With Mercedes, they have the best engine on the grid and a very good pair of drivers (with Button and Hamilton).»
Gerhard Berger also mentioned Scuderia Ferrari, for whom he drove between 1987 and 1989. He believes that the Italian team is in a period similar to his era, with a few wins during the season. Far from its illustrious Todt-Schumacher-Brawn period of the early 2000s.
Now, they (Ferrari) are back to where they were in my time, winning one race per season and finishing in third place (in the constructors’ championship). The success between these two periods was really linked to these four people (Todt, Schumacher, Brawn, and Byrne). Now, the best thing for them would probably be to bring Adrian Newey from Red Bull. Aerodynamics is so important, added Berger.
