Vodaphone McLaren Mercedes MP4-24

[nudger]

Where will hamilton end (if no crash or failure) in the china gp?
I think that 6th place is possible. He can catch raik, alo and rosberg. In pure pace (Q2), lewis beated those three. And assuming that the mac can handle it's tyres better over the long stint, it might be possible. If Vettel breaks down, we might even see a 5th spot. Let's hope for the best.

Considering the pace of the mac: good updates and regarding to Q2, we went from 1,2 to 0.6 seconds. Hopefully we can close that gap over the next two races.
For this race, I have a feeling that the brawns have troubles with this track or they are holding something back. Because in Q2, vettel the fastest car out there is a bit odd.

im surprised they didnt do as alonso really...they reckon they can get 10 decent laps out of the options... would have been nice to see him be able to attack in a car thats a bit more to his liking.
fuel load as it is...i wouldnt even care to guess.

btw, pretty sure the wing flap on the macca is hydraulic, not electric

[ISLAMATRON]

im surprised they didnt do as alonso really...they reckon they can get 10 decent laps out of the options... would have been nice to see him be able to attack in a car thats a bit more to his liking.
fuel load as it is...i wouldnt even care to guess.

btw, pretty sure the wing flap on the macca is hydraulic, not electric

Alonso's strategy is not a good one... Can he really keep up with the RBR's on pure pace? hell no... so why go the same speed strategy with them? After he pits on lap 10 or so he wont even see there trick diffusers till the end of the race, unless they lap him. Hamilton on the other hand can hold position(or possibly improve on the start with KERS onboard) and has enough fuel on board that if a SC or rain comes he can take advantage of it. Hamilton can maybe attack at the end of the race when he is on the options which are half a sec per lap faster or more. Attacking off the start of the race is more difficult when you are in Q3 then when you are not., especially when most of the cars in front of you are cleary faster as is HAmilton's case.

Or maybe Flav does have a "crash now" button for Piquet

[shotzski]

Why is that Lewis' Mclaren fitted with updated aero, and Heikki does not??

[ISLAMATRON]

Why is that Lewis' Mclaren fitted with updated aero, and Heikki does not??

Because it would be a shame to waste all that work for less than a lap... haha... sorry I just had to.

[shotzski]

Hahaha poor Heikki. Just wish he pull it together and finish a decent race. He deserves it

[vasia]

Why is that Lewis' Mclaren fitted with updated aero, and Heikki does not??

Heikki tried out the updated aero components but did not see an improvement. Therefore for Heikki they are keeping some of the older aero.

[ringo]

heiki has a interim diffuser, not sure about the front wing.

[nudger]

im surprised they didnt do as alonso really...they reckon they can get 10 decent laps out of the options... would have been nice to see him be able to attack in a car thats a bit more to his liking.
fuel load as it is...i wouldnt even care to guess.

btw, pretty sure the wing flap on the macca is hydraulic, not electric

Alonso's strategy is not a good one... Can he really keep up with the RBR's on pure pace? hell no... so why go the same speed strategy with them? After he pits on lap 10 or so he wont even see there trick diffusers till the end of the race, unless they lap him. Hamilton on the other hand can hold position(or possibly improve on the start with KERS onboard) and has enough fuel on board that if a SC or rain comes he can take advantage of it. Hamilton can maybe attack at the end of the race when he is on the options which are half a sec per lap faster or more. Attacking off the start of the race is more difficult when you are in Q3 then when you are not., especially when most of the cars in front of you are cleary faster as is HAmilton's case.

Or maybe Flav does have a "crash now" button for Piquet

i dont really agree with you. the wet race of course changed everything, but in general, people who have a slower car and go agressive tend to get the biggest benefit, if things go their way. Go heavy and you may score points, but you rely on things happening rather than making them happen yourself. schumacher was the master of aggressive fuel strategy. hamilton in austrailia showed it too.
add to that the fact that the options were only going to last 10 laps anyway, i still think that was the way to go.

btw, i just caught a few mins before the race where they were suggesting that mclarens gain over the last race was about two tenths. i didnt hear how they came to that conclusion? i thought it was better than that.

[De Jokke]

Nice, 7 points for mcl. If hami hadn't spun that often, he could have finished 4th. Nonetheless, he tried and sometimes it doesn't pan out. Mcl are on the up, I'm really impressed with their development rate: next week new parts again, fer has nothing they say. Let's hope we can close the gap a bit more (I hope it will reduce from 0.6 to 0.3 sec to the fastest team) but let's wait and see. Currently we are 4th/5th best team on the grid: brawn, rbr, toy, wil, mcl

Question: Q. How long before your car gives you what you need and you can compete at the top?
LH: I think it is going to be a good four or five races. It's going to be some time I think. But as I said the guys are doing a fantastic job so let's just keep pushing.

Does he mean, 4-5 races starting from melbourne or from now on? If it is the latter, then mcl better stop and focus on 2010.

[Richard]

Lewis has put in some superb overtaking moves with his KERS in all three races this season. This has helped the McL finish a couple of places higher than it deserved on raw speed in Australia and Malaysia.

So it's really frustrating that Lewis couldn't master the kerb on that final corner in China. It knocked him wide in every round of qualifying, fortunatley he managed it cleanly just once at the end of Q3.

He then spun after hitting the same kerb 4 times in the race. Net result is finishing behind Kovi. Classic case of tortoise and hare. There's something about the Shanghai circuit that causes him to have some great racing moments, and then he takes it one step too far.

This season is looking much better than feared for McL. Their racing performance has established them as best of the conventional cars, only behind Red Bull & Brawn, and getting on par with Toyota.

More importantly they're ahead of Alonso and the Ferraris (based on race performance of that 3rd place in Oz)

[De Jokke]

Lewis has put in some superb overtaking moves with his KERS in all three races this season. This has helped the McL finish a couple of places higher than it deserved on raw speed in Australia and Malaysia.

So it's really frustrating that Lewis couldn't master the kerb on that final corner in China. It knocked him wide in every round of qualifying, fortunatley he managed it cleanly just once at the end of Q3.

He then spun after hitting the same kerb 4 times in the race. Net result is finishing behind Kovi. Classic case of tortoise and hare. There's something about the Shanghai circuit that causes him to have some great racing moments, and then he takes it one step too far.

This season is looking much better than feared for McL. Their racing performance has established them as best of the conventional cars, only behind Red Bull & Brawn, and getting on par with Toyota.

More importantly they're ahead of Alonso and the Ferraris (based on race performance of that 3rd place in Oz)

I don't think it had anything to do with managing the kerssystem. He just made a couple of silly mistakes by pushing it to hard (his tyres were gone) and he paid for it.

In Oz we were still lacking behind those two teams, but now we were the 3rd fastest team in the race! In qwf, we're 5th after toyota and williams I think.

[Vasco]

Lewis has put in some superb overtaking moves with his KERS in all three races this season. This has helped the McL finish a couple of places higher than it deserved on raw speed in Australia and Malaysia.

So it's really frustrating that Lewis couldn't master the kerb on that final corner in China. It knocked him wide in every round of qualifying, fortunatley he managed it cleanly just once at the end of Q3.

He then spun after hitting the same kerb 4 times in the race. Net result is finishing behind Kovi. Classic case of tortoise and hare. There's something about the Shanghai circuit that causes him to have some great racing moments, and then he takes it one step too far.

This season is looking much better than feared for McL. Their racing performance has established them as best of the conventional cars, only behind Red Bull & Brawn, and getting on par with Toyota.

More importantly they're ahead of Alonso and the Ferraris (based on race performance of that 3rd place in Oz)

I don't think it had anything to do with managing the kerssystem. He just made a couple of silly mistakes by pushing it to hard (his tyres were gone) and he paid for it.

In Oz we were still lacking behind those two teams, but now we were the 3rd fastest team in the race! In qwf, we're 5th after toyota and williams I think.

I think richard_leeds was referring to the Kerb and not the KERS system.

Anyway, I think that its still hard to tell where Macca are compared to everyone else. From the first 2 races RBR were not quite as fast as Brawn and then in China they were faster....which I think might be due to the fact that the Brawns/Toyotas were not really suited to this track and then come bahrain Brawn is ahead of RBR and Toyota/Williams are fast again. I think we can draw a more solid conclusion after the upcoming Bahrain GP.

[nudger]

Does he mean, 4-5 races starting from melbourne or from now on? If it is the latter, then mcl better stop and focus on 2010.

From now.
development will carry through on to next years car, unlike last year, so no benefit from shifting focus.

[De Jokke]

Then why does ferrari say that they are going to focus on next year's car if in barcelona their performance is ---?

[nudger]

Then why does ferrari say that they are going to focus on next year's car if in barcelona their performance is ---?

because they seem to have lost the plot.... i dont know who said that, but i doubt they would do that