Formula 1 McLaren has work to do to match Red Bull Racing’s pace

The Formula 1 McLaren team has recently updated the media with claims that they have to raise their pace to catch the Red Bull Racing team in the Sepang race in Malaysia. After their good start in Australia they are looking forward to a successful race in
Malaysia too.

The British squad started its initial fight among the strong rivals in the Australian Grand Prix and gave the unexpected performance after their tough tests series of the 2011 season.

In the first race of this season, the team driver Lewis Hamilton posted the second fastest run of the race behind the Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, while his team-mate Jenson Button came in sixth after his drive through penalty. Both drivers’ performances
were very inspiring for the team; even the other team members were surprised with McLaren’s strong performance on the grid in Australia.

Team supervisor Jonathan Neale said his team is aware that after their excellent start, they have work to do to match the Red Bull Racing team’s pace in the up-coming races. He said, “I think you are right in your first assessment in that we don’t think
we necessarily had the quickest car out there.”

He went on to say, “I think there is still a reasonable amount of work to do. There are some areas of the car that we are satisfied with, but clearly at this stage it is all about how we exploit the tyres and we get the downforce on the car.”

He appreciated his team’s good work and said that success in Australia was a confidence booster for them. The fact that they were better than the Ferrari and the Mercedes GP teams at this stage was admirable. He further added, during the winter testing both
teams performed really well and he was sure that those teams would have more to bring into the season’s first race, but both the teams failed to deliver their best runs in the course.

For the upcoming Malaysian event, he added that the warmer temperature will definitely increased the tyre degradation and the team may have to take three to four stops over the course of the race.

Neale is expecting a more competitive race in the Malaysian Grand Prix that is due to start on 10 April, at the Sepang circuit.