- 24 May 08, 20:57#44610From autosport.com:
McLaren rely on strategy to beat Ferrari
By Jonathan Noble Saturday, May 24th 2008, 17:37 GMT
Lewis Hamilton during qualifying in MonacoMcLaren boss Ron Dennis believes his team could still turn the tables on Ferrari in the Monaco Grand Prix - despite being outqualified by their Italian rivals.
Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen were expected to be the pace setters in Monte Carlo, but the pair were forced back into third and fourth on the grid when Ferrari duo Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen locked out the front row.
And although overtaking is notoriously difficult in Monaco, Dennis still believes that his team's strategy could allow them to overhaul Ferrari in the race.
"We go to every race to do our best, and again we are very close here," said Dennis. "Until the strategies unfold, we won't really know whether we are behind or ahead.
"It is very easy to come to Monaco and say, right, we are going to qualify on the front row regardless, but if you go too far then you are going to lose the race because you are going to stop too soon.
"So we'll just have to see how things unfold. It is obviously very close, and we don't have an uncompetitive car, and there are lots of developments going through the system, so we have a long way to go."
Dennis has suggested that he believes Hamilton and Kovalainen may be fuelled heavier than the Ferrari drivers – which could give his team a tactical advantage in the pit stops.
"Of course it would be better to be on the front row, but as I said, you have to wait and see who's got what strategy," he explained.
"Maybe it could still turn in our favour. It's not so much the one or two laps difference that there may be in fuel, it's the fact that if you stop second then you can out-strategise your competitors to the next stop. That's the biggest advantage of stopping second at this event."
Hamilton seemed far from downbeat about the result of qualifying – in a race where McLaren were expected to have the upper hand over Ferrari.
"In terms of confidence, it doesn't give me a setback at all," he said. "I feel like I did a solid job and I am really happy with the lap I did. And you can see that it was so close.
"If we were a couple of tenths behind then okay, we could have been disappointed, but everyone was so close, and for the team I guess it makes it a little bit harder but for me, that's how it should be.
"But anything can happen here in Monaco, it's likely to rain tomorrow, it's going to be a tough race, and we've just got to wait and see whether it is a complete lottery.
"But I think the next race is another race – we have to wait and see what happens there. But still, we have to aim at getting as many points as possible here. Of course, I would have loved to have had my first pole position here in Monaco, but I'm not worried because it will come."
Ayrton Senna: WDC 1988,
1989, 1990, 1991
McLaren: WCC 1974, 1984, 1985, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1998,
1999, 2007McLaren: WDC 1974, 1976, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1998, 1999, 2008
