FORUMula1.com - F1 Forum

[Hexagram]

Lewis Hamilton says his McLaren car's main issue is a lack of downforce, although the Briton is hopeful the team will be able to sort some of its problems before the start of the season.

McLaren's new challenger has not been among the strongest during winter testing so far, with the team also hindered by problems that have not allowed its drivers to run as much as hoped.

Hamilton said the MP4-26 was not as bad as the team's 2009 machine, with which he struggled at the start of the season, but admitted it is currently lacking performance.

"The '09 was terrible because the car was hopping, three-wheeling through corners, it was locking up, and it had no downforce," Hamilton told Reuters.

"This doesn't lock up, it doesn't three-wheel and it handles really nice, better than last year's car, but it just doesn't have as much downforce...so that's where it feels weak.

"Hopefully we've got some more downforce coming onto the car before the first race."

Team-mate Jenson Button also conceded he was not blown away when he first drove the car, but he too is confident there is more performance to extract from it.

"When I first jumped in it (the car) the first reaction was not 'Wow, we're going to blow everyone away'. No," Button told Reuters.

"I don't think anyone would have felt that because it's got a lot less downforce, the tyres are working very differently to the previous tyre.

"But there's nothing that really scares me about the car in a negative way, so there's a lot we can improve with this car through general set-up work."

Button is also hopeful that the four-day test at Barcelona next week will help McLaren solve its problems.

"This year, at the moment, we've had some issues in testing in terms of getting parts to the circuit and a couple of reliability issues, so we've not done as much running as we would have liked, which has hurt our set-up work," said Button.

"But we do have four days and hopefully everything's going to run sweet at the next test, and we get a lot of laps in and we can improve the base that we have.

"There's a lot still to extract from this car that we haven't because we just haven't had time to do it, we haven't got everything together yet, so we don't really know where we are compared to the competition."

I think McLaren should consider normal sidepods. I can't help but feel the very weird ones they have right now are causing issues.

[bud]

Im thinking this will be similar to 05 with the MP4-20, then they had some drastically new piece known as the Zero Keel, ( now common place) It took until Spain for the team to unlock the cars full potential and we all now the potential that car ended up having.

As a McLaren fan i'm not too concerned as the cars only had two test sessions and many less laps than the other teams. Still a long way to go, and plenty of time to unlock the speed in this car.

[darwin dali]

Im thinking this will be similar to 05 with the MP4-20, then they had some drastically new piece known as the Zero Keel, ( now common place) It took until Spain for the team to unlock the cars full potential and we all now the potential that car ended up having.

As a McLaren fan i'm not too concerned as the cars only had two test sessions and many less laps than the other teams. Still a long way to go, and plenty of time to unlock the speed in this car.

Good to see you optimistic...

[What's Burning?]

Im thinking this will be similar to 05 with the MP4-20, then they had some drastically new piece known as the Zero Keel, ( now common place) It took until Spain for the team to unlock the cars full potential and we all now the potential that car ended up having.

As a McLaren fan i'm not too concerned as the cars only had two test sessions and many less laps than the other teams. Still a long way to go, and plenty of time to unlock the speed in this car.

Good to see you optimistic...

The alternative is to say that the car is hopeless and McLaren better start working on the 2012 chassis now? That they'll be fighting with Williams and Renault for 4th or 5th place? EVERY car on the grid has a lot less downforce this year.

If anything what is being said is that they're behind in testing and behind in set up work, but that the car feels fundamentally capable.

[Gaz]

Yep thats what i gleemed from that.

See what Happens in Quali in Oz.

[Hammer278]

There's nothing wrong with the sidepods....there's problems with the rear of the car. Sidepods aren't located there.

Anyway their main problem is lack of mileage. The car's reliability is not terrible but I think its a car that needs to be developed further to unlock a lot of potential...the question is how fast can they do it. As Bud said, the MP4/20 was an innovative piece and took 5 races to get it going....by then it was too late due to the sh*tbox Mercedes which never liked completing a race weekend.

[vlad]

Vettel was, I think, one of the first top drivers that said something like: This years car is good, but nowhere good as last year's... And Red Bull is a great car... So, we'll see how things turn up!

[Hexagram]

There's nothing wrong with the sidepods....there's problems with the rear of the car. Sidepods aren't located there.

Unless they have designed the rear of the car to utilize the unique airflow coming over the car due to the side pods.

[bud]

There's nothing wrong with the sidepods....there's problems with the rear of the car. Sidepods aren't located there.

Unless they have designed the rear of the car to utilize the unique airflow coming over the car due to the side pods.

Yep, Thats the point of the U sideponds, they are meant to help flow more air to the diffuser. Something radical like this will take time to get the hang of.
Im not concerned just yet.

[ivey]

This is not good. How often do drivers admit BEFORE the season that they wouldn't expect this car to win. Usually it's confidence, confidence and confidence. But we'll see

[killem2]

I have to imagine that this is common with all the cars, at least in some way. From what I understand since the F Duct is gone and there can be no connection to the rear wing everyone is having to change all there stuff up.

If this is so, and IF there is no way of actually correcting it, then we may have lots of overtaking due to mistakes in corners as a result of understeer, oversteer, ect basically anything handling related that relies on that downforce.

Yes?

[Jensonb]

Give it a few races before panic sets in.

[thechainrule]

I hope this is common with most of the cars. Following a season of double diffusers, EBD and F ducts I would think that with the new non aero friendly regulations most teams would be taking a hit in the downforce department.

Though, here again we see the enormous penalty of the testing ban. Mclaren develop a very innovative car and must rely on the alotted test weekends and fridays to figure it all out. Unfortunately Bernie has turned the f1 montra of "pushing the envelope" in to a game of guess and check.

[killem2]

I hope this is common with most of the cars. Following a season of double diffusers, EBD and F ducts I would think that with the new non aero friendly regulations most teams would be taking a hit in the downforce department.

Though, here again we see the enormous penalty of the testing ban. Mclaren develop a very innovative car and must rely on the alotted test weekends and fridays to figure it all out. Unfortunately Bernie has turned the f1 montra of "pushing the envelope" in to a game of guess and check.

I agree. These cars are not toys, and I don't feel it is safe at all to throw these drivers, though experienced into the pit with a car they don't know 100% works correctly and safely. These are dangerous machines, why the FIA banned testing just makes no sense to me.

[Hexagram]

I hope this is common with most of the cars. Following a season of double diffusers, EBD and F ducts I would think that with the new non aero friendly regulations most teams would be taking a hit in the downforce department.

Though, here again we see the enormous penalty of the testing ban. Mclaren develop a very innovative car and must rely on the alotted test weekends and fridays to figure it all out. Unfortunately Bernie has turned the f1 montra of "pushing the envelope" in to a game of guess and check.

I agree. These cars are not toys, and I don't feel it is safe at all to throw these drivers, though experienced into the pit with a car they don't know 100% works correctly and safely. These are dangerous machines, why the FIA banned testing just makes no sense to me.

Nothing goes on track until it passes all the FIA crash tests.