Martin Whitmarsh and Norbert Haug give their thoughts on the season ahead.
How have the team's preparations for the start of the 2007 Formula 1 season been progressing?
Martin Whitmarsh: The Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team's preparations are still progressing and will be until the Thursday evening prior to the race. Track testing has now finished, we completed a significant amount of kilometres and achieved the highest average mileage per day of any of the new cars. As can be expected when testing there were some issues, but part of completing over 13,300kms with a new car is to find the limits on high mileage and inevitably you are going to break something at some point.
The important point is that during testing, we have continued to improve the performance of the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes MP4-22. We were learning and finding improvements even on the last day before the cars departed, and we therefore will bring new components, set-ups and approaches to our Friday testing in Melbourne that we hope and believe will further improve the performance of the car.
In summary, we had an excellent launch of the new Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team, we were reasonably good from the outset and have made steady
progress, but we recognise that it is tremendously competitive season ahead of us. Winning races and world championships is never easy and this year is going to be no exception.
How has the performance of the MP4-22 been in comparison with your competitors?
MW: It has been an unusual winter because of the teams self-regulated testing agreement, there has been much more testing together with the principal teams, in fact all of the teams, and therefore we've had the possibility to assess your competitive performance to a greater extent than we've had in the past in any season of Formula 1. Typically, however, looking at the times at the end of a session is a misleading process. We generally have reviewed where we were running in our programme and felt that we were reasonably competitive. Whether we are or we aren't we will know shortly, whether we've been or haven't been on the test track doesn't matter, all that matters is how we perform in Australia and henceforth in the remaining
16 races.
The MP4-22 has completed over 13,300kms on the test track, what has the team learnt about the car and how has it developed since the launch in January?
MW: Much of the learning with the MP4-22 we inevitably want to keep to ourselves, but the car is responding to development changes in the way that our tools of analysis tell us it should, which is positive. We know that we have to continue to improve as the year goes on, however we've developed a strong understanding of the car and created a list of development priorities. Overall, we're going to the first race with possibly more knowledge about this car than we have ever had going into the first race of a season. We launched the car when we intended to, we very quickly had two cars available, we've completed good mileage and the overall reliability has allowed us to make good progress.
How has the relationship with Bridgestone progressed?
MW: The organisation and the key technical people are the same as we worked with before and the team is enjoying its renewed Partnership. There is clearly a view that teams that have been running Bridgestone in previous years are advantaged, in truth Bridgestone have done a very competent job for all the teams. In terms of tyre consistency and their characteristic, that has been developed and we do not feel disadvantaged in any way.
There has been positive talk in parts of the media regarding the pre-season performance of Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, what are you thoughts on this?
MW: I hope that anyone from outside the team that thinks we will win the championship this year are sincere and of course we hope they are correct!
Vodafone McLaren Mercedes is not going into the first race with that assumption, however our target is to win the championship and we will be disappointed if we don't' do that. This is nothing new however, this is how we approach all seasons.
We are of the belief that we are going to be strong, but we are certainly not being complacent and we are not underestimating any of the other teams. None of the hype matters, we've got two very enthusiastic race drivers and a very strong team and we think a competent car, those are the raw ingredients, we've got to make that all come together and push hard to develop the car sufficiently to realise our objectives.
What are the team's expectations for the 2007 season?
MW: We expect to be competing, to win races and our ultimate goal is to win World Championships.
How are the drivers getting along?
MW: The team has been working very well with our two new race drivers and our two very established test drivers. Fernando, Lewis, Pedro and Gary are working more closely than we have experienced in the team for some time and there is a good spirit of cooperation between them all. The drivers are all motivated and very strong team players. That perhaps sounds derogatory in respect of previous drivers, but it is not. We have been privileged to have some great drivers in the team over the last few years. Sometimes it is right to move on and find new motivation and these drivers are providing that to everyone within Vodafone McLaren Mercedes.
