26/05/2010
NEWS STORY
Whilst many believe that Red Bull will romp off into the distance this weekend - and on subsequent weekends - leaving its rivals to fight for the scraps, McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale remains confident.
"Red Bull has a quick car and they have the upper hand," he said in a phone-in press conference today, "but I am confident that won't be the case by the middle of the season.
"They are about 0.8 seconds ahead on some circuits," he admitted. "We know, just based on our own experience, that we closed 2.5 seconds a lap gap between the start of the season and Hungary last year so we've demonstrated that kind of gradient is do-able. They have a quick car but they are eminently catchable and it's our job to do that. They can be beaten."
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and therefore McLaren can take comfort from the fact that Red Bull is the latest in a number of teams to copy its controversial F-duct device, the Milton Keynes outfit running it for the first time this weekend.
"I think they will be able to catch up in that area depending on how they realise it," said Neale. "Ferrari have also done good work in that area and demonstrated they have been able to get a wing to switch. So it doesn't surprise me at all that Red Bull will be there or thereabouts.
"Once you reveal these things at the beginning of the season and everybody figures out what you are doing and how it works, then the gap gets closed very quickly," he continued. "F1 is fantastic at invention and intrigue and part of that makes sport interesting. A bit like the Red Bull car which has various features on it that everybody is looking at and trying to understand."
However, as witnessed in Monaco, despite the millions of pounds, the hundreds of man hours invested, sometimes the difference between success and failure can come down to one silly mistake, plain and simple human error. At the Principality, Jenson Button's race came to a premature end when his engine overheated after a cooling cover was accidentally left off the left-hand radiator of his car.
"F1 is not at all tolerant and nor should it be," said Neale. "When it is as tight as it is in the championship and there is only a small gap at the top of the drivers' championship table and also the constructors', it is all still to be played for. When it is this close you just cannot afford to make those kind of mistakes, so we need to eliminate those from our game like everybody else does."
However, with an eye on a couple of the problems that have hindered his Austrian rivals this season, he was quick to add: "Red Bull I'm sure would say the same thing, if you look at the potential of that car and the points that they perhaps didn't achieve, they may have their own frustrations."
Looking ahead, specifically to this weekend's race, he said: "At the moment our car seems to work better on the high-speed circuits. We have more of an issue on the low-speed corners.
"It will work better, but I am sure that a number of the teams are taking upgrades, and we will see what everybody brings. But it is a sweeping circuit and very smooth so you can run the car reasonably stiff which will probably suit us."
Like his fellow team bosses and the manufacturers, Neale is enthusiastic that F1 appears to be heading back to the United States: "Whilst I'm not aware of details I think most of us in F1 would relish the opportunity to go back to America," he said. "It's a really important place for us to be. Our markets and our sponsors all want to operate there and F1 has to do something about the package and the way in which we present it to make it acceptable to one of the world's largest marets."