Let's hope for some bizzare races with safety cars till Europe.

Why i have feeling that ''possibly the first third of the season" will convert into "changing our focus to 2010" when European season starts....

Damn and Blast!
Femi what the hell have you been on these last three weeks?

Plan B, Three cheers for Brawn and Button!

Likely. We have to wait and see if there is a team/driver that runs away already after the first races, or if we have let´s say 3-4 different winners in the first 4 non-european races.

Yes, I agree. And there's a simple fact. Is not only that Mclaren hasn't built a good car... Ferrari and BMW seemed to have constructed nice good cars, with good pace, speed and reliability. But once the Brawn car was up to speed we saw that it's not like we thought.

I bet that if Brawn wins in Australia, testing rules will certainly be changed.

Still Mclaren has 4 mores testing days to go and we'll see what happens.

Fluent in? I think he's taken it to another level.

Come back Ron, all is forgiven ...

And that implies he thinks, what? Jeez right back at you. I think its fair to assume that if somebody posts something and they don't specifically say 'read this pile of dung', the default position must be that they are posting it because they agree with it. That's how I operate anyhow.

Now if both McLarens qualify at the front in Melbourne it would be not because they have been ready long ago but thanks to the heroic 24 hour a day effort of all the staff headed by MW.

The claim was they had 'taken out all the fuel' to achieve the time. Now, do you want me to explain to you what 'take out all the fuel' implies? That's the point of this conversation if you'd bothered to follow it - its about the implication that one was with plenty of fuel and the other wasn't and they only achieved a gain of 0.2. All my comment was, was that its a bit dim to think that only 0.2 gain would be achieved IF THAT WERE THE CASE. Jeez.

Well he didnt confuse me...sometimes you have to use your noodle.

Nothing anyone is posting seems to be damaging my opinion that the diference between full and empty tanks, IF THAT WERE THE CASE, would be well more than 0.2 sec.

Let it rest, please.

I dont think you'll find anyone to disagree with that. So work out what other people meant from that position.

I was talking about Massa's quote as you well know. I don't beleive Massa when he says he couldn't acheive the BGP time. Do you think BGP are quicker than Ferrari over a lap if both cars were set up and driven at max to Q2 sim?

Have Renault admitted they have a problem or can't win in Melbourne? Oh no, only McLaren have an evil PR department. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I was replying to someone else. Are you in charge here or something?

I thought YOU said let it rest?

Oh Bugger. The Fat Lady has finished her warm up and burst forth. So much for faith in the team and their depth of resource...

Trying to stay positive, the car is at least driveable and reasonably realiable, so they may be able to pick up some decent-ish points during the fly-away's and not be dropped too far before they come back to Europe, particularly if it is tight at the front and no single team dominates at the start of the season. Plus being able to enjoy what looks like a compelling opener in Melbourne without the hope or weight of expectation of a top result will make a nice change. It'll also be interesting to see how succesfully/quickly they may be able to get on top of things as I'm sure they will. It's disappointing that as a Team they've not been able to break away from the cyclical competitiveness of previous years, but as any long term fan knows being a Mac supporter is a rollercoaster in the long term and we've been in worse predicaments than this before. The next victory, hopefully sooner rather than later, will be all the sweeter as a result, and it definately will come. And damn them changing the SC rules this season now that we can remote control Heikki's car into the barriers via Blackberry...

At first I agreed with your opinions about McLaren, but now you're just starting to plain sound ignorant buddy...

That interview is classic. Could have been a comedy sketch - the contrast in styles of the two men is brilliant. If only it had been ron rather than martin.

Have a look at Massas stint times during his race sim. Then go and see how much faster, typically, Massa was than his stint times in Q2 last season. Then factor in that unlike BGP, Ferrari weren't necessarily pushing the performance envelope in Barcelona (because they're on a traditional test schedule). Then tell me that its definately impossible that Massa couldn't have got into the 18's. Then tell me that Brawn are AS LIKELY AS Ferrari to translate their testing pace into race pace at an actual Grand Prix. I can see my opinions don't follow popular opinion, but were actually talking about very small margins between right and wrong. I think to describe them as 'ignorant' is just a rude way of decribing the world you don't agree with.

Brawn's stint times were not published as Massa's were. And Button and Rubens did 19-22 lap stints most of the times faster than what Massa did.

And Massa publicly said that he would have never been able to do a 18.9, neither a 19.1 even with a single drop of fuel on the car.

His qual sim, a 1:20.188 was reported to be on low fuel levels, as were Kimi's 1:20.3 and Heidfeld's 1:20.3.

Those were considered excellent times up until Brawn appeared.

actualy Raikkonen said the 20.3 was not the best possible, which is logical looking at Rosberg's time from yesterday

Indeed! I detected a hint of finger wagging coming from Haug and directed at the Mclaren chassis team.
It's gonna be a fascinating to see how Haug and Whitmarsh get on over the coming years.

Oh well, I'm glad the boy God has got his WDC tucked away in the trophy cabinet - can you imagine his state of mine had he lost the WDC last year and had to spend a year dicing with the Force India's.

When reading the Q&A with Whitmarsh & Haug, I couldn't help but think that Haug was just translating what Whitmarsh said into english. Whitmarsh talks like a manager/marketing person, with big words/phrases that say little, dances around the negatives. Haug says it as it is. Bluntly.

McLaren will bounce back. Though it may take time.

I'm well aware of all this data and for the record, including BGP's stint times...

So the Williams is faster than the Ferrari over a lap as well is it?

Seriously, I respect all your opinions but some of you want to stop short of taking the piss out of my thinking, its no more flawed than your own.

I thought that as well.

yea same here, will just try to enjoy the races as a neutral fan, wont be too fearful of a car failure or something of that nature, knowing the team wasnt gonna get points anyway.

I hope no one team totally dominates...but if that happens, I hope its Brawn

Finally some honesty from the team, although it has been pretty obvious for some time now that their aero was all messed up. Backmarker status awaits Lewis and Heikki, and the championships are naturally already lost, so the best we can hope for is that McLaren could get at least one victory before the season is over while also preparing for next season. That reminds me of the little joke I made a while back:



Doesn't read like a joke now.

I'm saying this first: Great Britian has in Button & Hamilton two equally good one-time WDCs. Good luck for them in the future

Well, I'm just pleased we know one way or the other. Best of luck to the team trying to fix whatever problems they've uncovered, hopefully they'll be back fighting for podiums at least soon enough.

Quite looking forward to seeing what Hamilton can do in the midfield, to be honest

That KERS button will be worn out by the end of the race!

Lewis Hamilton and Nick Heidfeld are two of the best overtakers in Formula One IMO.

They're the best at seeing opportunities since Juan Pablo Monyota.

Hamilton tends to get scrappy when he's fighting through the field, not sure what he's going to be like when he's stuck with a similar car as the rest of the midfield...

Well, at least the speculation is over. Not in the way I was hoping, but still. As someone said already, for now they aim to be on the pace at europe. Pretty soon they will aim for next year.

With the absence of Macca at the front, I sincerely hope that Brawn kills a few giants. A refreshing result will be to have good 'ol Willy at the pointy end as well.

A silver lining, visible around this mushroom cloud, will be to see how Heikki and Hammy compares with a mediocre car.

he better practices driving with one hand coz now the other one will be up in air waving on slow cars in front of him

This is why it will be good for him to spend a year without the fastest car. Since he began he's always been expected to be up front, which has made him anxious to get to the front again as quickly as possible when he's fallen behind in a race. A season in the midfield could help him lose the red mist he occasionally suffers from, and he'll be a better driver for it. He'll certainly make fewer mistakes.

Alonso put in an average performance in an average car in the first half of last year. Monaco and Germany were especially poor.

I'd like to think Lewis would have more discipline these days, but you're right, he does suffer a few red mist moments.

That's how I see it too.

Hamilton has been criticised for having an 'easy ride' for having started his F1 career at the front of the grid, and while that's obviously worked out for him it hasn't left any time for learning. A season where he's not expected to win every race may cool him down a touch and allow him to work on his racecraft a bit more. After all, MS, Kimi and Massa all started in the midfield and Alonso got farmed out to Minardi for his rookie year specifically to learn F1 in a low pressure environment.

I demand 4 wet races at the start of the season!

Probably due to inexperience at this level. He'll mature naturally, in a compettive car or an uncompetitive car.

Agreed. He needs to view this as an opportunity to prove his mettle. No point in getting down and complaining. He needs to encourage the team and work harder this year with the engineers and the factory to sort out the problems.

Not really the MP24 is even WORSE in the wet!

Driveability of the car is good they say, so is the engine.
I think they'd look better in the rain.

As much as others with antiovertaking pre-2009 aero rules.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjotF2Bwbmg&fmt=18

Anyway that's obvious he can't fight for victories with a midfield or backmarker car, only by luck. And don't want him to overtake dozens of cars in front of him, they will be able to overtake only those which are slower than him and catch up to them.

So even if he will be who overtake others, not who will be the overtaken one, then he will do it fine.

From the autosport interview:

Q. Are the MP4-24's problems a result of Ron Dennis stepping back from the Team Principal role?


What the F is this dumb question ?

Lewis is at his most formidable when he lets it come naturally.

When he starts putting himself under pressure with the red mist or acute stress (such as championship deciders) the mistakes and uncertainty creep in.

But hell, the same things were happening with Senna right up to the end of his career.

Then, they mclaren is so bad? to that level will be?

Regards