It looks like that. Norbert just said it´ll be likely even worse in Silverstone.

How did Hamilton get ahead of Kovalainen? Especially after being down to 17th while Kova got up to was it 11th?

Macca can goodbye the numbers 1 and 2 for season 2010! Assuming we have one. Man Brawns from 22 23 to 1 2 amazing!

Hamilton drove very well on the soft tyres. I'm surprised the tyres held up for the 26 laps he had them on.

kova used the soft tyres on his last stint.it seems this dosnt work on his car

I'm impressed by Hamilton.

Kovalainen... what was he doing? Second slowest fastest lap not counting Fisichella due to brake problems... Did he sustain any damage to his car with his collision with Barrichello?

That's still only 4.5 hours of track time where they can actually make any changes.

It's gonna be an interesting team debrief again

Well from Hamiltons comments after the race confirm that McLaren have no idea why their car is slow in high-speed corners.

Great talented aero team we have (we are always reminded of this but its like Politician Speak). Nearly 6 months later and we are no closer.

I think the managers need to get a reality check on exactly how talented their aero team is without Newey or Tombazis.

Because all they are good for is making tweaks to existing aero from Newey's aero concept playing with the McLaren design tools.

Their game is over and now that some genuine talent and intellect is required they are at sea.

And let's also not forget that Hamilton stopped only once (which led to his his 26-lap stint on softs). Kovalainen stopped twice, like most, and just couldn't build up enough of a buffer over his shorter stints. Hamilton drove excellent on softs, and he was also fast (for a McLaren, mind) at the very end of his hard-tyres stint. Good tyre management, this time, the only positive to take from this race.

"We were P2 in FP1, P1 in FP2... we could be P1 in FP3 too with lighter fuel load, so we were Free Practice Champions..."

Just like McLaren in '08 to '09

Ah yea but least Brawn will have a clean sweep not just drivers title....

the car was useless through turn 8 :/

Interesting to read that the McLaren was 15kph slower through turn 8 than even a Force India. What a dog of a car. They really have screwed up badly.

Lewis' consistency and tyre saving was impressive.

That shows, sometimes McLaren should go for a one-stopper with him (it could be the right strategy for Monaco too). No rush, no overtaking, but an extremely consistent and steady drive. Lewis is capable for that strategy too, not just the aggressive drives with overtaking and exhausting the tyres. Maybe this might be better for this dog car...

Race laps (.pdf)

well, it was a much worse weekend than i thought...no arguments about that.
I dont see any option than just keep plugging away. Assuming they will be in F1 next year, mosley has already pointed out that doing a honda by concentrating on next years car will count towards their 2010 spend

We are in the same situation as Honda recent years. There is the problem with the downforce but we don't know what is triggering it.


Kova owning Barichello

Shows how bad their designers are. They could have bought a couple of Force India chassis for pennies and poured their millions into that and had a top 10 car...

Turn 8 is a tough corner and it really showed up the McLaren today. Quite frankly it was shocking through that corner.

Regards

Andy

So,you want your team sideing with the devil? Isnt there are fine they have to pay if they break from FOTA?

Maybe not worst but most disappointing

I think it is the worst, actually. Which one would be worse?

late 70's, early 80's and 2004 were all pretty bad. I guess this car is roughly as bad as those.

Kimi won a race and got 2 second places in 2004.

Even the MP4/19A was better than the MP4/24 - more competitive. 1979-1980 may be about as bad, I suppose.

i didnt make any comment on my preferance to where they race. i would think racing in F1 next year is simply the most likely outcome... the fine is, so far as i know, only coming from an article by martin brundle

Im disappointed, saddened, whatever you want to call it by the cars performance this season. Alot of us are.

What genuinely scares me though, is that they have NO idea why its slow.

They could honestly do a B-car that is slower if they wernt careful.

Kova raced his ass off to keep Rubens behind him, and that was fun to watch, but again, somehow, Lewis ended up ahead of him at the end of the race. Crazy.

Ironically the seconds lost while fighting (indeed quite brilliantly, considering the car) Barrichello might have played a crucial part in why Kova finished behind Lewis.

But what does it matter in the end.

It looked like Piquet had to almost hit the brakes through turn 8 when he was following Lewis, as Hamilton was just so slow through it. The car is amazingly bad. And not getting any better. A quadruple diffuser wouldnt even save them.

perhaps you should remember 2007 and 2008 both were good cars. If Lewis had had the back up and if there had not been all the strange rule changes mid races they would have had not only 2 drivers championships but also a constructors too.

At least shitty comments about Lewis can't handle shitty car are ended

One-stopper vs. two-stopper.

I think both drivers did a great job. 13th and 14th were the maximum for McLaren on this race. Williams and BMW were out of reach, and far away ahead of them.

The cruel reality is that McLaren has the worst aero chassis of the field. Even the Force India is better. We just beat Toro and FI with KERS with a small margin.

Wow, glad you're not in charge.

Did you guys notice rear wing movement from the rear camera view, I never seen that movement before. It looks like wing is fixed with one screw on the chassis.

You are screwed at Silverstone. Im predicting about same positions for you there. Its like living in alternate reality,when Mcmerc sucks and Ferrari sucks.

We are bound together like Batman and Joker

And our roles change from time to time

Whitmarsh is talking about next year now http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/75947

No mention of a B spec.

Meanwhile the car is not getting any better on downforce despite all the new parts, if anything other teams are developing faster.

Silverstone is going to be a nightmare, I'm counting tenths lost though Copse, Becketts, Stowe, Club and Bridge. Maybe claw a bit back through Priory but overall it's going to be worse than ever unless some miracle new parts appear.

Reading between the lines, he seems to be saying that they are going to ensure that next year's car is now the priority, although they won't give up on developing parts for this year.

Certainly with a ban on KERS they have some redevelopment to do for next year.

the f60 is way better, there is no comparison

While he's probably being a bit-harsh, as head of aero and with being provided the budget and facilities he has at his disposal - we cannot get away from the fact that he has delivered the worst aerodynamic car on the current grid.

Andy car you saying you don’t believe in accountability? We lost 2 key players to red bull and you can see the results comparing the 2 cars. Laceys strengths may every well lie in improving an existing car. But as for building from scratch. The results speaks for itsself, the worst ever chasis in McLarens history. I wont hold me breath over the MP4 - 25

Often enough, firing and replacing somebody isn't always the best way to go to if you actually want to help the situation. There's no guarantee that the newcomer will do any better, and you've also got the problem of having to work to integrate him into the team, which doesn't happen overnight. Sometimes, a bit of stability is better than tearing things down and trying to rebuild them.

But none of us know where the real accountability lies. They may have 100% confidence in the guy's abilities, but other little things haven't panned out like they expected. It may be a matter of windtunnel calibration or something or the other. We just dont know. Its simply knee-jerk to demand that people get fired when we dont even know what the real problem is. People just like to have somebody or something to point a finger at.

'Way better'?

As in slower then Brawn / RBR / Toyota / Williams / BMW, the only team splitting Ferrari and McLaren are Renault, thats not 'way better', that's 'just as crap as'

You're right.

Just look at the Brawn GP's chief aerodynamicist Loic Bigois, designed probably shittiest cars in history (Minardi, Ligier, Prost, Williams 2006 and last two Hondas).

Lets actually be honest here..

Its probably, Ferrari=Toyota=Williams (at times). Slower than Brawn, RB, but probably quicker than BMW... Ferraris FP form was genuine, God knows what happened race day though!!

No need to get jealous here. I'd say that most people would put Ferrari ahead of Williams and BMW at this point. Toyota I think has the potential to be faster, but has a lot of weaknesses that prevent it from being better over a variety of tracks.

Ferrari is problably about 3rd or 4th best car at the moment overall.