I'd definitely say that the 2009 -24 was the worst McLaren I've seen in my 20+ years of F1 following. Lewis and Heikki were busting a gut to get that thing into 15th/16th places in qualifying at times. At other times the car's deficiencies were masked by the progress McLaren and Mercedes had made with their KERS (at places like Bahrain where Lewis did well). It took until mid-season to get any sort of competitive package together, and even then Heikki struggled to get as much out of it as Lewis did.
The next few weeks are going to be absolutely critical for the future of McLaren.
There's a lot of talk about McLaren being a top team with great resources and being great at development, and that they'll bounce back for sure - and I hope they do. I really really hope they do.
But I keep being reminded about Williams around 15 years ago. They were one of the top teams in F1, up to and including 1997 coming off the back of 5 world championships in 6 seasons. But over a short period of time, they lost their lead driver, key members of their technical team, their title sponsor and their engine supplier. And despite all their experience and resources, they dropped to being a midfield team and have never recovered. The exact same thing could be happening to McLaren right now.
2013 is so critical for McLaren, because:
a) They need to be successful to attract a new title sponsor at the same level as Vodafone
b) They need to be successful to ensure that Honda will want to partner with them (if this deal hasn't already been done)
c) they can't afford to spend too much time developing their 2013 car, because they need to put a lot of resources into their 2014 car.
Reasons (a) and (b) mean that writing off 2013 to concentrate on 2014 simply isn't an option, but at the same time, if they don't get the 28 sorted pretty soon, it'll have really damaging long term effects for the team in terms of sponsors and engines.
So easy to say in hindsight, but in the last season before major rule changes, surely an evolution of their very competitve car of the previous season would be the right way to go - even if it ends up the year not being the quickest car, due to lack of development potential, they'd have picked up plenty of points in the early part of the year, and would have freed up a lot of resources to concentrate on 2014.
However. it is what it is. The positives are that the car seems reliable, pit stops have been excellent, and the drivers seem to be making the best of it, and not making mistakes. 3 different teams on the podium in Australia helps to limit the damage in terms of the WCC if they can get the car sorted pretty soon.
Edited by Withnail, 17 March 2013 - 23:48.