McLaren Not Really Back?

The performance of McLaren at the Turkey Grad Prix was amazing and fired up the team and drivers. The question, however, is whether McLaren is really back or not?

Red Bull has been the class of the Formula 1 field this year. The only reason they haven’t run away from the field much like Brawn did last year is reliability and the occasional coming together of the drivers. The question all year was whether anyone would challenge them?


At first it seemed like Ferrari, and more specifically Fernando Alonso, would be the main challenger. Then the Scuderia started to make mistakes and faded badly at Turkey. It was McLaren who stepped forward with Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button hounding the Red Bull’s to the finish line. It was an effort that arguably led to the first cracks in driver peace at Red Bull and an eventual 1-2 for McLaren.

The team has responded by indicated they are back and ready to challenge for the championship. Are they really? I doubt it. McLaren has brilliantly come up with the F-Duct that gives them a five or six mile an hour speed advantage on straights. This gives them a huge advantage of half a second or so on tracks that are high speed like…Barcelona and Turkey. These are, of course, the two tracks where the team produced the best results.



McLaren should be very competitive if not dominant at the next grand prix in Canada. That track consists of a number of long straights where the F-Duct advantage will be maximized. I picked Hamilton to win in Turkey, but think it will be Button in Canada. This obviously bodes well for the team and drivers, but what about after Canada? The rest of the races are not necessarily fast tracks. On slower circuits, the McLaren lacks in down force and that will translate to poor results.

Is McLaren back? Yes and no. They can clearly challenge the Red Bull on fast tracks, but lack quality on slower tracks. If anyone is going to challenge Red Bull this year, it looks to be McLaren. Let’s hope the silver arrow can improve on its slower track performance to make it an exciting race to the finish.

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