Lewis Hamilton Out Qualified By Force India
The staggering news coming out of qualifying for the Turkish Grand Prix is Lewis Hamilton was out qualified by a Force India car. You have to be kidding me.
And a bad season gets worse. World Champion Lewis Hamilton has met a new low. In failing to get out of the first qualifying session of the Turkish Grand Prix, the Brit was out qualified by Adrian Sutil in his Force India car. Yes, Force India. Perhaps nearly as ghastly is the fact Hamilton was out qualified by his teammate, the incredibly unimpressive Heikki Kovalainen.
Let’s be clear. Lewis is a great driver. Unfortunately, it is also becoming apparent that he is a front runner, to wit, he is focused when he has a chance to compete but falls down on the job when his car is bad. He could be Jesus and not compete in this poorly designed car, but it is still disappointing to see him throw in the towel, particularly when he is a vastly more talented driver than Heikki.
Hamilton, however, only gets a smidge of the blame. The major culprit here is McLaren. You’ll note I didn’t write McLaren Mercedes. Mercedes is doing its part – just look at the performance of the Brawn team using the Mercedes power plant. No, the blame for this disgrace of a season is the result of a McLaren design team that has proven to be damn near incompetent.
McLaren and Ferrari were behind the ball at the start of this season. The reason is well known. They both spent all of last season developing their cars for the championship run while other teams, most notably Brawn [then Honda], developed the 2009 chassis. The 2009 season started with both teams being slow, but McLaren clearly a bit better.
Ferrari was crucified and rightly so. The thing is, Ferrari has improved dramatically to the point that they are now clearly the third best car on the grid and possibly the second best on certain tracks. McLaren? They have made no move forward. The car is a disaster and they appear unable to produce even a slight improvement from it. For a team with the kind of budget it has, that is simply disgraceful.
How bad is the car? It is the subject of the quote of the year from Eddie Jordan who said the car is “quite simply hopeless, possibly the worst that McLaren have ever designed". When the odd ball privateer is talking trash about your car, you know things have gone massively wrong. The problem is McLaren doesn’t seem to get it. Martin Whitmarsh was quoted as saying:
"This was a car that by anyone's view was competitive in Monaco. I think that it's got some clear weaknesses and that's what's giving us a problem.”
Ummm…the McLaren was not competitive in Monaco. Yes, Heikki ran in the top 10 for a bit before predictably squandering a chance at the points, but Monaco is a one off race course. Aerodynamics really are not a huge deal there. The opposite is, of course, true at nearly every other Formula One track. To say the car isn't that bad because it was able to get up into the middle of the field at Monaco is just ludicrous and shows the boys at McLaren have really wondered off the path to victory.
Regardless, it is clear the 2009 season is going to end up being a tough one for both Ferrari and McLaren. While Ferrari seems to be getting its act together, the same can’t be said for McLaren. One has to hope the team is developing for 2010 now because they clearly have a very long way to go.
Lemmy