McLaren ready to show quali progress
Date published : 13 Apr 2010 - 14:33:27
McLaren engineering director Paddy Lowe is optimistic the team will be able to show it has made a step forward in its qualifying performance in China even though its car will not now be able to feature a ride-height adjustment system.The Woking squad quickly identified its MP4-25's speed over a single fast lap as an area that needed urgent attention after it failed to qualify within half a second of pole at either of the opening two rounds.After Lewis Hamilton then showed strong pace throughout practice on the back of aerodynamic upgrades for Malaysia, the team missed the chance to put its development work to the test in qualifying when it misread the Q1 weather conditions and was stranded towards the bottom of the grid.Lowe says further aero updates for Shanghai should give the improving MP4-25 a further boost in speed, adding that the team is now keen to see where it stands over a single lap. We made some improvements for Malaysia and we have a few more for China which are all aerodynamic and [worth] several tenths, he said in the pre-China Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Phone-in. What was a little bit of a disappointment in Malaysia, well it was more than a disappointment, [was]our experiences in qualifying.But one of the side effects which was disappointing was that we didn't really get to test ourselves against our immediate competitors in a dry qualifying session.Hopefully we can get to do that in China and see where we have got to with our latest developments.Asked if he thought it was capable of registering its best 2010 qualifying yet this weekend, he added: I hope so.The Chinese circuit is reasonably similar to Malaysia. I think we could feel we were quite strong in practice in Malaysia and we were strong in the race.So there is good promise for the car being a bit more competitive in qualifying relative to how we were in the first two races.And therefore [it will help us] to get a good grid position and then really fight for a win.McLaren had been expected to arrive in China with a revised suspension on its challenger after rumours that Red Bull may have developed a legal way of lowering its car for qualifying had prompted rivals to look into the area.However, the FIA last week issued a clarification of the regulations in this area warning that any system that adjusted a car's ride height between qualifying and the race would be deemed illegal.Lowe admits McLaren had started work on its own system after becoming aware of what might have been used elsewhere on the grid, but says that development has now been stopped following the FIA's clarification.We were aware I would say over the last few months of a slightly different approach to it which we hadn't historically thought to be the rule interpretation, and we were reacting to that, he explained.But I just think that now the FIA have taken a fresh view of it and drawn a different line and one I'd think we say is actually nearer the historical line.We're reacting to that too which has meant we've had to sort of change some of the things we are doing.He admitted McLaren had nevertheless been late to start looking into the area, although he stressed that the team never had any proof that any of its rivals had been using a form of adjustable ride-height control.I would say in terms of taking a fresh look at this we got the feeling we were rather late to the game relative to some others, Lowe added. We absolutely don't know who has been doing what and whether indeed anyone has been racing anything in the nature of ride-height control systems.We definitely got the hint that others were further advanced in development. I absolutely haven't got a clue as to whether anyone else has got something on their cars.
