The team’s last winless season was in 2006 but then they had the third-fastest car. The last time they produced a machine as comparably uncompetitive as the current MP4-24 was back in 1995 with the MP4-10, a car that triggered Nigel Mansell into retiring from F1. Since then the team have won three world drivers championships, the most recent last year with Hamilton.
Hamilton’s teammate, Heikki Kovalainen, confirmed the car’s uncompetitiveness with a time marginally faster than Hamilton’s, using a different tyre specification. Asked to explain the car’s specific problem, Hamilton said: “We lack rear downforce. In the fast corners the downforce just switches off and leaves you with very little grip.
“To give you some idea of the scale of the problem, through turn 8 [the fastest corner on the track] we are 10 to 15kph slower than the Force Indias. It could be many things, maybe the vortices in the airflow as they come off the front wing affecting the flow to the rear. The airflow of an F1 car is incredibly complex and we just aren’t finding the problem.”
Given that the next round of the Grand Prix series is at Silverstone, a circuit with an even higher proportion of high-speed corners than Istanbul Park, Hamilton looks set for a very uncompetitive home race. The team is attempting to rush through new parts intended for the German Grand Prix two weeks later to be ready for Silverstone, but Hamilton is not convinced that is the correct response to their current predicament. “I don’t think we should rush anything. It’s not like it will make a huge difference, not like we can win back 60 points. Better to take our time, refine it and find where the basic problem is.”
The McLaren fell further from the pace in Turkey as the track rubbered in, allowing those cars with more downforce to take fuller advantage of the track’s increased grip. Hamilton’s competitiveness in the Friday practice sessions had given him hope that proved false. “To be honest,” he said, “we came here expecting the car not to be competitive. The picture here on Friday seemed quite encouraging, but then everyone got quicker and we didn’t.”
Earlier in the season McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh suggested the car’s problem was just lack of development and that they could develop its full competitiveness before the season was over.
This is looking less likely now. Asked if he could see any developments at the factory that gave him the hope of being able to race Button at the front of the field this year, Hamilton was frank in his reply, saying: “Not really. We’ve lost our way with this car. We need to understand what has gone wrong so we can bounce back next year.”
He watches footage from the cockpit of Button’s Brawn with a mix of pleasure and envy. “I love watching in-car Jenson,” he said earlier in the weekend. “You can see by how little he has to work at the steering that he has a lot of rear-end grip and he’s able to use that to carry a lot of speed. It’s great to watch.”
Watching was all he could do as the final seconds of qualifying unfolded and Button’s time was beaten in the dying moments by Vettel. The German lies in third place in the championship going into today’s race and Button is guaranteed still to be leading when he competes at his home race in two weeks’ time.
The pair look set for a close duel in today’s race, their raw performance close enough to suggest the outcome could be decided by their teams’ respective pit stop strategies. Button, carrying 6kg more fuel than Vettel, should be able to run for an extra two to three laps before pitting.
Rubens Barrichello backed up teammate Button with the third-fastest time, using a harder-compound tyre, while Vettel’s teammate, Mark Webber, went fourth quickest with a heavier fuel load than the cars ahead of him, which should prove a strategic advantage.
Toyota bounced back from disastrous recent form as Jarno Trulli went fifth fastest but Ferrari’s recent improvement in performance faded somewhat as Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa managed no better than sixth and seventh fastest respectively. Fernando Alonso’s Renault, Nico Rosberg’s Williams and Robert Kubica’s heavily revised BMW complete the grid’s top 10.
Mark Hughes writes for Autosport magazine
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