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Continued from... McLaren
Merdeces Formula One team at 2007
Malaysian GP: Preview
Melbourne showed that Alonso and
Hamilton had good cars, but they will
have to catch up to Ferrari somehow at
the 2007 Malaysian GP.
The reigning world champion
Fernando Alonso and his rookie
teammate Lewis Hamilton had a good
race alright - if you don't look at
the fact they could not catch Kimi's
Ferrari at all. In race trim, the
Ferrari F2007s were a second a lap
faster than the McLaren MP4-22 cars of
Alonso and Hamilton. Not good. So
there is some catching up to do. On
the other hand, look at McLaren's
pathetic performance last year, and
this year has started on a good note.
The McLaren drivers have no complaints
about their F1 car package, and the
team needs to focus on maintaining
their reliability in hot, steamy
Sepang as well as squeezing out a bit
more speed. (Discuss
Formula One
here)
Lewis Hamilton turned out to be a
revelation, and he drove like a
veteran. Easily overtaking his
teammate Alonso who managed to get
himself stuck in a jam at the first
corner at Melbourne, he stayed ahead
of the world champion for two-thirds
of the race, and was overtaken by
Alonso only during the second pitstop.
Fernando is not someone to take his
teammate lightly, and he will be
focused on ensuring that he stays well
ahead of the Brit sensation at Sepang
on April 8, 2007.
McLaren boss Ron
Dennis cried out in pain when the BMW
of Nick Heidfeld on soft tyres easily
took second place at Melbourne. No
guarantee that BMW would not try the
same thing again at Sepang? BMW is not
saying a word in reply to Ron Dennis'
accusations of 'showboating'.
Fernando Alonso said about the
Sepang F1 race, "Race speed is an area
in which we are .. to improve - and
where everyone is trying to improve
compared to Ferrari. As I said..
qualifying, I think two or three teams
can fight with Ferrari but, in the
race, no-one can." One option would be
for McLaren to attempt to beat Ferrari
in qualifying at Sepang, and then stay
ahead through the race. But even that
still needs more race speed so as not
to be overtaken in the pits. Fernando
Alonso said that improvement would
only come from McLaren's possible
technical advances before the
Malaysian GP, and added that he would
put in effort into working on the
MP4-22. Lewis Hamilton, of course, is
in seventh heaven, and when he stops
grinning and feeling pleased with the
world, will just try to do everything
better at Sepang! “I’ve not been to
Malaysia before, I don’t know the
circuit but I have watched it on TV
and I’m excited to get on to the
circuit,” he said. Hamilton said, “We
are going to be trying to close the
gap between us and Ferrari and we are
going to be developing the car more
with three days’ testing so we are
going to push and hopefully maximise
the test and make sure we’re at the
front again for the next race.”
Preview continues... Renault F1
2007 preview for Sepang
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