- McLaren news
No dominant team - Whitmarsh
ESPNF1 Staff
February 24, 2012
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Martin Whitmarsh believes McLaren and Red Bull have "two or three seconds" up their sleeves © Getty Images
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Martin Whitmarsh admits it's encouraging for McLaren that one team has not emerged as dominant during pre-season testing so far.
McLaren has enjoyed a productive second test at Barcelona as the team covered over 100 laps on every one of the four days during the week. Although the team has not topped the timesheets at the end of any session at the Circuit de Catalunya, Whitmarsh said the team has not been attempting to go "super quick" and is pleased with the work it has been able to complete.
"We've been banging out 100-120 laps a day and we haven't had anything fall off the car this week - that's a good sign," Whitmarsh told Sky Sports News. "It's been very reliable. We've just concentrated on our engineering programme - we've spent the mornings gathering data, doing tests, not trying to go super quick, and the afternoon doing long runs. Those have gone well.
"If you contrast that from this time last year when we had - probably in my 23 years in the team - the worst winter testing we've ever had, we've got to happy with that. Ultimately you're happy if your car is quickest and that remains to be seen. It looks tight, sadly we're not the dominant team, that's the bad news for me. But the good news is I don't think anyone else looks dominant either. Red Bull look strong, Ferrari and Mercedes look pretty reasonable, so that's encouraging."
Whitmarsh added that little could be read in to the fact that Force India, Williams and Sauber all enjoyed headline times during the week, predicting that the bigger teams could have gone significantly faster.
"I suspect the big boys at this end (of the pit lane) could probably go two or three seconds a lap quicker if they really tried, but that's not the name of the game. We're not trying to win the winter world championship, we are trying to gather data and be prepared so that we can be strong for the season."
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ESPN Staff
Definitely keeping my fingers crossed for an epic Vettel-Hamilton title fight this season.
Posted byLOL, That's a good thing when nothing falls off the car! :) MW sounds like he's in a good mood. Much more so than last year. Look out 2012!