McLaren break curfew on Thursday in Spain

2013 Spanish Grand Prix

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McLaren broke the curfew restricting when team members may work on the car on Thursday at the Circuit de Catalunya.

McLaren team members were at the track after 11pm on Thursday. The curfew on teams working on their cars runs from 11pm to 7am.

McLaren do not receive a penalty as teams may break the curfew twice without being penalised and this was the first time they have done so this year.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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16 comments on “McLaren break curfew on Thursday in Spain”

  1. Yup, it’s legit but it shows just how much effort the guys are putting in to try and get better performance out of the car!

    1. Or how desperate they are – you only break curfew when you absolutely have to (all the moreso, since teams only have two free passes instead of the original four), and it’s unusual for a team to break it so early in the season.

      1. Or…
        Perhaps it shows both those things.

        1. The Blade Runner (@)
          10th May 2013, 11:14

          +1

      2. I don’t agree with them being desperate, really. If they would be in any way fighting for the championchip at the moment, yes. But seeing how they need to catch up as quickly as possible it makes a whole lot of sense to work as much as possible on the car at a track where you have loads of experience testing with both this season’s car and others before in any sort of track condition.

      3. @prisioner-monkeys Desperation, absolutely yes.

    2. 23kennyboy23
      10th May 2013, 11:39

      You have to say if they are at all serious about the world championship (lol) you don’t want to be using these up in case there’s some disaster at the last race or something.

      1. I will eat my socks if Jenson is in the championship hunt at the last few races. I think they are better off using their get out of jail card now

        1. I will eat my socks if Jenson is in the championship hunt at the last few races. I think they are better off using their get out of jail card now

          @todfod – I think it’s funny that people think it’s as if McLaren had the option not to break curfew! When a team breaks curfew, it’s because they’ve run out of options and have no other choices left!

  2. Weird to do it on a Thursday!

    1. They hoped for dry weather today to test it all, I’d say @mike-dee

  3. What does it say about McLaren’s organization that they are using up one of their two chances to do this straight after a 3-week break? Surely that’s enough time to have the cars ready, no matter how significant the upgrades. These curfew-breaks are surely more beneficial to the teams when the races are on consecutive weekends, or where significant damage or repairs are required that you cannot plan for.

  4. Knowing mclaren they probably did it by mistake

  5. Good call by McLaren. All the running Jenson did in FP1 may come in handy for the rest of the weekend. Oh wait…

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