McLaren to reintroduce Istanbul upgrades in Spain

2011 Spanish Grand Prix

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Jenson Button, McLaren, Istanbul, 2011

McLaren will attempt to reintroduce their Turkish Grand Prix upgrade package at Barcelona next week.

The team abandoned the upgrade during practice in Istanbul where Lewis Hamilton finished 40 seconds behind winner Sebastian Vettel.

Team principal Martin Whitmarsh said: “As we saw in Istanbul last week, there is always risk inherent in bringing any upgrade to the circuit – particularly following the absence of testing.

“For Barcelona, we’re planning to reintroduce some of the proposed upgrades initially scheduled for introduction in Istanbul. Once again, however, they’ll only be introduced if their initial deployment on Friday proves successful.”

Jenson Button added the team were “feeling more positive about getting the most from our planned upgrades.”

He said: “It’s important to get another strong result under our belts, particularly as we head straight to Monte-Carlo, so maintaining momentum will be vital.”

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    Keith Collantine
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    28 comments on “McLaren to reintroduce Istanbul upgrades in Spain”

    1. You’d have to think they can get a little closer to Red Bull with this upgrade if they can run it. Hamilton was fairly close to Red Bull pace in Istanbul without the upgrade, so hopefully this will narrow the gap somewhat.

      I’m hoping Alonso can maintain his place near the top and that the McLaren boys can keep with him.

      Having said that, you can’t see anyone else but a Red Bull winning the next two races after Webbers domination last year.

      1. I certainly hope you are right about both Alonso and Mclaren.

        And it would be lovely if at least Webber could take car for a change of pole sitter in Barcelona.

      2. OmarR-Pepper (@)
        13th May 2011, 18:50

        of course, RB will have some upgrades, at least slightly ones.
        It’s like a little misleading when there’s a team announcing these famous upgrades, then results don’t come (and it’s not that McL are unsuccessful being 3rd, but what they REALLY want is to win again), China’s victory wasn ‘t 100% caused by McLaren, let’s accept Red Bull made a big mistake on tyre strategy. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Hamilton beating Alonso next race, but to beat Vettel it’s going to be a really hard time.

    2. Adrian Morse
      13th May 2011, 14:41

      Does it sound like McLaren are falling behind their development plan a little? I thought I read somewhere (here on this forum maybe?) that they had a major upgrade planned for Barcelona, and now they are still working on their Istanbul upgrade – and not sounding particularly confident at making that work.

      1. Yeah confidence isn’t something they seem to be oozing at the moment. But we don’t know whether this is the Barcelona upgrade maybe moved forward for Turkey? And if its not it could be a combination of Turkey and Barcelona upgrade in one big package.

        1. Grabthebull !
          13th May 2011, 16:28

          It is the Barcelona package they tried to bring forward, but because of rain in FP1, they didnt run as much tests as they wanted so they opted to not run due to reliability concerns!

          1. yeah, they didnt have problems with the upgrades in turkey, just FP1’s heavy rain prevented them running them enough to evaluate performance. In effect they only had FP2 to test them.. since FP3 is mainly for qualy simulation and long run simulation rather than evaluating new parts

            1. if you didn’t know what F1 was all about, then you’d think this train of conversation very strange indeed…

      2. Last year too they had problems with their upgrades.

        1. But some were working fine too. It was what helped McLaren take their wins in the first half of the season.

      3. I think the situation may be a bit different to last years floundering with the EBD. If McLaren make make the octopus work, they will have a unique, uncopiable design advantage. It may be more significant than the F-Duct. Unlike when the brought the EBD to Silverstone last year, this time they will have been working on this thing for months. And unlike the EBD the car was designed with this feature in mind.

    3. does anyone know what update they’re bringing? It is quite a sensible place to bring it as Barcelona is a big testing track for the winter

      1. Bigbadderboom
        13th May 2011, 15:41

        I was under the impression that it’s the exhaust and blown diffuser upgrade but could be wrong!

    4. from f1 dot com-

      Q: You are having a dinner party and can invite four people from the world of motorsport, past or present. Who do you invite?
      LH: I wouldn’t. Who to invite? Nobody. I would want to invite girls!

      1. Bet that went down well.

        1. I’m suprised Aryton wasn’t mentioned by LH!

    5. Apparently the U sidepod design has been implemented with the hope of being able to use multiple exhaust outlets to increase downforce, so if they ever get the octopus working it will be great for the second half of the season.

      1. that would make for an awesome second half of the season. i’d love to see vettel and hamilton in similarly fast cars going at it for P1….

        .. while webber and button fight for P3 haha

      2. Apparently the U sidepod design has been implemented with the hope of being able to use multiple exhaust outlets

        You mean two outlets like everyone else, more than two is against the rules.

    6. As a Maclaren fan I’m becomming rather weary of hearing the same tired lines of performance enhancing upgrades being perpetually peddled. This vacuous rhethoric serves no other purpose than to paint a thin veneer over the fact that Maclaren have nothing radical in their armoury.

      Talk is cheap and hasn’t equated to anything meaningful. Lewis’ great win in China was decided more on strategy than it was mechanical performance. Maclaren need to stop wishing they had Adrian Newey in their camp, stop talking a good game and start getting some constructive ideas on the table. If Maclaren can expend the same amount of energy into car development that Martin Whitmarsh expends waxing lyrical about performance of mythical proportions, we just might have ourselves a championship winning car this season.

      Martin! Lets do our talking on the track!

      1. as a “maclaren” fan, you’d think you would know how to spell it.

        1. Fail, lol. But you gotta give the guy some credit. It’s been the same since mid 2010. And Red Bull (Vettel to be more precise) aren’t tossing points away like they did first half of 2010.

          It’s obvious McLaren won’t be matching and beating Red Bull on pure pace in 2011. Lewis will have to scratch all his wins this season with his fingernails.

          Jenson ? Sorry, can’t see him winning any races this year … **sigh**

        2. Well spotted Jake. So empassioned was I, my spelling went out of the window. Lets just hope the same won’t be said of MCLAREN’s championship hopes come the end of the season.

      2. hear hear!

    7. They need to find something certainly.

    8. Maybe Martin Whitmarsh needs to GO…
      He has no clue what to do.

      1. That’s far too easy to say. This is a team game remember. Besides, McLaren’s rate of development is to be respected, especially given pre-season testing this year. Whitmarsh needs to go nowhere. They need stability like any other team.

    9. The only upgrades that seem to have worked so far are the ones they copied! Maybe they should copy more and invent less.

      Jokes apart they have been great at generating new ideas but taking too long to perfect them. I would take that over not inventing anything at all.

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