McLaren to stick with new car

There was probably never any doubt that McLaren would continue to show faith in the new McLaren MP4-28.

But the fact that there was even a rumour that they could switch back to the 2012 MP4-27. Just shows how poor a showing McLaren’s Jenson Button and Sergio Perez put on in Australia.

The McLaren lacked pace throughout the weekend and struggled to get to grips with any aspect of the weekend. Practice and Qualifying came and went without McLaren making any progress and the race was little more than a public test session for the team.

McLaren’s Jenson Button lasted just four laps on his first set of super soft tyres, no teams really faired too well on the softer compound rubber, but all did better than Button who is known to be one of the best at looking after his tyres.

The Brit after the race stated that the team set-up the car for just four laps on the super-softs so that’s what they did, they knew they wouldn’t be in contention on Sunday and the two points they did pick up with Button’s ninth place finish was probably a surprise.

Most teams went into 2012, the final season of the current set of regulations with cars not too dissimilar to last season. The key buzz word around the paddock was evolutionary and was certainly the idea behind the likes of Red Bull’s design for the new 2013 car.

But McLaren opted for a new car, a new car that would give the opportunity to develop the car more throughout the season. But first it would seem they have to learn about the new car before they will know how to improve it.

‘At the moment we have to work hard on this car. We know it has got some areas of high potential and we know it has potentially more downforce than last year’s car. McLaren Team principal Martin Whitmarsh told Autosport Magazine.

‘We just need to understand it and make sure it [the performance] is accessible.

‘We have all had cars in the past which have been difficult to get performance out of even though some of the [downforce] figures are quite impressive.

‘This car seems to be difficult in that regard and we need to work on it, understand it and fix it.’