How McLaren got back to the top

Amid the widespread astonishment at how Fernando Alonso has found himself leading the world championship after two races despite driving the worst car Ferrari have produced for nearly 20 years, it has been somewhat overlooked that McLaren are topping the constructors' championship.

Victory for Jenson Button in Australia, two third places for Lewis Hamilton and two front row lock-outs have demonstrated that the MP4-27 is not only the best-looking car on the grid, it is also the fastest.

This is quite a turnaround from the last three years, when McLaren have been off the pace at the start of the season, putting their title challenge on the back foot before it had started.

The man responsible for this turnaround is McLaren technical director Paddy Lowe, who is in charge of the team's design and engineering.

A likeable, down-to-earth character, Lowe says "relief" is the first emotion he feels as a result of this impressive achievement after three years of struggling in vain to keep up with Red Bull.

He says: "There is a lot of pressure - people going around saying what you need to do is deliver a car that is quickest at the first race, as though we hadn't thought of that, you know?

"You go and estimate what you think that involves with no certain knowledge and then you go and try to deliver it. It's tough."

McLaren driver Jenson Button tackles a rain-swept Malaysian Grand Prix. Photo: Getty

Ask Lowe how McLaren have ended up with the fastest car at the start of a season for the first time in four years, and he'll tell you there is no "magic".

In reality, there are several factors behind McLaren's ability to leapfrog Red Bull this year and stay ahead of everyone else.

McLaren had a successful winter that was not affected by reliability problems with the car, as had been the case in 2011. That meant they could spend pre-season perfecting what they had rather than, as Lowe puts it, "fighting fires".

Equally, Red Bull appear to have been more badly affected than most other teams by the banning of exhaust-blown diffusers, last year's must-have technology, which the world champions are widely believed to have exploited more effectively than any other team.

For McLaren, starting 2012 with the fastest car is the culmination of a three-year battle to return to the top that began with the disaster of 2009, when they started the season more than two seconds off the pace.

That was the result of Hamilton's intense title battle with Ferrari's Felipe Massa in 2008 - which deflected resource away from both team's new cars - as well as the introduction of the biggest regulation change for 25 years.

McLaren recovered well in 2009 to win a couple of races later in the season, once they had adopted the 'double diffuser' that caused controversy at the start of the year and led to Brawn's championship win.

In 2010 they moved forward, but were still only third fastest behind Red Bull and Ferrari; and in 2011 they leapfrogged Ferrari but were still behind Red Bull.

At the same time, there was a re-organisation of the technical department undertaken in 2010-11, which has taken time to settle down.

"We came out (in 2011) pretty much in the same place we had been at the end of 2010," Lowe says. "So Red Bull had made decent progress over the winter and so had we.

"You have got to do not only what your competitors have done over the winter but then a bit more and then some to generate a lead over them.

"But that is difficult when there aren't fundamental changes in the rules for the car.

"You'd need Red Bull to go on holiday for a month, and then if you were working to the same general output you'd catch them up, but obviously they don't do that so you've just got to push it."

The same thoughts were going through the minds of the bosses at Ferrari. But whereas Maranello responded by undertaking a major change in design philosophy - which has backfired, notwithstanding Alonso's win on Sunday - McLaren realised this would be a mistake.

"In general you are going to be reluctant to say: 'I need to tear this up'," Lowe says.

"Here and there we were quicker than a Red Bull and we were certainly close to them when we weren't.

"The car performance at that point, given also there is not a big regulation change, is a consequence of a great deal of hard work. So it's quite rash to throw that away in too many areas rather than just build on it and iterate further and further.

"That doesn't mean you're not constantly looking for new ideas and trying to make them work. (But) you have to make very sure that whatever change you make is going to be better."

Lowe's contention that there has been no miracle at McLaren, just good, solid development work, is backed up by the fact that other teams have clearly made even more progress compared to Red Bull than they have - such as Lotus and Williams.

In pointing this out, Lowe betrays the natural caution of the F1 engineer - an approach that is understandable when, as Malaysia proved, even having the outright fastest car is no guarantee you will win the race.

Hamilton stepped down from the bottom step of the podium on Sunday to tell the waiting media he needed to find more race pace to capitalise on his strong qualifying form.

Lowe's "new challenge", it seems, has already arrived.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/03/lowe_confident_of_mclaren_succ.html

Luciano Burti Roberto Bussinello Jenson Button Tommy Byrne Giulio Cabianca

Team order rule needs a re-think


Jean Todt arives for Wednesday's hearing © Getty Images
Formula One should look at abolishing the controversial ban on team orders after Ferrari escaped further punishment for their manipulation of the German Grand Prix result. That is the view of the Daily Telegraph’s Tom Cary, who is of the opinion that the team orders rule now needs to be seriously looked at because of its obvious shortcomings.
“Whether you are for or against team orders, if the FIA could not back up its own rules and nail a competitor in a blatant case such as this the rule really does need reviewing. Perhaps Ferrari’s thinly-veiled threat to take the matter to the civil courts if they were punished too harshly scared the governing body, who as much as admitted the flimsiness of its rule."
Paul Weaver, reporting for the Guardian in Monza, was in favour of the ruling which keeps alive Ferrari’s slim chances in an enthralling championship.
“The World Motor Sport Council was right not to ruin a compelling Formula One season by taking away the 25 points Alonso collected in Germany. That would have put him out of the five-man title race. But the council was widely expected to increase the fine and possibly deduct points from the team, as opposed to the individual. In the end, it could be argued that common sense prevailed. But the decision will dismay those who were upset by the way Ferrari handled the situation as much as anything else.”
The Daily Mail's Jonathan McEvoy expressed outrage at the FIA tearing up its own rule book by allowing Ferrari to escape unpunished.
"Although the race stewards fined them £65,000 for giving team orders in July, the FIA World Motor Sport Council, to whom the matter was referred, decided not to impose any further punishment. It leaves the sport's rulers open to derision. It was, after all, their rule they undermined. In a statement, the WMSC said the regulation banning team orders 'should be reviewed'."

Source: http://blogs.espnf1.com/paperroundf1/archives/2010/09/team_order_rule_needs_a_rethin_1.php

Bill Brack Ernesto Brambilla Vittorio Brambilla Toni Branca Gianfranco Brancatelli

Ferrari director ‘disappointed’ with performance level

Ferrari Technical director Pat Fry has said that he doesn’t expect the team to start the 2012 season well. Who remembers the 1988 Austalian Grand Prix? Many have suggested that Ferrari need to hit the ground running to improve on last year, but Fry is in a rather pessimistic mood. Speaking at the end of a tough pre-season, [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Formula1Fancast/~3/VcaBfnzCfTQ/ferrari-director-disappointed-with-performance-level

Tony Bettenhausen Mike Beuttler Birabongse Bhanubandh Lucien Bianchi Gino Bianco

Doctors use Formula One pit crews as safety model

American Medical News reports hospitals in at least a dozen countries are learning how to translate the split-second timing and near-perfect synchronisation of Formula One pit crews to the high-risk handoffs of patients from surgery to recovery and intensive care.
"In Formula One, they have checklists, databases, and they have well-defined processes for doing things, and we don't really have any of those things in health care."

Source: http://blogs.espnf1.com/paperroundf1/archives/2010/10/doctors_use_formula_one_pit_cr.php

JeanPierre Beltoise Olivier Beretta Allen Berg Georges Berger Gerhard Berger