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Pedro de la Rosa thinks that McLaren have a troubling year ahead of them, due to a chassis that is far from perfect.
The former McLaren driver was in Barcelona for the first of pre-season testing and has been disappointed by the Woking based team so far, who have hit reliability problems.
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"The McLaren is more nervous than I expected," he told El Confidencial. "I see a Fernando (Alonso) who has to work on the steering wheel more than is ideal. The car is unstable in turns 1 and 5 and tends to lock wheels.
"No one is attacking like Fernando. I really did not expect the McLaren to be as restless on these wide tyres," de la Rosa added.
De la Rosa was impressed by Ferrari who topped the time sheets on two of the four days, showing no major reliability issues.
"The Ferrari is very agile and obviously good," said the 46-year-old Spaniard. "Of course, I don't know how much fuel they are using, but on the road it is really impressive."
De la Rosa, however, backs the consensus that Mercedes continues to lead the pack.
"The Mercedes is so good in turns 1 and 2," he said. "No car is faster there. I think the car has a lot of downforce. I really enjoyed watching the new cars -- now the only missing thing is engine noise to match! In terms of how they look, I can't understand why the shark fins were allowed again. They had been banned because everyone found them ugly. Why are they back again?"
Fergal Walsh
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Replies (3)
Login to replyPawilly
Posts: 3
1) Hope McLaren makes Testing Week 1 look like a bad dream. Would like to have them find their mojo again and see Fernando and Stoffel in the mix at the front.
2) So true the comment on sound, although the engines seemed to sound better.
f1fan0101
Posts: 1,804
Yes but how much inside info does he actually have
Barron
Posts: 625
He doesn't need 'inside info' to see for himself that the McLaren is ugly around some of the Catalunya corners. Other observers trackside have noted that Alonso had to 'lift & coast' around 1 or 2 of them, whilst their rivals were powering around on part or full throttle. Of course, it may be that they are running the PU in 'safe' mode which will not drive the car fast enough for the wings to work effectively, or it might just be that the chassis is indeed a POS. Either way, this is another pathetic beginning to a season. There seems to be something very wrong with the culture at McLaren these days...