After stealing a march on their rivals at the start of the season with their innovative F-duct, McLaren have since fallen behind in the 2010 development race. Late introducing their version of the blown diffuser, they have struggled to match Red Bull and Ferrari at recent races and lost their championship lead at the last round.
However, ahead of next weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, team principal Martin Whitmarsh maintains it is only a matter of time before McLaren tap into the performance gains he feels are buried within the MP4-25 and its latest updates.
“As we’ve always stated, we believe there are some large areas of performance locked within the car and its recent upgrade, and we are confident that our solid-engineering approach will enable us to fully unlock them sooner rather than later,” he said. Formula 1
Hamilton had held the lead in the championship since the eighth race of the season in Canada after collecting back-to-back wins in Istanbul and Montreal.
But he surrendered his advantage after failing to finish for the first time this season at the Hungarian Grand Prix because of transmission failure.
Hamilton is confident that August’s summer break, which includes an enforced two-week factory shutdown for all of the teams, will help revitalise McLaren’s campaign.
“The break gave us some valuable thinking time to consider how to improve our car for the remainder of the season,” Hamilton added.
“We are not only optimistic of better results but also of stronger pace for the rest of the year.
“I head to Spa off the back of a disappointing non finish in Hungary. We’ve investigated the causes and are confident it won’t happen again.
“Spa is on one of the great Formula 1 tracks and one I’d really love to win.”
The top five drivers are separated by only 20 points as the season approaches its denouement and with 25 points awarded for a race win Webber, Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, Jenson Button and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso are all hotly contesting the title.
Button goes to Spa in fourth place, behind Red Bull rival Vettel and 14 points behind Webber, and the defending world champion is intent on making up ground. BBC Sport
He added: “While we’re optimistic the bodywork rules clarification will close the gap among the top teams, and that Spa and Monza should suit our package better than the Hungaroring, it’s still important we regain the momentum we’d reached earlier this season.
“While I don’t think these two European races will be pivotal to the title fight, it will nonetheless be harder to introduce bigger upgrades to the car at the end-of-season fly-aways.
“So it’s important for the whole team we score well in both events.” The Press Association
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