McLaren Pick Up the Pace: So What are They Really Up To?

Pre-season testing pace for world champion Lewis Hamilton's McLaren team has been unimpressive so far, and it is no secret that the team are struggling to replicate the form that saw Hamilton capture the title in dramatic circumstances last season.

But yesterday in Jerez, Hamilton's teammate Heikki Kovalainen managed to put in a time of 1'18"202, the fastest of the week for the team and the first time they had lapped faster than one minute, 19 seconds.

Almost immediately the speculation has begun to mount that McLaren have managed to turn around their performance deficit or, perhaps even more audaciously, that no such deficit ever existed and the team have merely been keeping their powder dry so far.

So what does this mean for McLaren? Will they be fighting at the front in Melbourne, or will they find themselves in the midfield?

First of all it is important to emphasise that, although it is an improvement, McLaren's pace is still not massively impressive. Kovalainen's best time yesterday is still four tenths of a second slower than Jenson Button managed in the Brawn, set on Tuesday.

Furthermore, Nico Rosberg in the Williams went faster on Tuesday than Kovalainen today, and the Renault driven by Nelson Piquet was only a tenth of a second slower.

Like all F1 tracks, Jerez has been gaining grip throughout the week as cars lay down rubber on the circuit, so Button's benchmark time (and those of Rosberg and Piquet) were actually set in lower grip conditions than Kovalainen's.

Moreover, both times were almost certainly set in a qualifying simulation. On a relatively short track like Jerez, last year being four tenths slower than the fastest car could mean the difference between a top ten grid position and being eliminated from the second segment of qualifying.

This comparison has limited utility as the teams were unusually close last year, and the rule changes for this season will mean the field is spread out somewhat, but it is still true that McLaren are far from being in a comfortable position.

With the in-season testing ban looming, it is going to become even more difficult for McLaren to claw back those final few tenths once the season gets underway in a little over a week.

Secondly, McLaren were still using flow-vis paint on their cars yesterday to visibly illustrate the airflow over their car.

This implies that, although their newest aerodynamic modifications are improving the car's pace, they still do not fully understand the way the new parts are working. This could have grave consequences later in the season, when setting the car up specifically for circuits that require precise levels of downforce.

Thirdly, though McLaren appear to be catching up on the race track, all the other teams except Williams have concluded their pre-season test programmes already.

This means that they are spending time back in the factories, utilising the data collected from their test programmes to make final improvements to their cars before Melbourne.

In this final development race, McLaren are going to be behind, in some cases by as much as a week; in Formula One, as it is so often said, a week is a very long time indeed.

Thus it appears that, although McLaren's prospects are certainly improving, short of a miracle they will not be fighting with Brawn and Ferrari for the top spots in Melbourne.

BMW and Toyota have both shown impressive form so far too, so unless McLaren produce something spectacular (or they really have been sandbagging all along, which team principal Martin Whitmarsh all but denied last week), the best they can hope for is a spirited battle with the likes of Renault and Red Bull to make up the top ten in Australia.