the team has turned itselfround butalso in the
intelligence shown in makingtwo very good
signings for the technicaltea m in James Key and
AndreasSeidl. That said, one must acknowledge
the rolereturnee Pat Fry has madeover last win ter.
McLaren haslearned once again what makes a car
competitive. The team is fortunate to have patient
investors, but at least their faithis pa ying off.
Renault, apart from agood performance in
Canada, has not shown the form expected of
that team after last year. It is well into a rebuild
programme and I was very impressed with the
factory when I visited it recently, but Renault badly
needs a strong second half to the season.
Haas appears to be facing the realitiesof the
relentless competition for those midfield places
and is struggling morethan most to un derstand
the intricacies of the tyres, while Racing Point,
Alfa Romeo and Toro Rosso mustall be hoping
that mid-season developments give themthe boost
needed torise above each other. Sixth to ninth is
going tobe c lose, and it is possible that the top of
the bunch will be decided by onefortunate result.gains made byHonda since last season.Red Bull
took a brave if almost inevitabledecision to make
the switch from Renault overthe winterand
one has to saythat in terms of performance and
reliability it haspaid off. The team findsitself in
third place, but thewin i n Austriaand the hars h
acknowledgement that three quarters of the team’s
points have come from itslead driver shows that it
is morecompetitive thanits points tally suggests.
McLaren is impressive, not just in thewaycars have equal aerodynamic efficiency then the five points of lower
drag mightequate to around 18 points less downforce, which in turn
would show as a laptime deficit of around five or six tenths which,
Bahrain excepted, is about what we are seeing.
How will Ferrari recover? Well, in order
to moveonone fir st needs to understandthe
current problems. Isit just a question of low
downforce?Personally,I doubtit. Ferra ri’s
strong performance in Bahrain was ata
circuit that is much less sensitive to a lackof
tyre gripthan it is to power or aerodynamics,
and Ferrari seems to be strugglingto
generate sufficient tyretemperature.I
don’t think this isjust down to thereduced
tread gauge of the 2019 Pire llis, but that is
probablythe subject of a column initself.
Of the others , I’m im pressed with theFERRARI’S PRE-SEASON FORM FLATTEREDTO
DECEIVE... IT SEEMSTO BE STRU GGLINGTO GENERATE
SUFFICIENT TYRE TEMPERATURE
INSIDER
UNDER THE HOOD28 F1 RACING AUGUST 2019
RedBullisshowingwellnow
thatithasswitchedtoHonda
butisstillthird-bestMcLarenisontheup
again,withacarthatis
abletocompetewiththe
othermidfieldteams