Gary Anderson's pre-season tech blog
McLaren launch
For a team with the professionalism of McLaren, to have to go to Berlin to finish building their MP4-26 seems a bit disorganised. But, it said, it wanted the maximum time possible for research and development and I suppose assembling the car in front of the press certainly gave them that!
As with Renault and it's exhausts, Williams and it's gearbox, Toro Rosso with it's very undercut sidepod-to-floor intersection, it's nice to see that McLaren has also gone out on a limb and built something that looks a bit different. Will it work? Only time will tell.
I have never, in my time in Formula 1 seen McLaren reveal as much of a new car at a press launch as it did today. There definitely must be something in the water around the Woking area, normally it is all hush hush and covered up until the car gets to the first race, but this time McLaren has revealed the underwear before the car has turned a wheel.
Well done Martin Whitmarsh for a very bullish approach.
The sidepod arrangement looks a bit like the Benetton B195 and the Ferrari F310 from the mid-1990s. We definitely haven't seen anything like this for quite a few years. There are some other quite interesting features on the car which make it all a bit different, but it does have a very standard exhaust system.
Force India
It's 20 years on since Jordan Grand Prix was launched and the Jordan 191 was rolled out of the Silverstone workshops. Today we saw Force India's 2011 challenger which is the team that has grown out of the remnants of Jordan. There have been a few different owners along the way but it is great to see someone like Vijay Mallya with the commitment and determination pushing for success in Formula 1.
The new VJM04 is a neat looking piece of kit. It has all the right attributes and as the team said in its press release, there are plenty of new parts to come before the car's first race in Bahrain. There is also a very aggressive development plan for the season.
From what I have seen today I think this will be necessary if it is to achieve its goal of finishing fifth in the championship.
Adrian Sutil, as we know, is a very experienced and competent F1 driver but he does seem a little like a magnet for accidents. Paul di Resta has achieved success in every formula he has driven in, but it will take him time to adapt to life in F1 as a race driver. To achieve fifth in the championship these guys need to be scoring reasonable points in every race and that is no mean feat when you look at the competition around them.
Source: Autosport
