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Jenson Button, McLaren drives on his way to winning the Brazilian Formula One Grand Prix at the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace
2012 was a season full of ups and downs for the Woking based team. If one looks back, one can see that in almost each and every race, something went wrong and at least one, if not both, driver(s) had to suffer. For example, let’s see the following few instances:
- Malaysia: Button hit Karthikeyan’s HRT and ruined McLaren’s day after a front-row lockout
- Spain: Hamilton relegated to the back of the grid after not having minimum fuel allowed for FIA inspection after qualifying
- Valencia: Hamilton’s needless clash with Maldonado and thus losing important points
- Italy: Button retiring from 2nd due to mechanical failure
- Singapore: Hamilton’s gearbox failure while leading
- Abu Dhabi: Hamilton retiring from the lead because of a mechanical failure
Apart from these, they were many more incidents, such as botched pitstops and other accidents (due to other drivers’ mistakes) which seriously dented Hamilton’s chances in the championship. No doubt, they played a huge role in him deciding to leave the team and go to Mercedes.
Hamilton was a very big loss to the team and they knew only two other drivers on the grid – Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel- can be a match for him but unfortunately they were not available. So they took a risk and hired the promising, yet erratic, Sergio Perez.
Sergio Perez and Jenson Button attend the drivers press conference during previews for the Japanese Formula One Grand Prix at the Suzuka Circuit
Now looking forward to 2013, one thing that looks to be a problem for the team is qualifying. Both their current drivers don’t have a very good qualifying record against their previous teammates and thus both rely on racing through the pack towards the front. But that can be a big risk as Perez found out in Belgium and Button in Korea. So, if the team are to take the fight to the likes of Red Bull and Ferrari, then it will be important for either the drivers to be a bit more aggressive on a single lap or for the team to provide something like BrawnGP in early 2009, which seems very unlikely given the stability in regulations.
On the other hand, races might be a strong point with both drivers knowing how to race through the pack and avoid contact most of the times. Even if the two McLarens can be within the first three rows, one can expect regular podiums but the wins would be difficult to come if the top three teams are equal on performance. Looking at last year, the championship this year should be a straight fight between Vettel and Alonso – with Kimi Raikkonen a dark horse – and so it would take something truly heroic from either Button or Perez to snatch the crown from those three.
This was all about the inter-team battle but another interesting thing would be to watch out for the intra-team battle. For the time being, Button is the de facto No.1 till Perez gets to grips with the car and starts to unlock more pace. But if Perez does to Button what Hamilton did to Alonso in 2007, then it is a different story altogether. It has always been McLaren’s policy to treat both of their drivers equally, so both drivers would be trying to gain the psychologically upper hand on the other as soon as possible.
Finally, the MP4-28 should be a very good car right from Melbourne because the MP4-27 was the fastest car on average throughout last season and the rules didn’t change much for this year. Only major thing which might affect the car’s performance is the change in DRS rules while qualifying. Ferrari was the team which struggled against Red Bull and McLaren in qualifying because the F2012 didn’t provide Alonso and Massa enough confidence to use DRS on fast corners while their counterparts used it at will. So, every team, including McLaren, would be working on a passive DRS device similar to the ones designed by Lotus and Mercedes to regain the lost performance.
All in all, it would be another fascinating season with Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Lotus expected to fight for the wins and the championship. But with teams having understood the Pirelli tyres quite well midway last season, it would be very unlikely to again have 7 different winners in the first 7 races, even though Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery has said that they would be making more aggressive tyres choices this year.
