The fall of McLaren

[1]

McLaren is generally one of those teams which are in the forefront of technology. In 2010, they introduced their car, a clever little piece of ingenuity. They called it RW80, the rest of the world called it the ‘f-duct’. The f-duct is not some complicated, out-of-this-world engineering. It is simply an f shaped nozzle at the front of the car connected to a pipe which runs to the back of the vehicle up to the rear wing. ‘Activating’ the f-duct is fairly simple too. There is a hole on the side of the cockpit. To engage the f-duct, the driver just has to close it with his knee. While deactivated, the air blows into the cockpit. When the hole is blocked with the knee, the air travels to the back and blows on to the rear wing, creating a sudden loss of downforce, resulting in extreme acceleration. The other teams struggled to duplicate the system.It is surprising to see a team with such capabilities struggling to keep up with the other cars. The team is performing so poorly that Force India is ahead on the Championship ranking. Force India’s VJM06 cars are not phenomenal beasts that are by leaps and bounds better than its predecessors. While better than before, it is still no match for the front runners. This speaks volumes about the failure of McLaren this year.The team has been in F1 since 1966 and has over the years won the constructors championship 8 times. The last time they won a championship was in 1998 when Mika Hakkinen was behind the wheel. They, however, have been rather consistent in finishing 2nd or 3rd, having done so for all but two seasons since 1999.A reason behind the sudden loss of ability can be Sergio Perez replacing Lewis Hamilton who emigrated to Mercedes after the 2012 season. While Lewis Hamilton has gifted Mercedes 62 points, Perez was able to claim a pitiable 12 points. But blame does not just lie with Perez as his team mate Jenson Button has to his name just 25 points.127 points behind Red Bull and 72 points behind Mercedes, McLaren with a laughable 37 points after 6 races is already too far behind the leaders. With a maximum of 43 points up for grabs per race, if McLaren gets a 1-2 finish for the next three races with Red Bull out of the points, McLaren will be just two points ahead. With Red Bull claiming an average 27 points per race, them finishing outside the points for the remainder of the season is highly unlikely. So a more likely scenario where Red Bull claims an average 20 points per race, McLaren will need a 1-2 finish in the next 8 races to surpass Red Bull.So with Red Bull looking out of reach, McLaren should only aim to outperform Mercedes, and perhaps Lotus who are another three points away. With 13 races remaining and 75 points separating McLaren and the third spot on the leader board, McLaren should aim at staying at least 6 points ahead of Mercedes and Lotus in every race, if they wish to hold on to their reputation as a front runner. As of now, they are nothing more than an irritating spot on Force India’s rear view mirror, struggling amidst the mid field.