McLaren MP4-28 Launch

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McLaren MP4-28 launch

Today's McLaren launch gave the outside world a good look into McLarens preparation for 2013. This year McLaren celebrates 50 years of its existence, and I suspect they will have a fantastic year. Jenson Button drove into the McLaren Technology Center in the P1, their new road car, and he was simply oozing confidence as he stepped out of that car and into the glare of the cameras. This the Jenson whom we saw back in 2009. Now that the team, and crucially the car is his, he knows he has a fantastic advantage, and a good chance to win the championship. He stressed on the fact that the new car is not only more consistent but also faster than last year. And McLaren did end the 2012 season with the fastest car.
The car itself has undergone a few changes, so it's not radically different, and it still does not carry a nose step as seen on other cars.

Martin Whitmarsh also stated that 2013 was every bit as important as 2014, so this will be one very competitive year, and they will be aiming to win that championship. Sergio Perez meanwhile was simply pleased to be with McLaren and will be looking to make an impact. But there's no doubt that Jenson Button will be in a class of his own if the car is quick and more importantly consistent. 2012's MP4-27 was the quickest car by far, by poor reliability was a sore point and effectively took them out the running for the championship.

2013 is going to be epic. The best drivers, all in the best teams with good cars, fighting for the championship. This will be one of the most competitive seasons in Formula 1 history, and never will a season start will atleast 8 drivers each of which has a fighting chance to win the championship.

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Overtaking in racing; hatke style.

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Racing in essence, is all about overtaking the guy ahead of you. And some pit-stop strategy. With a dash of technical wizardry. Like the F-duct on the Mercedes F1 2012 car. Well played.

However, after some lemonade and light thinking, I hit upon two new ways to overtake.





For the DTM drivers. Especially for those guys who have exhausts on the side of the car. DTM cars run V8's which heavily tuned and undergo a lot of stress. Often the engines de-stress by throwing out a bit of fire from the exhausts, on a trailing throttle or a sudden downshift. Actually it is quite a lot of fire. So why don't the cars with exhausts on the side, instead of having them at the back of the car, burn the flipping tyres of their opponents right off? I think it's quite possible if you're persistent. With good planning I think it's possible to set fire to those super-soft tyres in a few laps or so?

Fire!!!

Flamethrower.

Right. Now F1. Why can't the teams have alliances and stuff. Like, for example, "lets all screw Schumacher or some other poor sod everyone happens to hate at that moment" by overtaking him with planned teamwork. Like, a back marker such as Massa, and a front runner like Sergio Perez, or Kimi Raikkonen can overtake, let's say Webber by blocking him on the left and the right on the pit straight and then shutting the door on him before the first corner. Drivers should have the capability to radio each other mid race, plan their moves and overtake other drivers. There will be copiously epic amounts of overtaking, and not only because of the DRS activation nonsense which is extremely partial to the front runners. Seeing Narain Karthikeyan pulling a move on Vettel would be epic, and there'd just be so much unpredictability in the racing. There wouldn't be any Rosberg style pole-to-victory nonsense like in China anymore. Creativity and drifting will you earn you extra points. Of course, for proper racing fans there could be a ban on this stuff, say in circuits such as Spa and Monza. But nearly everywhere else, Kobayashi could very well get more points than the race winner even if he finishes outside the top 10 because of his drifting.

Something like this. Massa shutting the door on Webber while Alonso takes advantage. There could be inter-team overtaking as well.

What say Bernie? 

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