If you’ve been following everything that’s happened in Formula One pre-season testing this year, you’re not going to bet any money on McLaren-Honda having a good season. And we wouldn’t either.
We could make the case that McLaren have been the most disappointing team so far during the pre-season, and that’s counting Manor F1 who haven’t even participated!
Sure, than might be a bit harsh, but keep in mind that McLaren is racing with a completely new car this year, and most of all a completely new engine from a manufacturer who has been out of the “game” for many years.
Curiously, there are still some who warn against overlooking their chances in the 2015 season. Such is the case with Williams technical chief Pat Symonds who told Autosport that we should remember the turnaround Red Bull and Renault had last year, despite their winter struggles.
“If you rewind and think about some of the problems Renault had this time last year, they came through and won three races, didn’t they?” said Symonds.
We agree, but even though we could say there are similarities between Red Bull’s situation last winter and McLaren’s this year, the truth is that the foundation was already there. If there was ever a team that could figure out how to be competitive in Formula One, it would be Red Bull Racing.
When asked what he thought was the pecking order this year, Symonds put Williams behind Mercedes, but ahead of Ferrari and Red Bull. He also said that McLaren will be “there” once they sort out there problems. And by there he meant right along side Red Bull.
We can’t really argue against that, except for McLaren getting their act together and reaching Red Bull-levels of competitiveness – that we wouldn’t count on.
In fact, we wouldn’t be surprised to see both the Mercedes-powered Lotus as well as the Ferrari-powered Sauber moving ahead of McLaren in the constructors standings for 2015.
Story references: Autosport