Adrian Newey has admitted that McLaren are much closer than they were in Australia, but he added that he wasn’t sure whether it was the car, the nature of the track or the tyres.
McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton managed to qualify second, almost within a tenth of Sebastian Vettel, whilst Jenson Button was in fourth just behind Mark Webber.
The gap in qualifying has decreased from over eight tenths in Australia just two weeks earlier, suggesting McLaren have either improved their pace substantially, or better managed their tyres in Sepang.
“I think it’s the usual thing in F1, that things change and evolve quickly,” Newey told Adam Cooper.
“McLaren were obviously much closer in qualifying here than in Melbourne, how much of that is nature of the circuit and how much is that they’ve improved their car in the intervening two weeks, I don’t know, because I don’t know enough about their car.”
He suggested tyres could be the key answer, referring back to the days of Ferrari vs. McLaren when the lead between the two would differ at different types of tracks.
“It’s entirely possible, we’ve seen that before. If you go back a few years ago when McLaren and Ferrari were battling for the championship you could see that they used their tires differently, and that played into one team’s hands at one race, and the other’s at the other.
“There’s almost certainly going to be an element of that this year.”
