McLaren technical director Paddy Lowe has praised the team’s ability to overcome difficulties, despite testing times within the team.
The outfit went into pre-season testing with a slow and unreliable car which failed to complete a full race distance, that was until the first race of the season.
A drastic turnaround, thanks to a new exhaust system, floor and aerodynamic tweaks, meant McLaren were easily ranked second fastest come Melbourne.
Lowe believes it was their teamworking ability which helped them knuckle-down and drastically improve their fortunes.
“The three-week gap between China and Turkey has allowed everyone at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes to reflect on some incredible moments of selfless teamwork,” he told McLaren.com.
“The winter tests in February and early March were probably some of our most challenging experiences in terms of running reliability that I can remember in 20 years.
“It was an exhausting month for everyone at Woking and Brixworth.
“We kept experiencing a variety of failures with our new exhaust system. We’d come into the circuit each morning thinking we’d fixed the problems of the previous day, only to be met with a fresh series of trials the next day!
“Those days were very difficult for the team,” he admitted.
“Things came together just in time – and that was down to a combination of factors: we were lucky, I have to admit, but it was much more than luck.
“You have to factor in the skill of the team to work together in a very short period of time to push in a completely different direction; to understand all the different issues – the reliability, the performance – the skills of the team, all the tools they’ve created over the years; they all came through to our profit.”
He highlighted the teams mad rush prior to the start of the Chinese GP, which saw Lewis Hamilton suffer a flooded engine with just minutes before the pitlane closed, as another example.
“Look at how we all worked in China to get Lewis’s car out of the garage and onto the grid with 30 seconds to go. That was also the result of incredible teamwork: 20 guys, all on the radio, working very hard and very rapidly around the car.
“In those instances, there’s not a big discussion about who’s going to do what; there are very few instructions, everybody moves seamlessly, they know what they’ve got to do.
“When you’re in a crisis, people know what they’re good at and how they can contribute. They’re also respectful about what others can do. We saw that on a macro level before Australia several weeks ago and on a micro level in China on Sunday.
“For Australia, we had 10 days. In China, just six minutes. In both instances, the team brought all their resources to the objective and rose magnificently to the occasion.
“It still makes me emotional when I think about it.”
