McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh is hopeful of a competitive season, and doesn’t believe any one team will dominate.
After a disappointing pre-season for McLaren last year, the Woking outfit is much more upbeat about their chances in 2012 after one of its most successful winter programmes.
Whilst assumptions are hard to come by going on test times, Whitmarsh is certain that McLaren are competitive and he isn’t expecting Red Bull to once again run away with it.
“The winter has been better than last year, when we went to Australia having not completed a race distance and looking spectacularly uncompetitive. [This year], we sense that we are competitive internally,” he said during a Vodafone McLaren Mercedes phone-in.
“The bad news is that we are not dominant, but the good news is that nobody is,” he added.
“Fuel loads, tyre and test programmes all interfere when it comes to judging relative performance, and race distances and long runs give a better indication than end of day times, so, based on that, we feel that we will be competitive. Some people may have been ‘sandbagging’, but Red Bull and ourselves did not do qualifying simulations, while others may have….”
