Martin Whitmarsh believes McLaren’s new MP4-26 will create lots of discussion among fans and teams thanks to its innovative design.
In 2010, the Woking-based outfit pioneered the F-duct, a system which stalled the rear-wing to reduce drag. It was later copied by the majority of the grid. Whitmarsh is hoping some ‘interesting features’ on the 2011 car will have the same effect.
“The truth is, we’re always pretty fired-up,” he told Crash.net. “We’ve got an incredible team of people who are very, very motivated; they’re working hard and we go into every year seeking to win and hoping that we’re going to win.
“The car is in car-build at the moment. It’s always hard-pushed for everyone, but it looks good to me, it looks innovative, I think there are some interesting features on it and I’m sure there’s going to be lots of discussion about it.”
The team principal isn’t getting ahead of himself though and realises the fact that his rivals will be working just as hard.
“I’m sure others are working just as hard. You can never be confident.
“We took the decision [to launch the MP4-26 late] probably six months ago; we thought it was right then, and I don’t have any reason yet to believe that it was wrong. We feel that for us, giving our aerodynamicists and our engineers the maximum amount of time to find performance and develop the car was the right thing to do.”
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