McLaren have warned that they, and the other teams on the grid, won’t know exactly where they stand in the pecking order until after the Australian Grand Prix.
Team principal Martin Whitmarsh admits he’s nervous to find out the order, but avoided making wild predictions, believing only the race will give the answers.
“Anyone who says they already know in what order the cars will line up on the Albert Park starting grid on Sunday is a soothsayer of rare ability,” he said.
“Indeed, in truth, even after qualifying on Saturday, no team principal will be genuinely confident of his car’s race-spec performance relative to that of his principal opposition until the flag drops and the proverbial stops.”
McLaren have been earmarked as one of the leading teams going by their testing pace, but Whitmarsh was keen to play down the speculation.
“We’ve faced a challenging few weeks prepping our new MP4-28 for the 2013 season,” he added. “It’s important to remember that our [car] is a new and uncompromising design that we intend to develop aggressively throughout the year.
“Undoubtedly, it has great potential – and we fly to Melbourne determined to show well and to score points that should establish us in good stead for both the drivers’ and the constructors’ world championships.”
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