After a few seasons in which McLaren
started slowly and were forced to play catch-up, the Woking team were
desperate to hit the ground running this year and they made a spectacular
start, locking out the front row in Australia and Malaysia with Button
looking particularly strong.
But the car has lost its early-season advantage, and Button’s results, in
particular, have nosedived.
The 2009 world champion has claimed just seven points from his last seven
races and is now 79 points behind Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso in the drivers’
standings and effectively out of the title race.
Hamilton has been both more consistent and more competitive, returning briefly
to the summit of the drivers’ championship four weeks ago following a
brilliant victory in Canada.
But he, too, was powerless to prevent the Red Bulls, Ferraris and Lotuses
dominating at Silverstone and cut a gloomy figure afterwards.
“It’s going to be a long, long 11 races that’s for sure,” he said. “The good
things is we still have 11 races and we are still there or thereabouts in
the fight. We just need to speed up.”
Tuesday’s technical meeting will try to establish exactly how to do that,
although neither driver seemed to be able to pinpoint what is holding
McLaren back.
“The car doesn’t feel bad, so it is amazing to think what the rest of the guys
are driving around in,” Button said.
“I won’t take anything away from the guys driving the Williams and the Saubers
but we have a lot of experience in this sport and we feel we are getting the
best out of this car now.
“I wonder what would happen if you put another driver in this car — I bet
they would get a real shock.
“I don’t think the top teams have any tricks,” Button added.
“We are still struggling with tyre temperatures. I put on hard tyres at the
end and was going well but when I got behind other cars suddenly my tyre
temperature had gone. It didn’t grip the circuit, you turn it and it
shudders across the circuit.
“We thought we had it right. We had such a great start to the year. It was
what everyone said we had to do, we did that — and then it has dropped off.
“We have a technical meeting on Tuesday, which is going to be a sombre meeting
but we will be very aggressive I am sure. We have multiple world
championships and there are two guys in the hot seat who are world
champions.
“We will get back to being strong. Let’s hope it happens sooner rather
than later.”
Reports in Belgium, meanwhile, suggest an “agreement in principle” has been
reached with Formula One chief executive Bernie Ecclestone to keep the
Belgian Grand Prix on the calendar until 2015. The current contract expires
after this September’s race.
Jean-Claude Marcourt, economics minister for the local Wallonia region, told
public broadcaster RTBF: “What I wanted to do was to reduce the size of the
expenditure budget for the Walloon region and I would say we have
accomplished the mission.
“There was no way we could continue to lose as much money as we have
been.”
The minister said earlier plans to annually alternate the event with France
ended along with Nicolas Sarkozy’s administration. Marcourt said that plan
“was considered at the request of our French friends.
Unfortunately or fortunately, they did not give practical effect to those
proposals, and so we decided to sign for a further three years”.