This week's Grapevine brings you information fresh from the paddock on: McLaren Concerned Renault on a Roll

McLaren Concerned

Whilst Williams are fuming over what they consider to be a ridiculous penalty being handed out to Juan Pablo Montoya for the first corner incident (they still want to know how, exactly, the stewards came to that decision), Ron Dennis has simply chalked it up to Ferrari favoritism, and moved on to more important matters - specifically, how to get his cars to the front of the grid, and the finish line.

It's been a long time since the McLaren outfit put so much effort onto testing ahead of the season. Much of the effort went into proving the data supplied by Michelin worked properly with the new chassis, and then developing tyres for the season ahead. However, a huge percentage of those miles were spent working with the new package, and all with this year's engine, so suddenly having two let gos in the space of a hundred miles is, naturally, disturbing.

The first question for McLaren - and Mercedes - is, when everything works perfectly in testing, but falls apart in the race, how do you improve the program to ensure it doesn't happen again? The next, of course, is what to do with those power and consumption developments that are, even now, coming through? Bringing David Coulthard in before his engine blew completely - it was down a cylinder - means there is some chance of identifying his problem quickly, but Kimi Raikkonen's does not seem to be from the same issue, and resolving it quickly will be difficult, considering the internal remains of that unit could loosely be described as shrapnel.

Going to Brazil, the team will be taking what is essentially the same specification engine, and are faced with another dilemma. Should they race the engine in the configuration that survived testing, but comprehensively failed to complete the race, or detune it, conceding even more power to the BMW-Williams and Ferrari teams, in a bid for fifth and sixth places? Given that Brazil is a notorious power circuit (the long, uphill start/finish straight demands respect), and it is the bumpiest track on the circuit, the chassis itself is stressed right to the limit.

The McLaren philosophy, traditionally, is to run with the best equipment available, and get it working - making up the numbers is not considered to be nearly as attractive a proposition as genuinely competing, even at the risk of breaking down. On the other hand, with one finish from four attempts, the proposition for easing off, trying to bank some points, and hoping some of the front four fail to make the race end is suddenly enormously attractive.

Coulthard has commented that his Championship hopes for 2002 are already in ruins, unless he wins the next two races, which really puts into perspective the blow to McLaren moral of the opening races. Approaching the season opener, McLaren believed themselves holding a full second advantage over Williams, and driving a reliable car. Yet, in Malaysia, Williams and Ferrari qualified a full second ahead - without the excuse of a weather affected session - before filling the podium from trying circumstances in the race. And that's before considering that Ferrari aren't even running their new car!

Renault on a Roll

Coming away from Malaysia, the story at Renault is hugely positive. Despite Jarno Trulli's struggle to find the ideal balance on his car, and an unexpected engine problem for Jenson Button in qualifying, the upshot of the race weekend apparently confirms the team's claim on fourth place in the Championship as a possibility this year.

The view is actually in perspective, too. Outside the front three, the biggest news through the off season was Sauber's consistently quick times in testing: the newer Ferrari engine and evolved Rinland chassis appeared to be competitive right from the outset. The Jordan team also appeared able to get a fair turn of speed from their cars, despite complaining about an under-powered engine right from the outset. Accordingly, Renault started the season, seeing these two teams as the likely competitors for the fourth they are targeting.

Throughout the Melbourne weekend, the wet weather gave Renault a tough time. Not only was reliability not 100 percent, the changing track conditions made setting up the car a real trial; initially, it didn't look to be offering anything like the performance the team expected, despite Trulli qualifying seventh. Things seemed to be going from bad to worse on race day, with Button being taken out at the start, and Trulli spinning out a couple of laps later; however, the team took tremendous heart from that short performance, as before doing so, he comfortably kept Michael Schumacher's Ferrari behind him.

Going forward, there are still issues that need to be addressed. Reliability is not good enough - especially as the key developments in this engine took place through last year. That part of the package was expected to be pretty solid. Also, the team has not yet quite got to grips with what the car can do: a lot of testing miles and setup experimentation is required before they will be able to quickly establish a good balance wherever they go.

That said, these issues are very much secondary to staying on top of the work that Michelin is putting in on the tyres. The suspension geometry and chassis mounts have been laid out in anticipation of Michelin wanting to make a fairly radical tyre - maybe adjusting the width of the front ones - if McLaren and Williams require it. Not only prudent, but realistic.

At this point, the fact that both the Jordan and Sauber teams run on Bridgestone tyres is highly relevant, as it is almost certain that the competition for fourth place is going to depend heavily on how well the second rank players can react to the tyre suppliers changing offerings, as they concentrate on the requirements of the Championship contenders. Sepang has confirmed to Renault that their package is at least as good as the Sauber and Jordan offerings. Now, if Michelin can only maintain an advantage over Bridgestone for the season, Renault will be a shoe-in for fourth.