Atlas F1 Magazine: Lapped by the Gods

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Lapped by the Gods

By Karl Ludvigsen, England
Atlas F1 Senior Writer

Last year, Karl Ludvigsen declared McLaren's 2002 season a rebuilding and regrouping one. What a shame Ron Dennis did not make a similar declaration - it would have made the sight of David Coulthard being lapped at Imola by the winner, a less humiliating one

One of the commentators on the San Marino Grand Prix asked rhetorically, "When was the last time you can recall a McLaren being lapped?" Better historians than I will answer that question, but one such occasion was exactly five years ago at the same circuit when Mika Hakkinen, like David Coulthard this year, finished a lap behind the winner, in sixth. (Coulthard was lapped at Monaco in 2001, but he didn't start from his assigned grid position.) In the light of McLaren's successes over the last half-decade, its performance at Imola was not a pretty sight.

David Coulthard is not a happy man this year You'll recall that after last year's US Grand Prix I forecast that 2002 would be a year of rebuilding for McLaren. I put it this way:

"For the immediate future, the prospects for McLaren aren't good. Ferrari is still on a roll and M. Schumacher Esq. seems as determined as ever. They will be hard to beat next year. Similarly, the BMW-Williams package will reach serious maturity in 2002, as will its Michelin tires. I think those two will lead the battle for supremacy in Formula One, with some interruptions from Renault and Jordan-Honda. Next year is not a season in which McLaren sees itself as challenging again for either Championship."

Okay, I was wrong about Jordan-Honda, but otherwise this forecast is holding up pretty well. One reason that I made this prediction was that "Ilmor is building a completely new 90-degree-vee engine for Mercedes. This is a radical change and it will take a season for the new engine to get sorted properly. Its evolution version will be a strong challenger in 2003. Ilmor also has to complete its restructuring after the loss of Paul Morgan."

This turns out to be at the heart of McLaren's problems. A well-informed source tells me that the new Mercedes engine is no more powerful than Ilmor's year-2000 product; others have moved on since then. Apparently its single-cylinder text engine produces all the right horses but when multiplied by ten some of the percherons go missing.

My source says that the loss of Paul Morgan is less to blame than Mario Illien's failure to build a strong cadre of experienced engineers to work in concert with him. Knowledge in depth is needed to build successful racing engines these days; Ilmor has been raided for its talent and Mario may well be having problems rebuilding his staff.

With the new engine plus the switch to Michelins and Mika Hakkinen's decision to sit out the season, I declared 2002 a "sabbatical year" for McLaren. That's why I could only smile at all the bullish forecasts of David Coulthard's title prospects for 2002. He didn't have any, and never has had. But when I mentioned this "sabbatical year" idea to a friend of both myself and the McLaren boss, he laughed and said, "I don't think Ron sees it that way!" I'm sure DaimlerChrysler doesn't; its bosses are livid about arch-rival BMW's high profile in Formula One. They're applying plenty of pressure to Dennis and company.

Normally McLaren International would be able to call on huge budgetary resources to help it reverse the setbacks that led to such a poor showing as Imola's. It's been one of the best-financed teams of recent memory. But right now it has colossal outgoings in its investment in Paragon, its spectacular new home not far from its present Woking headquarters, where McLaren operations are scattered over numerous industrial estates. Putting them all together in Paragon will improve efficiency. But right now Paragon is absorbing money that McLaren should be spending on its Grand Prix cars. That's one more reason why Ron Dennis should have openly declared 2002 a rebuilding year, looking to success in 2003 with a refreshed Hakkinen back in the saddle. It's a bit late to do so now, of course!

Last year I said, "Austere and antiseptic McLaren may be, but it's a style that has made it a winner. I'm confident that the Woking outfit hasn't lost the drive that brought it back to the top of the heap." Taking of his desire to get back to the top, after his embarrassing Imola, Ron Dennis echoed this by saying, "Nothing but hard and focused work over a period of time can fulfil that objective and none of those values are in short supply in the team." That's for sure. But he should write off this year and focus on 2003 at the earliest.

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