From eurosport.com :
McLaren suspect some rival teams may not prove as quick as testing times suggest when the racing starts in Bahrain on Sunday. "We think there has been some showmanship from some of the teams but, at the end of the day, if we are not there we won't be too far away," said McLaren boss Ron Dennis.
Erh, how can you pretend to make fast lap times in testing even if you are not able to ?????
Can anybody explain that one to me ? Dont come up with little fuel stuff because they will all try that out
Ok lets turn this round another way RON !!!..Mclaren had a very good winter test before last season.....Hmm WHAT HAPPENED when it came to race time RON !!??
Sandbagging is also a common part of pre season testing - the way the garage doors close to quick to keep any parts they think are 'special' away from rivals.... teams MAY run light - teams may test with race levels of fuel in - NO ONE EVER knows....this has as long as I can remember been the case - so why is Ron saying this now - I mean this is the team where both Mercedes bosses and drivers have said they have struggled with the new regulations and reliability...
Cant RON just accept the fact that MAYBE they just havent got things right and other teams have ??
And this by a man who is in charge of a team that I reckon a little later in the season could be in the middle of some complaints by other teams IF this chorme, shiney car of theirs DOES cause some blinding problems in the sun ...
If you ask me after seeing what I have today from practice so far - Ron should be worried... mind you Kimi I think should be quite used to having to steer his car off the track by now - .....hes done it enough times in the past...
And oh ermmmm REALLY dont know what to think of the new paint job on Mclaren either
Eurosport.com has this now :
McLaren team boss Ron Dennis has played down speculation that both his drivers suffered engine related problems during the opening day of the Bahrain Grand Prix on Friday. Raikkonen, it seems, suffered an electrical box failure while Juan Pablo Montoya's engine was running with a low rev regime.
Thoughts that Kimi Raikkonen's nightmares would return to haunt him came as soon as the second session when his McLaren MP4-21 car stopped on track, and upon climbing out of the cockpit, smoke was seen bellowing out, raising thoughts that the Mercedes engine had gone bang.
Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya was also cursing his engine after he was seen to be significantly down on straight linie speed compared to his Finnish team-mate, and immediately questioned the performance of the German V8.
However, whilst speaking to a press conference at Bahrain, team boss Ron Dennis played down both incidents as minor problems.
"It was a bit frustrating that we had an electronic box failure on Kimi's car which is the first in years," Dennis said. "It's been several years, literally, since we've had that sort of failure so I'm not too concerned about that.
"Also, the engines are absolutely fine," he added. "There's no difference between the engines and there is a difference between gearing. When you run at lower revs in order to protect the engine, you end up with less than optimised mapping and that does make the engine a little uncomfortable to drive.
"I think tomorrow, hopefully everyone will see, it will be a very different picture," he concluded.
Let's hope he is right - if for no other reason then to ensure an exciting championship. And honestly - I really don't think Kimi deserves another 'big time bad luck' season like last year