As McLaren launches go, it was almost a non-event. There was no real fanfare, no flashing lights, no dubious artistic construction of their new model in the middle of Berlin, and no Spice Girls. The unveiling of McLaren's 2012 contender seemed to convey the renewed sense with which the team have decided that their motto for this season's campaign will be 'Right, enough faffing around, let's get on with it'.
Instead of sparkles and glitter then, all the team offered today was a new car, a sheet, four drivers of varying degrees of fame and importance and Sky's new commentator David Croft, who happily got into the swing of life on television presenting the MP4-27 launch live on both McLaren's own website and also in a corner of the Sky Sports News channel's screen, surrounded by forty seven breaking news tickers and adverts.
After promising a controversial and quickly-contested design in the lead up to the test, the design itself was actually a bit of a let-down. While the car as it stood in an awkwardly-angled fashion on a plinth today will likely be a world away from the car that arrives for the season-opener in Melbourne, there was nothing obviously controversial about it.
The nose attracted plenty of interest - largely for the team having found a different way to comply with the FIA's new lower height regulations without having to opt for a Caterham-style platypus monstrosity - but there is nothing particular to suggest it will struggle to comply with the rules, while the position of the exhausts - jutting out from the side of the car's sidepods - looks ungainly, but everyone is expecting plenty of experimentation with different 'periscope' exhaust positions throughout the pre-season from all the top teams.
So, after 2010's F-duct controversy and 2011's L-shaped sidepods calamity, the 2012 McLaren seems to have enjoyed a far smoother birth. For now, at least, until whatever controversies it might contain are spotted. And the team will now be praying that this smooth start continues through the pre-season and onto Melbourne.
The team has been quick to blame their slow starts over the least few seasons as the reason that despite their multi-million pound ventures every year, the team has still only secured one drivers or constructors title from the last 24. Unreliable testing performances and dubious design calls have left the Woking outfit playing catch-up in each of the last three seasons, and although they often do catch up (particularly in 2009 and 2011), the title is usually out of reach by the time they consistently start racking up wins.
"The most important thing is to get miles done in testing, so we have time to fine-tune car so you arrive at the first race and you are not worried about anything," Jenson Button admitted after heping to awkwardly tug the cover off the car, and remembering the team's farcical winter programme last year, when he and Lewis Hamilton seemed to spend more time in the garage than on the track. If they are going to challenge Red Bull for the titles in 2012, they need this new and so far unremarkable McLaren to be fast and reliable. "We had, by anyone's standards, an abysmal testing period last year," Martin Whitmarsh added.
But the car itself is only part of the issue facing the team in 2012. To blame all of their failings in 2011 on simply not being fast enough would be a convenient, but also massively inaccurate summary. After all, despite being hapless in pre-season, the team were Red Bull's nearest challengers in the first race in Melbourne, and the 2008 champion won the third race of the season. While qualifying form was a key issue for them, and allowed Sebastian Vettel to saunter to 15 poles from 19 races, the team's own errors were equally costly.
Without meaning to state the blindingly obvious, Hamilton himself was the main cause of too many of them. His predilection towards driving into other cars, or otherwise finding some way of messing up, has been written about more than enough already without this blog wading back into the debate, but Hamilton getting back to his best is arguably the key part of McLaren's plans for 2012. Even if Button can keep up his 2011 form this year, the team's hopes in the constructors championship at least will rely on both cars running strongly and consistently.
But there are other errors they need to eradicate. Button's blameless retirement at Silverstone after a wheel was incorrectly fitted at a pit stop, Button's slightly more blame-heavy penalty in Melbourne, and the team's reliability issues in Germany and Brazil all seem like minor and petty issues to make a big deal out of, but when you're fighting a team who seem to have nailed consistency and reliability as much as Red Bull and Vettel had in 2011, then these little issues begin to add up.
Of course, there's nothing that guarantees Red Bull will be as awesomely free of weak points as they were in 2011. Adrian Newey could design a stinker, Vettel could let that 'difficult' second title go to his head, any number of things could happen. But McLaren can't really just rely on hoping that their rivals mess up in order to take the title. After all, in recent seasons that has really been more of their area.
So the car is all well and good, but the team need to deliver more than that in 2012 if Vettel is to be stopped by them. And the glitz-free launch appears to suggest that McLaren are at least prepared to act like they're ready to get down to business and take on that challenge.
Or, to put it another way: Right, enough faffing around, let's get on with it.
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