In an interview with the media yesterday, McLaren driver Kevin Magnussen has revealed McLaren had been forced to row back on some of the upgrades that they have brought to the Singapore GP after the team delivered a “frustrating” qualifying performance.
On the back of an encouraging Monza, where Magnussen and his team mate Jenson Button locked out the third row of the grid, McLaren were optimistic of continuing their recent incremental improvement in Singapore, particularly as the MP4-29 was being upgraded with a number of new parts.
However, in qualifying yesterday, McLaren’s pace wilted as they recorded their worst joint qualifying result for seven races with Button dropping out in Q2 in 11th and Magnussen only managing ninth in the top-ten shootout.
And although the result meant Magnussen moved two clear of Button in their intra-team qualifying duel, Magnussen was more concerned with the underperformance of the team’s upgrade package, which included changes to the MP4-29’s front-wing and floor. Magnussen stated the following about the subject in his interview yesterday:-
‘I wouldn’t say I’m pleased. It’s frustrating we’re not faster than we are, so I can’t really say that I’m happy. But I can say that we did a good job as a team. We had a couple of parts on the car that didn’t react as we expected and I think the team has done a good job, we went back to what we knew and get the most out of that from qualifying.’
It is understandable why Magnussen is not happy with the performance of McLaren so far this weekend. It is clear that the upgrades McLaren have brought to Singapore are not working as effectively as they expected but as Magnussen points out, they need to analyse the data and understand why the new parts haven’t helped them at all and they need to do it as quickly as possible.
Further on in his interview, Magnussen has admitted that he expected more from the upgrades and they have to look back to see if they can get the most of it for the remaining races. Magnussen added the following:-
‘We were hoping for more with the new parts that we took to the track. But they didn’t deliver and I think we’ve done a good job as a team to go back to what we knew and get the most out of that.’
As Magnussen has stated, the team have worked so hard to bring upgrades to Singapore and it is a shame that they haven’t worked as everyone had hoped. But I would have to agree with Magnussen, if they cannot get the best out of the upgrades, then McLaren need to switch back to what they had before as quickly as possible in order to stay ahead of their rivals Force India to keep fifth in the Constructors Championship.
But overall, Magnussen has every right to be disappointed with McLaren’s performance so far this weekend. The upgrades should have worked on the track and they needed to work. But it hasn’t panned out that way and McLaren need to analyse the data and learn from this as quickly as possible.
But already, this weekend is going to be tough for McLaren and Magnussen. As a McLaren fan (and it pains me to write this), they best we could hope for is a points finish this weekend. Question is; can Magnussen score any points this weekend in Singapore? Let’s hope so.
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