McLaren will race with new floor and diffuser

Published>Sat, Jul 24 10 12:15 AM

McLaren will go ahead and race with their new aerodynamic package in Sunday's German Grand Prix, team principal Martin Whitmarsh said on Friday.

Formula One's championship leading team had to abandon plans to introduce the new 'blown diffuser' and floor at the previous British Grand Prix after problems emerged in Friday practice at Silverstone.

However after a wet session at Hockenheim, followed by a largely dry afternoon stint, Whitmarsh told reporters the gremlins appeared to have been overcome.

"Based on the data, we will be running it," he said of the blown diffuser, a system which blows the hot exhaust gases down to the floor of the car and out through the rear structure to create added grip.

"The data that I saw from P1 (first practice), albeit wet, was that the main vehicle airflow, the gas flow from the exhaust, temperatures, the performance and pressure tapping velocities were what we expected them to be.

"So unless something else has come to fruition, which I don't think it has, then we should have the confidence that this floor will do either everything we expect it to or most of what we expect it to," he added.

McLaren's Lewis Hamilton is leading the championship after 10 races, with team mate and reigning champion Jenson Button 12 points behind in second place.

Hamilton crashed in Hockenheim's first practice, while Button was third in the same session, and was sidelined for much of the afternoon while mechanics rebuilt his car.

Whitmarsh said "some more bits and pieces" were being flown in and both cars would be in identical trim for qualifying and the race.

The two drivers tried out different parts on Friday as part of scheduled tests.

Whitmarsh said he had been pleasantly surprised by the peformance of the tyres after fears that the super-soft option would not stand up to much punishment.

"I have to say the tyres appear to be much less dramatic than the tyre engineers were predicting," he added.

"So the option tyre which was anticipated to be very short duration, held in much better than anyone predicted so I think that has been the biggest surprise here today.

"I think this weekend appears after one day to be far more similar in characteristics to the previous weekends than we expected."

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