Haug: We Need To Win In Spain

By Sam Cooper
May 5 2007

Mercedes motorsport director Norbert Haug has stated how significant it is for the team to win in Spain, both drivers are leading the championship race, and the new McLaren package, seems not to have the edge over its competitors.

The team will be packing their things together and flying out there within a few days, to setup their garages and build and tune in their cars into the circuit.

His reasoning is that the regularly used Spanish circuit is a great track to find out your true speed, the sad thing is though, McLaren didn’t look that quick over the four days of Barcelona testing, however we don’t know what they were doing on the day, nevertheless its going to be a close and well fought battle for the race win.

"For all Formula 1 teams, the Circuit de Catalunya is the best test track, pure and simple," he said. “It’s a rule that those who can win here are capable to do so at all the other Grand Prix circuits. This rule of thumb came true for the team most recently in 2005, when we won 10 out of the remaining 14 Grands Prix of the season, having taken our first victory of the year at Barcelona."

CEO Martin Witmarsh is very confident heading into Barcelona, he thinks McLaren’s recent development push will help boost the team into regular wins. "Our target going into every race is to win, and we have been working at a feverish pace across the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team since the Bahrain race to develop the MP4-22 to enable us to meet this target," said Whitmarsh.

"It has been a busy period on and off track and we do feel that we have taken a step forward. We have to wait until we get to race day to fully understand the size of the step, as we are by no means alone in pushing performance."