Head tips McLaren for success

[davewilson]

Williams engineering director Patrick Head is backing McLaren to make a major step forward this season with the MP4-22 and double world champion Fernando Alonso in the driving seat.

Asked at the Williams launch on Friday who he tipped for championship success, Head replied: “McLaren look quite strong.

“They are a good team, I’m sure they must have learned lots of lessons about reliability – because [un]reliability in effect lost them the championship in 2005 and it wasn’t as good as Renault and Ferrari in 2006.

“So they have got some progress to make there, but they are good people and I’m sure that they will make progress.

“And I think that Alonso is a very complete driver, both in and out of the car, so I think he will be very good.”

With Ferrari having undergone a major staff reshuffle and Renault arguably lacking a driver of championship-winning calibre, Head reckons the two dominant players of 2006 might find life more difficult this season.

“Ferrari is more difficult to say [than McLaren],” he said.

“Obviously there is a new senior structure there.

“They’re a very strong team technically, and the new car looks to be doing good lap times – whether it is good enough to win a championship or not, I don’t know. We’ll see.

“Renault were very strong over the last two years.

“Obviously there is a bit of a question mark over the driver line-up.

“If Renault were represented purely by the results that Giancarlo Fisichella had over the last two years then they wouldn’t be looking anywhere near as strong as they actually did.

“But I think Giancarlo realises that if he is going to have a position in F1 going on years beyond 2007 he has got to step his performance up a bit, and I am sure he will be working hard to do that.”

And while he believes Renault’s other driver Heikki Kovalainen has great potential, Head doesn’t expect the Finn to challenge for the title in his rookie season.

“From what we have seen he has looked very complete, very good, but then racing is something slightly different from testing,” he said.

“But for a driver to win a championship in his first year in F1 is difficult to do.

“I’m not saying it couldn’t be done but…it’s possible. The new Renault looks quite good.”

Head also cast doubt over whether star designer Adrian Newey – who was responsible for a succession of title-winning Williams cars in the 1990s – will be able to transform Red Bull’s fortunes in the short term.

“I am sure they will be good, but they have had a lot of changes,” he said.

“Adrian Newey is a very clever designer, but you have to build a design team around him and that’s not necessarily easy to do.”

The Stig