One of the key contributing factors to McLaren’s sucess last year was their cars ability to idle for long periods of time without stalling or overheating (expect a lot of teams to be getting better at this – Ferrari were pretty much there by the end of the season).

But this year it will be even more important. The main time such an advantage was used was while the cars were sitting at the end of the pit straight waiting for the final session of qualifying to begin.
This year this will be even more crucial for McLaren because they have been relegated to the wrong end of the pit lane due to the spy scandal.

Last year there was a lot of back and forth between McLaren and Ferrari whenever Lewis got ready they’d try and get one of their cars out ahead of Alonso who was coming next. By the end of the season they managed it a couple of times. But they were very close to each other last year. Now they’ll have a pretty long warning that Lewis is on his way. It will be pretty easy for Ferrari to nip in possibly even ahead of Lewis.

So there are only one option for McLaren they need to make their ability to sit idlely so long that Ferrari can’t go out when McLaren do.

Or… I hear rumours that there have been proposals from one team to change the qualifying procedure. Hmmm.