Alot of people are saying thank god the Bahrain GP is off as this will surely benifit Mclaren? Im just wondering how because the biggest evidence of your car working is with some track time. They may have extra time with the windtunnels, computer design and simulation but this will be the same for the rest of the field. Surely this is worse for mclaren as they will be more behind come Melbourne. The teams that are ready after the last test will be the ones who benifit as all they can do is improve further where as Mclaren and a few others are behind and need catch up time. Just my view. Please share yours
Thing about the MP4-26, is it has a lot of potential - a lot more then other teams. Delaying the first races give McLaren the time to try and unlock some of that potential - but to be honest it will be a while before McLaren can extract the maximum potential from the car.
There are two ways of looking it at this: 1) It favours McLaren (and Mercedes). They're playing catch up at the moment, they've lost a lot of track time and are definitely behind RBR and Ferrari in terms of pace, reliability and information gathered through test mileage. The delay to the season gives them a bit of extra time to catch the front runners and iron out the creases which have troubled them so far. 2) It favours Ferrari and RBR. These two teams have clocked a lot of mileage on their new machines, as a result they have a strong understanding of how their cars work, and therefore know which direction they want to take with regard to development meaning they can fully exploit the extra factory and windtunnel time they have between now and Melbourne. We'll never know what effect this has had on each team because we'll never know how the season would have unfolded if Bahrain wasn't cancelled. The season starting in Melbourne hasn't changed my opinion at all though, I still think Red Bull and Ferrari will be out in front.
