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F1: Hamilton Admits McLaren Should Have Scrapped ’09 Car

McLAREN’S LEWIS HAMILTON has conceded his team should have cut its losses and commenced work on a new car after it became obvious the MP4-24 was seriously below par.
The Woking-based outfit’s decision to completely immerse itself in the 2008 championsh


McLAREN'S LEWIS HAMILTON has conceded his team should have cut its losses and commenced work on a new car after it became obvious the MP4-24 was seriously below par.

The Woking-based outfit’s decision to completely immerse itself in the 2008 championship race and delay and progress on its 2009 machine has proved costly, with Hamilton and team-mate Heikki Kovalainen struggling to match the pace set by Brawn and Red Bull.

Although Hamilton acknowledged it is now too late to conduct a complete overhaul of the car, he said it would be an ideal solution.

"We probably should have scrapped this car a long time ago but it is too late now. If we scrapped it (now), it would be a waste of money and hard work from all the guys, and with the way the economy is it could take five or six months to rebuild a car - and who's to say we would get it right?” he said.

While a series of updates introduced at Monaco appeared to provide the team with a significant performance boost, McLaren slipped down the order again in Turkey as Hamilton found himself out-qualified by the Force India of Adrian Sutil and languishing in 16th place on the grid.

His fortunes hardly improved on race day, only managing to advance three places after McLaren decided to place the reigning World Champion on a one-stop strategy, while Kovalainen failed to progress beyond his qualifying effort of 14th.

Hamilton though said he enjoyed the Turkish event, which provided the backdrop last year for the arguably the Briton’s greatest performance in his short career, a second place finish to Ferrari’s Felipe Massa.

"I actually thoroughly enjoyed the race considering I was a little way back there. I was very heavy at the start - I was on 83 kilos - and it was impossible to keep up with the guys in front, but I just pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed,” he said.

"I didn't have anything left - I was way over the limit - and that's why I'm still smiling. The biggest problem for us is I think I was losing something like half a second in turn eight to everyone else - I was having people nearly overtake me on the exit of it like I was standing still.

"The car feels like it's heavy, like I'm pushing and trying to get the thing round but it won't go any faster.”

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