Jenson Button suffered yet another poor race from his McLaren along with team mate Kevin Magnussen. The McLaren duo finished the Spanish GP 11th and 12th and a lap down at today's Spanish GP. At a race where McLaren expected to be challenging for a podium with new parts coming to the car and after a positive FP1 this seemed likely. But after a great start to the weekend Button and McLaren went backwards and after starting 8th on the grid leaving with 0 points again is a disappointment. After a woeful 2013 McLaren didn't score a podium and changed driver Sergio Perez for the rookie Kevin Magnussen after team couldn't get him a drive at Force India (who are 14 points ahead of the former world champions). But 2009 Champion Button believes the rookie has a part to play in Mclaren's Struggles "Kevin is inexperienced, and although he is learning quickly, there is a still tenth or two not there from him not having as much information or experience as we should have." He went on to say that having a rookie team mate in a time of rebuilding for McLaren is "More difficult, I'm not going to lie about that". The Dane Magnussen has been involved in a few incidents in his first season, including making contact twice with the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen in Malaysia and Bahrain. Magnussen was also lucky on lap 1 of today's race not to have contact with world champion Sebastian Vettel after being pushed wide by team mate Button the rookie entered the track right in front of Vettel causing Magnussen to take avoiding action on the kerb. Button also conceded that his McLaren team are "Not doing a good enough job, we're really not." This though has been the case really since 2008 when there last drivers title was. However I believe that the McLaren downfall is a simple one to explain. McLaren are too focused on their Sports-cars and Super-cars meaning they are taking money and resources away from their F1 team. I recently talked about this with Sporting Brunch colleague Tom Fenton and we both agreed that this was also the case at Ferrari. Tom also raised the point that in F1 you either have to go all out to win, I agreed as McLaren and Ferrari are so used to winning they moved their eye off the ball and this has allowed Red Bull, Mercedes, Force India and Williams to take advantage. If McLaren want to move forward they need to be 100% focused and committed to F1 because they have the people and the facilities to get back to the front of F1.
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February 2016
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