Formula One news

Haug doubts McLaren win

Contrary to comments from McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh, Norbert Haug does not believes that the Woking-based outfit stands a chance of victory in Hungary next weekend. The German, vice president for Mercedes-Benz Motorsport, feels that the car is 'not good enough' in its current state.

With McLaren being the works team for Mercedes, which also supplies Force India and championship leaders Brawn GP, Haug believes that - despite uncertainty remaining over victory possibilities - optimism has been raised after the last race in Mercedes' homeland of Germany.

Finland's Heikki Kovalainen clinched his first Grand Prix victory in Hungary last season

"I currently would consider our technical performance still not good enough to repeat last year's victory with Heikki," he said of the upcoming race in Budapest, which takes place next weekend. "In any case, we were at least in the lead for a few metres at the Nürburgring until Lewis's right-rear tyre was hit which caused a deflated tyre; this damaged the underfloor and prevented Lewis from later achieving good lap times."

How does Norbert rate the MP4-24's changes at the Hungaroring? "Everybody in the team is giving it their all to continue the upward trend with both cars," he explained. "The Grand Prix circuit just outside Budapest is, after Monaco, the one with the lowest average speed. The layout, consisting of more slower corners where mechanical grip is especially important, should suit us quite well, as demonstrated already in Monaco."

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