McLaren

McLaren has a somewhat odd 2009, starting with a bad car and then making it a race winner. They never quite got the reliability last year but they certainly had the speed in the closing rounds.

The Drivers

With the last two world champions on their books they arguably have the best driver line-up for next year. Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton don’t seem to have that explosive chemistry that Alonso and Hamilton had but they aren’t going to be the best of friends, despite Jenson’s assertions. McLaren don’t have that great a history when they have two top drivers at the team, perhaps the best they managed was David Coultard and Mike Hakkinen.

Both these guys will be wanting to beat the other though I think there will initially be the most pressure on Lewis Hamilton as he is the established driver. This battle is the one to watch for sure this year.

The Car

The car will be better than last year, it has to be. It may have suffered from the continued development of last years car but McLaren have the capacity to get over that – something that some of the smaller teams don’t have. It hasn’t shown blinding pace in testing yet but McLaren are more than capable of improving that pace over the next couple months.

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