"I think it is going to be a very, very exciting year..." says Tony Jardine.
by Rob Wilkins
Motorsport pundit Tony Jardine has predicted that McLaren-Mercedes should be back up there and challenging Ferrari for grand prix wins by the time the circus heads to Canada at the start of June.
Ron Dennis' team have been no match for the Scuderia in recent races and currently the Woking-based squad is third in the constructors' championship, 1 point behind BMW Sauber and 13 points behind Ferrari.
Lewis Hamilton is also on the back foot in the race for the drivers' title, with reigning champion Kimi Raikkonen nine points in front of the Englishman.
Jardine believes though it is only a matter of time before Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen are back in the mix.
"I would say in the next two to three races to be honest," he told Crash.net Radio at Cars International's 'Mille Miglia - Then and Now' evening in London this week.
"McLaren are very good at updating their cars quite quickly, in terms of aerodynamics, suspension development and that is what I expect them to be doing. They are a team that is geared to react and make fast changes. I think they will be a little bit disappointed that they didn't do that a bit more in Bahrain and they certainly didn't do that in Spain. Third place was a good solid result - but that is all you can say and McLaren will have been disappointed with that result. They need to be challenging."
Asked about the season more generally, the Sky Sports presenter added that he has enjoyed it so far and that it has been good to see BMW Sauber make so much progress.
"It started off in a very exciting fashion with Lewis hammering them all in Australia. But then we had our doubts because Albert Park is not a real, real test of the cars and aerodynamics. So by the time we got to Barcelona, Ferrari, who tested so well over the winter, were looking very, very strong. McLaren have just got to fight back now.
"For me it is fascinating because you have got BMW knocking on the door and you have even got Red Bull and Adrian Newey's team with Mark Webber starting to do well too. I am off to Turkey now [this weekend] and I am going to enjoy that. It is a hell of a circuit and even though it is a new track, it has the notorious turn 8 there. I think it is going to be a very, very exciting year and I am waiting for McLaren to bite back and make a little bit of a jump, which I am sure they will, and really fight back against Ferrari."
As for the 'Mille Miglia - Then and Now' evening itself, which featured Sir Stirling Moss and celebrity BBC chef James Martin, who will take in this year's edition of the Italian endurance race, Jardine felt it had been 'superb'.
"It has been a bit of nostalgia, mixed with legends and current Formula 1 people. We have had all sorts of people turn out because the greatest legend of them all, Sir Stirling Moss OBE was here talking about, what was in my opinion, one of the greatest wins ever in his career, the 1955 Mille Miglia.
"Cars International have recently discovered one of his road cars, which was supplied by Mercedes GB and which he used for promotional purposes leading up to the Mille Miglia. We showed him all the pictures of him driving this car in the snow at Brands Hatch in 1955 and so on. Linking that car to him and getting him to shares his memories of the great event was very enjoyable.
"But that was the 'Then' and then we had the 'Now' with James Martin, the BBC chef, who is going to do the Mille Miglia, nostalgia retro event. He will be doing that in about six day's time.
"He took advice from Stirling and came up on stage. It was really a lovely mixture of the history and the current modern day people, like James, who just loves his motoring and motor sport."
TO HEAR THE INTERVIEW IN FULL WITH TONY JARDINE: CLICK HERE
