Test-driver adamant team will be bang on the pace and battling for glory come Melbourne in March.
by Russell Atkins
TO HEAR THE INTERVIEW IN FULL: CLICK HERE
Gary Paffett is positive McLaren-Mercedes will not be affected by the events of the 2007 season this year, and is convinced the Woking-based outfit will be fully capable of taking on arch-rivals Ferrari once more in the battle for the crown.
The 26-year-old has been a full-time test-driver for the Anglo-German squad for the past two years, and as such is perfectly placed to comment upon the sheer amount of hard work that goes on inside the team both during the March-October racing campaign and in the supposedly more relaxed 'off' season that follows. It is, he admits, not much of a rest at all.
"As soon as the season finished we were away testing," Paffett told Crash.net Radio, "and already at the first test it was without traction control in preparation for this year. The work for the 2008 season began back at the start of 2007 with the preparation at the factory and the engineers and designers getting to work on the new car.
"It's just constant development; you have to constantly keep pushing your team and your staff very hard to get the best results. The car starts the year nothing like how it will end the year, and the amount of development you get during the season is incredible. The amount of development over the winter when you build a new chassis is just as incredible. If you do sit back and rest on your laurels - which is far too easy to do if you're winning - it's so easy just to go backwards."
Going backwards is something the former McLaren Autosport BRDC Award winner and DTM Champion is confident McLaren will not be doing in 2008, particularly given the addition to the team on the driving strength of Heikki Kovalainen, who greatly impressed during his rookie season with Renault last year.
"[2007] was obviously a very hard year," he acknowledged, "but the good thing was the car performance was very good and both drivers performed very well on the track. We missed out on the drivers' championship by one point with both of them, but it was a very close year and as I say the car was very competitive, so I think it should be quite easy to forget what happened last year and move forward.
"We've got a new driver line-up, and I think we can just look forward to making sure we've got a very competitive car. Obviously [Heikki has] only just joined the team. He signed before Christmas and he hasn't done much work with the team so far, but he's clearly got knowledge of Formula 1, knowledge of racing and knowledge from his time at Renault, so hopefully he can get in the car and drive quickly.
"I think we've got a pretty good development package so far with myself, Pedro [de la Rosa] and Lewis [Hamilton] continuing from last year, and hopefully Heikki can add to that and we can just pull together to produce a car that Lewis and Heikki can go and win races with. I don't think it will be too difficult to get over [last year] - it's obviously going to have its impact, but hopefully we can be winning races from the start and be challenging for the championship again."
As to the introduction of the ban on electronic aids such as traction control, Paffett was unconcerned, despite several drivers expressing fears that wet races like the one at Fuji last season could turn into demolition derbies under the new regulations.
"There have been some big accidents in wet races with traction control," the Bromley-born ace underlined, "so I don't think it's going to change. The problems you have in wet races are normally aquaplaning, and traction control can't help [you] when the wheels aren't touching the ground.
"It's going to be more difficult before, but I don't think it's really extreme. The drivers will have to deal with it and be a bit more careful in the wet for sure, but I don't think there will be too many problems with it making things too risky really, because you drive the car to its limits."
TO HEAR THE INTERVIEW IN FULL: CLICK HERE
