McLaren drivers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton hope the new regulations will help them at this weekend's German Grand Prix.
Button says he thinks the team will soon get the results their performances deserve, while Hamilton says the team will not be doing anything different as they try to find improvement in the second half of the season.
McLaren go into the second half of the season looking to try and close the 110-point gap on Red Bull at the top of the constructors' championship.
Round 10 of the Formula One season is the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring and Jenson Button thinks the team will soon get the results their performances have merited.
"Every race we go into we hope that we're competitive enough to really challenge for a win. We're not at this point thinking about the championship, it's more important to take every race as it comes. And the last few races have been good for us. We've had good pace but just haven't got the results that we've wanted.
Obviously we did in Canada, Monaco was okay but the last couple haven't been the results we wanted for whatever reason so we're looking forward to getting back out there and really seeing where we are," says Button.
Despite the frustration of recent races, Button says he's really enjoying the wheel-to-wheel action on the track.
"Racing against Ferrari and Red Bull and also Lewis (Hamilton), it's really good racing. With the new KERS, with the new tyres with Pirelli, and with the DRS, it's made the racing so much fun and every race we go into we're excited not just about challenging for a win but also there's so much activity, so much overtaking," says Button.
Button thinks the latest regulation change with regard to how the blown diffuser works will help McLaren at the Nurburgring.
"We're supposedly going back to the off-throttle blown diffuser. And basically it balances the car up because when you have on-throttle blown diffuser you just get it when you're on the throttle so it's from apex to exit, a lot of rear grip but it means on braking you obviously don't have any throttle on and you lose a lot of the downforce so a massive amount of downforce lost on entry, get a lot of downforce on the exit.
So to try and balance the car with that it's very very difficult. So now have the blown diffuser off-throttle, it'll help our balance quite a bit and it's good for us because that's how we've set our car up," says Button.
Lewis Hamilton produced a sterling drive at Silverstone to finish fourth and draw level with Button in the drivers' championship.
Both McLaren drivers have just one win apiece this season, but the 2008 world champion doesn't see the team changing their focus in the second half of the campaign.
"We're not...I don't think we're approaching it any differently. I think we're just trying to learn and trying to do everything we can to win and we have upgrades coming, the rules keep changing. Hopefully, we'll get some consistency there but the rules, the engine rules are changing again, so we should see a different result in the next race.
Hopefully, more competitive for us because in the last race they changed the rules which hampered us and benefited some others which kind of doesn't really make it fair racing really but I think now they're introducing those rules, changing the rules again which will hopefully make it a more level playing field," says Hamilton.
Hamilton is looking forward to the Nurburgring which is one of the most historic and challenging of circuits on the calendar.
"It's a very very high-speed flowing circuit but I would say the first sector is probably the most challenging, just simply because you're braking down into off-cambered, sorry, cambered corners and there's quite a big undulation from going into Turn 1 and the exit of Turn 1.
Then you're going back uphill and getting the car balanced for those is quite important. Not taking too much life out of your tyres is important as well so I'd say the first sector is probably the trickiest part," says Hamilton.
Hamilton and Button are both 95 points behind world championship leader Sebastian Vettel so wins are crucial if they are to have any chance of catching the German Red Bull driver.
source: newshub archive
