McLaren begins task to improve flawed 2013 car

McLaren is pressing ahead with plans to improve the new 2013 car, as suggestions last year’s winning model could be resurrected begin to fade.

Despite struggling markedly with the radical new MP4-28 in Melbourne, the flawed silver machine is parked in the Sepang garage this weekend and will not be retired any time soon.

"It’s better to stick to the plan in terms of developing what we have to improve what we have — that’s always the way forward," Jenson Button told Sky.

Indeed, the Woking based team is known as perhaps the best team in F1 at continual car development, and the need for all those skills is now greater than ever.

It has already begun.

Sporting director Sam Michael told reporters on Thursday that previously unscheduled developments for the car have arrived in Malaysia for experimental testing.

"All our energy is going into the current car and understanding it," he said.

"We have some modifications to the car. We have two lines of new parts, one is normal development that would have come anyway, and then we have some experimental stuff to work through on tyre degradation, some of which are back-run test items to help us further understand the car. We will definitely be doing some specific tests during the weekend at Malaysia, and we have managed to do some work in the last few days.

"Whether that will resolve the problems in terms of our competitiveness I really can’t tell you to be honest because I don’t know yet."

Pulling out the winning 2012 car might seem like an easy and obvious solution, given the fact that most teams on the grid simply evolved their existing cars for the new season anyway.

But Anthony Rowlinson, editor of F1 Racing magazine, said it’s not quite that simple.

"They would have to re-crash test the MP4-27, have a new front wing that’s compliant with the new technical regs, have a new underfloor that’s compliant with the new technical regs.

"That in itself is a big job and then they’d arrive, say in Spain for the Spanish GP, with a car they hadn’t tested, they hadn’t run, so they’d probably be in no better a situation than they are now," he explained.