McLaren's victory analysed

(30-Sep-98) - The McLaren-Mercedes outfit triumphed in last Sunday's
Luxembourg Grand Prix against the odds, after raising its game to match
Ferrari's team performance.

The Woking outfit had been criticised for inferior strategy compared to
that of the Italian team. For example, in Hungary, Schumacher was able to
pass both McLarens in the pits due to astute tactics. However, at the
Nurburgring, McLaren were able to read Ferrari's strategy perfectly, and by
holding Hakkinen out longer than Schumacher, could swap track position.

However, Hakkinen's input should not be underestimated, and his superb
overtaking manoeuvre on Eddie Irvine allowed the Finn to close sufficiently
on Schumacher for the strategy to work. Ferrari's tactics undoubtedly
involved Irvine holding up Hakkinen, but this was disrupted when the
Ulsterman failed to hold Mika back.

Hakkinen was then able to post a number of incredibly fast laps in the
space between Schumacher's stop and his own. This meant that when Hakkinen
came out of the pits, he was just ahead of the German.

Further to this, the McLaren pitstops were on a par with Ferraris.
Schumacher could have retaken the lead at the second stops by repeating
what Hakkinen did at the first set. However, McLaren's stop of 6.9 seconds
beat Ferrari's by half a second, and negated the advantage Schumacher had
when running on a clear track while Hakkinen was in traffic.

In truth, McLaren was able to answer Ferrari because its car and tyres were
working perfectly, where Ferrari were compromised. 'We did the best we
could,' Ferrari manager Jean Todt said, 'but today it was not good enough.
Today, their package was better than ours.'

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