McLaren happy to wing it in Brazil

Lewis Hamilton is being told by McLaren to take things easy in Sunday's Brazilian grand prix at Interlagos, where he knows he needs to finish only in the top five to clinch the world championship, but the British team yesterday made it clear that they are leaving nothing to chance to ensure that the 23-year old British driver has absolutely the best equipment at his disposal to help him see off Ferrari's Felipe Massa, the only man who can deny him.

Far from sitting back and being happy with the specification of their MP4-23 vehicle as used by Hamilton to dominate the Chinese grand prix at Shanghai, the McLaren technical department has been working on a new rear wing and a raft of other aerodynamic tweaks for Sunday's gruelling event at the circuit in the suburbs of Sao Paulo. McLaren sources confirm that recent intensive aerodynamic development programmes have left the team feeling sufficiently confident about a number of key changes to the car's aerodynamic package for them to be introduced for the final race of the year. Although the most conspicuously visible difference will centre around the rear wing, it is believed there will also be at least six other areas on the car where the team have targeted a step forward in pace.

McLaren F1's chief executive, Martin Whitmarsh, said the team has been working hard on the elements that have now been given the green light for use in the race. "We have put the effort into primarily an aerodynamic package to enhance the efficiency of the car," he said.

McLaren have made it clear since Shanghai that, despite the title situation, they are continuing their preparations for Brazil as intensively as they could. The team principal, Ron Dennis, told autosport.com: "It's clearly not done, but most likely it's only unreliability that's going to cause us a problem. So we're going to be cautious about tyres, rain and all sorts of things. All the work we normally do will be done and we will arrive on Friday morning ready to go and we'll adapt to whatever gets thrown at us."
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