F1:McLaren to make big step in 2007

[Plex]

McLaren look set to put the disappointments of the past two seasons behind them and make a big step forward in 2007, especially now that Fernando Alonso is on board.

That is the view of Williams director of engineering Patrick Head, who has singled out McLaren as the team to watch out for this season judging by early testing form.

"McLaren looks quite strong," said Head, speaking about his favourites for the world title.

"They are a good team. I'm sure they must have learned lots of lessons about reliability, because reliability in effect lost them the championship in 2005, and it wasn't as good as Renault and Ferrari in 2006.

"So they have got some progress to make there, but they are good people and I'm sure that they will make progress. I think that Alonso is a very complete driver, both in the car and out of the car, so I think he will be very good."

Head believes that there are question marks about the other pre-season favourites Ferrari and Renault - because of changes on the technical front at Maranello and the driver front at Enstone.

"Ferrari is more difficult to say. Obviously there is a new senior structure there. They are a very strong team technically. The new car looks to be doing good lap times, whether it is good enough to win a championship or not I don't know, we'll see.

"Renault were very strong over the previous two years. Obviously there is a bit of question mark over the driver line-up.

"If Renault were represented purely by the results that Giancarlo Fisichella had over the last two years then they wouldn't be looking anywhere near as strong as they actually did.

"But I think if Giancarlo realises that if he is going to have a position in F1 going on years beyond 2007 he has got to step his performance up a bit then I am sure he will be working hard to do that.

"From what we have seen from Heikki Kovalainen he has looked very complete,very good, but then racing is something slightly different from testing.

"But for a driver to win a championship in his first year in F1 is difficult to do, I couldn't say that it couldn't be done but... it's possible. The new Renault looks quite good.

"Honda are also a bit of a question mark. They talk quite big and obviously they are putting a lot of effort in and it will be interesting to see if they can follow that up.

"Equally Toyota, I see Ralf (Schumacher) was very quick down at Valencia, I think they know that the pressure in on for them to deliver.

"I think it is going to be a very interesting season. Lots and lots of changes."

Autosport