The Formula one administration’s FIA technical hand over Charlie Whiting was listed to travel to the team's Working Head Quarters last week to check the controversial design but unsuccessful to do so following his flight was delayed. It has since been exposed that Whiting will only be able to check out the wing in Bahrain this week. McLaren's MD Jonathan Neale, though, insists they are sure their car will be known the all-clear. Charlie Whiting going to go on to confirm that he's happy, which is what we have tried to do all the way through this process, Jonathan Neale said during a Vodafone McLaren Mercedes phone-in media call. It's unlucky that his plane got cancelled while leaving Sao Paulo. It would have been pleasant to take the chance with him and some of the other FOTA team members to finish it off in the UK, but we're quite relaxed about it.
We have spoken to Stefano and some of the other team principals and generation there and of course everybody wants to see clarity. We're doing the same on a number of other teams' developments. There's nothing untoward about it though - we're quite sure the car is legal. But McLaren are leaving not anything to chance and will take an additional package to Bahrain. We are not attractive a radically different package, but you just never know what the stewards are going to do on the day, he added. We get the best counsel we can from the FIA in the interests of clearness.
If the stewards make a decision on a dissimilar course of action though, it's still our duty to go racing. So we have an emergency, but I wouldn't put much effort into it and I'm not expecting it to be used.
