Hamilton and McLaren fears backward F1 step in Spain

Lewis Hamilton is resigned to a less competitive showing from McLaren at next month’s Spanish Grand Prix after its resurgence in Bahrain.Hamilton battled with the leading group in the early stages of the Sakhir race and went on to finish fourth, his and the team’s best result of the season so far.
That prompted many to conclude that McLaren is making rapid strides with the development of its car and will be challenging for victories within the next few races.But speaking to reporters after Sunday’s race, Hamilton struck a much more cautious note, suggesting that McLaren has largely capitalised on its rivals’ mistakes and made only modest performance gains.“We’re not really fighting back [yet] – I think we’ve just done a better job than a lot of people, and whilst they make mistakes we are just collecting the points,” he said.“We are still a long way behind with the car. But for sure it feels good to have consistency and a step [forward in performance], and it gives us a better foundation to keep building and get better.”
Team boss Martin Whitmarsh admitted that the Sakhir track played to McLaren’s strengths and masked the car’s lack of downforce.
And while the whole field will be bringing new parts to the first European race of the season in Barcelona in two weeks’ time, Hamilton reckons the faster Catalunya circuit will be less forgiving of the MP4-24 than Sakhir.“I think the gap will be bigger when we get to Barcelona and [rival teams] will be a bit further ahead because it’s a high-downforce circuit,” he said.“We have to challenge for the top 10, but maybe a top five will be harder.”
Hamilton said his McLaren’s deficiencies were all too apparent to him when he was racing in close company with Jenson Button’s Brawn and Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull.“It was very tough behind the top cars,” he said.
“They are so fast in the high-speed corners; the downforce they have is almost double mine... It’s very hard to follow.
“We just don’t have any rear downforce to keep up with the guys in front, but we will get there eventually hopefully.”