Vodafone McLaren Mercedes - McLaren MP4-25

McLaren today launched its 2010 challenger, the MP4-25, at title sponsor Vodafone's headquarters at Newbury in the United Kingdom. Unveiling the car were the team's 2010 driver line-up of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, who between them have won the last two drivers world championships. It is rare for a team to have one champion, let alone two, and this year McLaren has half the champions in the field...

The MP4-25 has by necessity had a significant overhaul when compared to last year's MP4-24. With the main regulation change being the banning of refuelling, all this year's cars have significantly bigger fuel tanks than those of last year. This is a significant change in dimensions that all the designers will have been battling with over the last few months to establish the optimum chassis layout and areo performance.

Although the team is no longer the works Mercedes effort they are still packing the German manufacturer's excellent FO 108X V8 engine in the back of the car. The Mercedes was the class of the field last year in the back of the Brawn, so McLaren should have no worries on that score.

The team is looking equally well set on the driver front. Lewis Hamilton is young, quick and the 2008 champion. Last year was a much harder season for him though, with a poorly performing car and of course the yellow flag debacle at Melbourne. He will be coming in to the new season keen to avoid a repeat of either of last year's problems, although one can't help feeling that a spell of midfield driving will have done him no harm whatsoever.

McLaren's second driver is last year's champion Jenson Button. Button has nearly a decade of F1 experience behind him and his long hard slog in the midfield with Honda in particular came close to going unrewarded. F1 as seen its fair share of drivers that have the ability to win a championship but manage not to be in the right car at the right time - Jenson has now moved out of that category and is keen to repeat last year's success.

After last year's unfortunate departure of Ron Dennis the team is lead by Martin Whitmarsh. After a lacklustre performance in 2009 he will be keen to see his cars back at the front of the grid and his drivers on the podium. The team starts testing in earnest at Valencia next week and only then will it start to become clear if the team has put together a race-winning car.

author: Phil Haigh