Adapted from GMM
A reassuring point for the struggling McLaren-Honda team could be the cornering ability of the MP4-30 chassis. After Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen qualified dead last in Melbourne, some estimates put the team's power deficit to pacesetters Mercedes at as much as 150-200 horse power.
In Australia, Honda de-tuned its engine, and particularly the power unit's ERS systems. "Melbourne being our first race of the season, we were only able to approach the race with a conservative setting on the power unit, maintaining a slight margin off of the full output,” said Yasuhisa Arai, chief officer of motorsport, Honda R&D Co Ltd. "We had to lower performance in Australia," McLaren’s director of racing, Eric Boullier confirmed, "but there is more potential on the way." Also on the bright side, it emerged on Tuesday that the 2015 McLaren chassis is almost certainly a good one. Formula 1's official website calculates 'cornering ratings' for each driver after races, by averaging the side-to-side G-forces in every corner across a Grand Prix. Button's cornering rating ranked fourth overall in Australia, behind only the two Mercedes drivers and Felipe Massa (Williams-Mercedes).
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