Word: mclaren
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...didn't want to be a fashion designer, and for a good half of my career I didn't like it. I always wanted to do other things. I always wanted to read and do intellectual things. I started to do it to help my [then] partner Malcolm McLaren, because I could always make things. It was only about 15 years ago that my husband, whom I work with now and who designs as much as I do, said to me, "You have to like it. Otherwise, you wouldn't be doing...
...clock, there wasn't much to separate the two; little more than a second split Hamilton's and Fisichella's fastest lap times in Brazil. But a second is an eternity in Formula One, and a powerful reflection of perhaps the most important factor separating drivers: money. McLaren, for which Hamilton drives, lavished an estimated $430 million on its campaign, according to industry analysts Formula Money - a sum typical of big teams but two to three times the outlay of independent teams such as Fisichella's Force India. In such a high-tech sport, those with the deepest pockets tend...
...mechanics, wind-tunnel experts - charged with analyzing the performance of every system of last year's model with the goal of making the new one faster. Inevitably, the high stakes have led to skulduggery. The sport's governing body, the Paris-based International Automobile Federation (FIA), last year fined McLaren a record $100 million for possessing 800 pages of confidential technical data about the cars of arch rival Ferrari. The FIA also stripped McLaren of all its points in the constructors' race, handing the title to Ferrari and splashing fuel onto this year's volatile mix of engines and egos...
...Whether it's tinkering with hydraulics, aerodynamics or something else, "The discipline you have to bring to the technical exercise is extreme," McLaren boss Ron Dennis has said. "One weak element and you're not going to win." For the investment over the years, people get to see cars that accelerate from zero to 160 km/h in 3.5 sec., and are so endowed with aerodynamic downforce that, in theory, you could drive one of these babies across the ceiling. Eventually, some of that technology filters down into the cars that the rest of us get around in: the steering wheel...
...chance to identify, with greater certainty, the best of the best is the promise F1 is holding out this year. Almost certainly, Ferrari and McLaren still have the fastest cars. But with technical aids on the scrap heap, drivers from BMW, Renault and maybe even Williams could just get a look-in. And F1 may gain a new legion of fans - those who, while they'll never be transfixed by fast-moving, logo-covered machines, could be won over by the brave and brilliant souls who control them...