Flat-out at the McLaren factory

By Andrew Fraser

The McLaren-Mercedes headquarters is a busy place to be at the moment.

What with trying to spearhead Kimi Raikkonen's title charge and making sure their new car is ready for next season, Ron Dennis and his team have had little time to enjoy the holiday season.

McLaren will take no less than five cars to two separate tests in Jerez and Monza this week.

McLaren's new car has tested their patience

At Monza, Raikkonen and team-mate David Coulthard will attempt to optimise the performance of the current MP4-17D.

And test drivers Pedro de la Rosa and Darren Turner will be in Spain to try and iron out the reliability problems that have delayed the launch of the new MP4-18.

It is the sort of thing you have to do in Formula One if you want to stay in touch with the competition.

And a tour of the McLaren factory in Woking hammers home just how much time, money and effort it takes to even make it on to the grid.

The shop floor may smell like the school crafts centre, but the tools and technology on display bear no comparison.

In one part of the workshop, the cars of Raikkonen and Coulthard - plus the spare - stand on raised pedestals, fresh from finishing second and fifth at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Minus front and rear wings, suspension and wheels, they are waiting to be rebuilt for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza on 14 September.

F1 car guide

In another section of the workshop, a separate team of engineers work on the MP4-18.

With its narrow nose cone and distinctive curves, design guru Adrian Newey's latest labour of love is a radical departure from the MP4-17D.

But innovation is never straightforward, and crash test problems and concerns about the reliability of the new transmission system mean it is already several months behind schedule.

McLaren take a fleet of double-decker trucks, 35 tonnes of equipment, 150 magnesium alloy wheels and 120 people to every race.

And behind the scenes a highly skilled army of engineers, craftsmen and technicians are beavering away to make sure as little as possible can go wrong when the cars are out on the track.

A brake pad is three months in the making, a carbon-fibre steering wheel uses up 36 man hours and it takes three hours to cut out a gear cog.

A single exhaust system consumes 80 man hours - and has a life span of just one race.

There is even a team of experts whose sole purpose is to repaint the car's chassis, a three-day job which also involves stripping off the old layer of paint to make the carbon-fibre shell as light as possible.

McLaren move to even swankier premises next year

Next year the team will move into the McLaren Technology Centre - a new state-of-the-art facility just down the road from the current HQ.

Already up and running there is the wind tunnel - a key tool in the aerodynamic development of an F1 car - which boasts a rolling road capable of simulating speeds of 250mph.

It requires so much electricity that it is plugged straight into the national grid - and uses up the same amount of power in one go as it takes to supply the whole of Woking for a day.

It is hardly surpising, then, that McLaren International spends up to £300m a year on its Formula One operation.

But, as Ron Dennis is always reminding his team - and no doubt his accountant too: "Second is the first of the losers."