By Parminio
December 12 2002

With DC blistering a track record, and McLaren being at or near the top at each test, it gives one hope the 4-17D will not be that much off the pace at the start of the season. BUT...it was a very similar story last year. In testing before the 2002 season, McLaren set several track records and seemed to be the class of the field...only to show up at Austrailia and be nearly 2 seconds off the pace. Testing at best is guesswork...you don't know if the car is running light, or if it is really even legal. It has been a widely used marketing strategy to show speed in testing to attract new sponsors, or to impress the sponsors you already have in an effort to keep them happy about the money they spent. That said, one wonders if that may have been a bit of what happened last year? There is also the possibility that the 4-17D is just that much faster. That would be GREAT news to the vast number of McLaren fans out there that are more than a bit peaved over last seasons performance...or the lack of it as the case may be. Hopefully, these times are an indication of how much better the D series is. Even if it's just the "impressing" strategy, the 4-17D has outperformed the test times so from last year so far...so at any given rate, we know she's a BIT quicker...just how much quicker, we'll have to wait and see.