Will McLaren learn from their mistakes and help Lewis Hamilton to the title?

It’s not easy being a McLaren fan. It takes a special kind of person to put themselves through the agony of unfulfilled expectation time and again only to brush themselves off and face the next race.

The problem is that McLaren are good and are always at the pointy end of the field. They build up hope and then, predictably, fall at the last hurdle – metaphorically speaking. In short, they have an uncanny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The most recent example, of course, was the debacle that saw Lewis Hamilton realise the full horror of being a McLaren driver. With two races to go, Hamilton had a 17-point lead over Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen and blew it in a moment’s lapse in China and beaching his car.

Still, McLaren had two drivers ahead of Raikkonen for the final race, Hamilton seven points ahead of the Finn and Fernando Alonso was four points ahead. It should have been a cakewalk, but neither could finish the job off after their bitter rivalry erupted in a first corner tangle.