Lewis Hamilton has said that updates were available to McLaren for the European Grand Prix but that the team "didn't want to take the risk".
Hamilton finished fourth in Valencia, a full 46 seconds behind race winner Sebastian Vettel, and over 18 seconds behind third placed Mark Webber who was slowed by a gearbox problem. Hamilton told the Daily Telegraph that there had been a new set of updates that would have given him a boost in performance, but that McLaren had decided against running them due to reliability.
"They didn't want to take the risk," Hamilton said. "For safety reasons. The question is whether or not we would have finished (the race) if we had taken the risk, but then that is what risk is all about. We had another couple of tenths available to us which I think would have been quite strong and it would have helped look after our tyres... I pushed as hard as I could (to have them)."
Hamilton's team-mate Jenson Button agreed that McLaren needed to be more bold in order to try and close the gap to Red Bull and Ferrari, and said that the current grid order meant it had nothing to lose.
"We need some good upgrades," Button told the BBC. "We need to get our heads down and improve the car. Aerodynamically I think we need an improvement for Silverstone because we're not moving forward and that's what we need to be concentrating on. I do know of some new parts that are coming but I think we need more. We need to take some risks because behind us is a big gap, in this race [Valencia] anyway, to the Mercedes and the Ferraris are in front of us and the Red Bulls are miles away."
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