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McLaren head into the summer break tonight knowing they are running out of time to rescue the season. Their summer factory shutdown, like Mercedes’, begins at midnight on the basis the cars won’t be back from Budapest for two days…

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McLaren head into the summer break tonight knowing they are running out of time to rescue the season.

Their summer factory shutdown, like Mercedes’, begins at midnight on the basis the cars won’t be back from Budapest for two days and cannot be worked on.

They may be leading the world championship ahead of the Hungaroring race but that, surely, cannot last long in the face of Red Bull’s staggering superiority.

Not for nothing have the bookies, this weekend, installed Sebastian Vettel as championship favourite.

McLaren believe that superiority comes from the fact that Red Bull are running their front wing so close to ground.

And, to a lesser extent, Ferrari too.

And they are actively pushing for a detailed review of front wing regulations – and the associated FIA tests – on the basis that the spirit of the rules for the last few years has been to raise the nose and associated aero parts.

The idea behind that was to reduce the importance of the wing to the overall aerodynamoics of the car and, thereby, hopefully help improve overtaking.

So Martin Whitmarsh has complained that by getting around the rules somehow to get the Red Bulls’ nose back closer to the ground may not be illegal per se (although that is debateable) but it is definitely against the spirit of the rules.

And he has a point.

Left unchecked the rest of the grid will simply turn their attention to what Red Bull are doing and get involved in an expensive copying exercise, driving up costs.

Charlie Whiting, the FIA’s rule-maker and regulator, will surely have no truck with those who talk about the ’spirit’ of the rules.

He is only interested in what he can prove. Whether a car is legal or illegal.

As I understand it the Red Bull has passed every FIA test going – including the upward underfloor checks and the 500N 10mm wing-end deflection test.

McLaren call it a flexi-wing issue but at its core it is to do with the car’s “rake”; in basic terms lifting the rear to lower the front, while somehow having an underfloor plank that is rather less than straight its entire length.

But designer Adrian Newey doesn’t have a history of breaking rules or building illegal cars.

He is simply a brilliant engineer. Probably the sport’s best.

How he is doing it with this year’s car is puzzling the FIA and the best brains at McLaren.

But the effect on the car’s performance is certainly dramatic.

Around the twisty 28s, middle section of the track the Red Bull is more than a second faster than the rest.

In a sport where heroes are created by tenths that is an enormous margin.

Lewis Hamilton said all he could do was laugh when he watched Vettel’s in-car footage. “Insane” was his word for their superiority.

Hopes that the FIA would issue a ‘clarification’ that forced Red Bull to lift their wing disappeared Saturday night.

But after the race there is likely to be some tightening of the regulations. Too late for Hungary but, perhaps, not for Spa.

Even so McLaren know they have a monumental task on their hands to recover the one second performance gap lost to Red Bull in the seven days since Hockenheim.

For the first time there is a very real sense now that, just as it was Brawn’s year and their gizmo that ruled in 2009, its Red Bull’s year and their gizmo(s) that will ultimately rule in 2010.

But that won’t stop McLaren giving it their all right to the last lap of the last race.

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