Remember back in July when McLaren released a video series called "Tooned"? It featured the team's star drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button in animated form up to all sorts of hijinks. McLaren promised a series of 12 episodes, and as one of the most successful teams in F1, McLaren is not one to back out of its commitments. We ran the first three episodes and you seemed to have liked them, so with the F1 season now drawn to a close, we thought it was about time we bring you the remaining nine installments.
Episode 4 is entitled "Beyond the Limit", and sees Jenson and Lewis testing out some ridiculous new additions to their grand prix cars. The McLaren engineers, however, have different ideas as to what their drivers need than the drivers do themselves.
In the fifth episode, "Lift Story", Professor M teaches the drivers a thing or two about the value of engineering. While stuck in an elevator, the engineer regales the young lads with stories of his own misadventures as a racing driver himself.
"Gone with the Wind" is the sixth installment in the series. The Mayoress of Woking visits the McLaren Technology Centre and turns out to be quite the racing fan herself, prompting Professor M to step up his game a notch or two.
Episode 7, "The Rising Son", sends the boys off to the Far East for the Japanese Grand Prix where they utilize a new subterranean testing center that looks straight out of Tron and encounter McLaren's new robotic test driver.
The eighth episode sends the drivers off on the "Lecture Circuit" while a new up-and-coming hot-shoe visits McLaren for a taste of what's to come.
In the ninth episode, Jenson and Lewis gear up for the Indian Grand Prix in "Strictly Bollywood" with a little dance routine we frankly could have done without. Just what any of this has to do with racing is entirely beyond us.
Mika Hakkinen drops by the MTC for the tenth episode, entitled "Photo Finnish" Perfectly content in retirement, the double champion soon succumbs to a challenge to a little kart race against his younger compatriots.
"Side Tracked" is the penultimate eleventh episode in which Nyck de Vries returns from the McLaren Young Driver Programme. Things quickly get out of hand when young Nyck does what a racing driver is prone to do.
Finally "A Glitch Too Far" sends Hamilton and Button into the simulator where things go awry again. A system malfunction makes everything go haywire, losing Lewis into cyberspace. In his place emerges a mysterious Mexican driver, hinting at the arrival of Sergio Perez to fill the seat to be vacated for next season as Hamilton defects to Mercedes.
