2022 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[Darth-Piekus]

Ok so Peter Prodromou is the Aerodynamicist, James Key is the chassis man. Also I noticed Andrea Stella and Piers Thynne. They seem important names in F1. I remember all of them. So what happened and the technical team was unable to give another step up when they did that so well the last 3 years.

[proteus]

Prodomou is the aero guy, not Key, he's also the guy that was under Newey. You lot are getting a lot of wires crossed in the frothing.

I hope you will manage to provide us with some insights about problems with the car in the near future by your source. It would be great to get some real info behind formulated PR statements, and overall bickering over here

[Emag]

Prodomou is the aero guy, not Key, he's also the guy that was under Newey. You lot are getting a lot of wires crossed in the frothing.

I hope you will manage to provide us with some insights about problems with the car in the near future by your source. It would be great to get some real info behind formulated PR statements, and overall bickering over here

He already said that the brake issues have impacted them heavily. Not sure if that was a personal view of him or an internal source.

[Darth-Piekus]

Is the brake issue making the car lose 1.7 seconds alone?

[Xero]

Ok so Peter Prodromou is the Aerodynamicist, James Key is the chassis man. Also I noticed Andrea Stella and Piers Thynne. They seem important names in F1. I remember all of them. So what happened and the technical team was unable to give another step up when they did that so well the last 3 years.

James Key isn't responsible for chassis design, even though that's his speciality. Key oversees all departments as Technical Director. He can influence direction and philosophy, but its down to the guys underneath him to work out the solutions.

[billamend]

Prodomou is the aero guy, not Key, he's also the guy that was under Newey. You lot are getting a lot of wires crossed in the frothing.

And Prodomou is, apparently, not consensual inside McLaren.

[McMika98]

Blame the Merc engine, which is the worst one in terms of driveability, poor traction and acceleration. Evwn redbull engine from last year look solid.
Car is ok, better than the Haas and Alfa, shame about the engine.

[Mostlyeels]

There certainly is a lot of frothing going on in this thread Understandable, but chin up everyone, going through good and bad times is what supporting a team is all about. Lots more practice sessions and races to go this year, for them to fix their problems and edge back up.

My thanks to everyone analysing the issues and providing thoughtful commentary.

[f1rules]

They simply did the inexcuseable and set their performance targets far far to low, nothing will get this car back

[JPower]

Is the brake issue making the car lose 1.7 seconds alone?

No. Both Ricciardo and Key have said the car lacks grip. That's most of the time lost in slow corners.

[Xero]

They had flovis on the new front wing as late as FP3, so I'd take a punt that it's not working as expected. It's shape change means the centre of pressure under yaw has changed, and the flow behind it. These cars seem extremely sensitive to minor aero changes.

[PhillipM]

Is the brake issue making the car lose 1.7 seconds alone?

No, but running the car outside the setup window it's designed for is a big hunk of time. You only need to look at the Merc for that - they had to raise their front ride height to work around their issues and it's cost them a chunk of peak downforce.

These cars are far more sensitive to setup and they struggle with understeer at the best of times. Get outside your setup windows because of other compromises and it's a huge roll on effect elsewhere.

Like I said before, the have a lot of brake ducts they wanted to test, so they must have been expecting some sort of issues, probably just not as severe as hit them.

[Darth-Piekus]

If that is the case I expect once they fix the issue to be up with Red Bull and Ferrari or at least close.

[ALO_Power]

McLaren was bad in all sectors:

[PhillipM]

I doubt it, it'll just let them trail brake properly and sort some of the low speed balance and then they'll be in the window they want to start to actually refine things from there. It's going to take time, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them suddenly hop up half a second or so when they get on top of that alone.