2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[Lucky]

When is the first upgrade package due?

Baku.

[MrGapes]

When is the first upgrade package due?

Stella hinted Baku, because there’s a three week break after Australia. So two months out..

[EddyBaggio]

I honestly don’t understand the feel for optimism around here. The car looks slow. It is not smooth around the corners. Seems to degrade its tires.

It doesn’t fit with a team aspiring to leave the midfield this year and close the gap to the top teams, to fight for the championship in 2025.

I agree, McLaren will fight for Q2 in Bahrain. Q3 definitely won't.

I think we will be last on the grid. I dont see anything that point in any other direction.

[Macklaren]

Don’t get the negativity either. We obviously don’t know fuel loads or engine maps but ALO is also in the 37s after 5 laps. Race pace doesn’t seem that bad and comparable to ones I see as our direct competition for this year

This is what is really interesting..the race pace looks pretty good both absolute and relative. Unless they have turned the engine waaay up or are running on fumes vs others....
or unless their development targets would put them on pole...who knows?

[Darth-Piekus]

I would wait till tommorow for that last run to conclude before deciding where Mclaren stands.

[McL-H]

Zak's comments are grim but interesting. They clearly knew they did not hit their development targets at launch already even before turning a wheel. Also sounds like he is now lighting a fire under Key

Let’s hope so. Key has had his chances. Time to let him go. Also, Prodromou has not been delivering these past 8 years. The competition has been stealing away the heads that were responsible for the championship fighting cars at the top teams. We have not been attracting any. We talk a lot about facilities, but new facilities don’t fix incompetence. Zak needs to make changes.

[McL-H]

I honestly don’t understand the feel for optimism around here. The car looks slow. It is not smooth around the corners. Seems to degrade its tires.

It doesn’t fit with a team aspiring to leave the midfield this year and close the gap to the top teams, to fight for the championship in 2025.

I agree, McLaren will fight for Q2 in Bahrain. Q3 definitely won't.

I think we will be last on the grid. I dont see anything that point in any other direction.

Nah, Alpine, Alpha Tauri and Haas look similar or even worse.

[Mansell89]

Anyone got the link to Zak Browns comments today about missing their targets?

I feared that there had been a backlash when James Key was absent from launch- looks like that may be the case.

Hopefully James responds to any doubters with some superb update progress.

[ort895]

Anyone got the link to Zak Browns comments today about missing their targets?

I feared that there had been a backlash when James Key was absent from launch- looks like that may be the case.

Hopefully James responds to any doubters with some superb update progress.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/mcla ... /10435975/

[EddyBaggio]

I agree, McLaren will fight for Q2 in Bahrain. Q3 definitely won't.

I think we will be last on the grid. I dont see anything that point in any other direction.

Nah, Alpine, Alpha Tauri and Haas look similar or even worse.

In what way do you think they look worse? Their times are significantly better and our car looks very difficult to handle.

[organic]

I predict p7 constructors fight with alfa until the upgrades

[Lucky]

I agree, McLaren will fight for Q2 in Bahrain. Q3 definitely won't.

I think we will be last on the grid. I dont see anything that point in any other direction.

Nah, Alpine, Alpha Tauri and Haas look similar or even worse.

Alpinе and Haas will be faster

[McL-H]

I think we will be last on the grid. I dont see anything that point in any other direction.

Nah, Alpine, Alpha Tauri and Haas look similar or even worse.

In what way do you think they look worse? Their times are significantly better and our car looks very difficult to handle.

Because their cars look very difficult to handle too. Especially the AT moves around the corners like a truck. The Haas is twitchy. Alpine looks slow like McLaren.
I am just basing it on what I see on track. Disregarding lap times as they are not representable at this stage imo.

[bauc]

I'm a die hard Mcalren fan for almost 25+ years now, and I can't see how can/will this team turn this sinking ship around even with the new facility's in place that are going to be functional latter this year. This team lost his mojo long time ago, we saw a glimpse of return to form in 2021 when we won a race and almost (RAIN + BAD TEAM CALL) we would have won 2 races and in a row!

Now reading how they have missed their own expectations I'm just sad, I'm not angry anymore at them, just sad to see this.... once great team fall apart slowly and painfully.

Here is to another slow, long & painful season.....

I'm starting to feel like being a Mclaren fan is a curse, you can't do anything about it and you have to live with it to the rest of your life.

[101FlyingDutchman]

Also very much depends what the development targets were? If they were ambitious so to start closing the gap to the front runners then maybe it’s clear we are falling short of those. Maybe another year of sorts where we are standing still relative to the leaders? Hard to gauge. Nothing I’ve seen so far in terms of running has led me to think that this year will be a total disaster but we don’t have enough info. The noises from the team however are very uncertain and that alone is cause for concern. They’ve been talking up the Baku package for a while now