2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[LionsHeart]

What is there to guess? Take a look at the leftmost graph: tire consumption and pace per medium. Everyone is racing in the same conditions. We see the decline in the pace of McLaren relative to Mercedes and Red Bull. In the second section, the consumption of soft tires by Max is comparable to the consumption of hard tires by Lando, the pace is comparable, the tire consumption is comparable. Max, having a faster car, could not go far. This speaks volumes. Put soft tires on McLaren we would have missed the podium, I'm sure of it.

I'm quite late for this reply but if you look at the data without Perez outliers, the angle of Verstappen line and angle of McLaren line for Mediums is very similar. Mercedes line looks better but you have to take into account that Mercedes had one driver on Mediums at the start and that he fell back into midpack - meaning a lot of his laps have same issue as Perez - being slower than he would be. This makes their line flatter than McLaren line. Same issue that happens with Perez data for Red Bull line.

If you cleaned it all up, I think McLaren tire usage would look similar to Red Bull, although the car is obviously slower than Verstappen (not sure about Perez). Morale of the story - hard to analyze with noisy data.

Perhaps it is. Until I judge. I have a table of times for all laps of the top ten. If I'm not too lazy, I'll study it to come to more accurate conclusions. But I doubt that anything will change much. In any case, I was extremely pleased with the pace of McLaren after all that I had to see before. Some of the races, like in Miami and Barcelona, ​​I experienced hard. Realizing that the chassis quickly brings the rubber to temperature, and then jumps over the working window and goes into overheating, and then there is a loss of grip and a general drop in pace. In qualifying, this is not critical, because the chassis with empty tanks is light, the tire grip is high. Even going back to fast corners like the 9 at Barcelona and the 9 Copse at Silverstone, McLaren looked very good, the high speed through those corners. The McLaren chassis clearly has its strengths, not least thanks to Peter Prodromou. Today I watched the full onboard Silverstone race from Alonso and Hamilton. Onboard Piastri, Norris and Verstappen will look later. I think there will be something to pay attention to. In fact, I'm not very worried about McLaren. Now I'm more surprised where Aston's pace has gone. If in Canada they were faster, in Austria they had a similar pace to McLaren, then in Britain they drove 7 tenths slower on the first stint on medium tires and 8 tenths slower on the second stint on soft tires (these losses are indicated as average for one racing lap).

[Farnborough]

Remember the tyre's construction changed towards giving more durability at Silverstone.

Light users AM may have effectively been at loss as they had good lifing before, with McL needing more durability in the tyre may have seen more favourable outcome, needing that extra durability to assist race pace longevity.

Pirelli don't say what is altered, as far as I know. Without changes to the compounds that would ordinarily be raised strength in the carcass to better resist heat building through that structure being flexed.

If the tyres weren't altered for Silverstone the normal direction would be to increase base pressure to reduce flex and likely hood of failure through overheating.
Strengthened casing but not increase in base pressure would have similar outcome, but interact with the chassis differently.

It looks like some went forward while others may have lost a little pace.

[PikeStance]

Interesting conversation, but it seems you are all back where you started; let's see what happens next?
One thing for sure, the car is better, but not good enough yet! Our goal is not to be the best of the rest, but to challenge and surpass Red Bull.

Agreed... But that will not happen this year... Zak's prediction of podiums & possible wins next year and 2025 for RBR chanllenge sounds more realistic IF they keep up with current upward trend...

Well, if we are being honest, if he would express anything more than that, that may be reckless. It's the Scotty effect. Tell Capt. Kirk it will take 3 hours and do it in 30 minutes and you look like a genius. Do the opposite, and you will look the fool. I am not saying that's what he is doing, but you definitely do not want to raise the expectation of your fan base, especially one that has face so much disappointment.

[LionsHeart]

Remember the tyre's construction changed towards giving more durability at Silverstone.

Light users AM may have effectively been at loss as they had good lifing before, with McL needing more durability in the tyre may have seen more favourable outcome, needing that extra durability to assist race pace longevity.

Pirelli don't say what is altered, as far as I know. Without changes to the compounds that would ordinarily be raised strength in the carcass to better resist heat building through that structure being flexed.

If the tyres weren't altered for Silverstone the normal direction would be to increase base pressure to reduce flex and likely hood of failure through overheating.
Strengthened casing but not increase in base pressure would have similar outcome, but interact with the chassis differently.

It looks like some went forward while others may have lost a little pace.

Totally agree, on top of the relatively cool conditions on the track. The asphalt temperature was near 34 degrees.

[mwillems]

Remember the tyre's construction changed towards giving more durability at Silverstone.

Light users AM may have effectively been at loss as they had good lifing before, with McL needing more durability in the tyre may have seen more favourable outcome, needing that extra durability to assist race pace longevity.

Pirelli don't say what is altered, as far as I know. Without changes to the compounds that would ordinarily be raised strength in the carcass to better resist heat building through that structure being flexed.

If the tyres weren't altered for Silverstone the normal direction would be to increase base pressure to reduce flex and likely hood of failure through overheating.
Strengthened casing but not increase in base pressure would have similar outcome, but interact with the chassis differently.

It looks like some went forward while others may have lost a little pace.

Mclaren in particular struggled with the manner in which the tyre deformed and affected the performance of the car, this was in part attributed to the long corners. With Stella explaining that their wind tunnel was not able to test this type of airflow. It is entirely possible that this is now better as a result of the structure of the tyre but..... wait for it...

We need more data and we need to wait and see.... lol

There is a lot that is different and too much that we don't know yet.

[MrGapes]

Mclaren df configs so far.

Lower df beam variation = *

High: Monaco, Spain
Med: Bahrain, Saudi, Australia, Baku* (No gurney), Canada, Austria*
Low: Miami*, Silverstone* (Lando no gurney)

[LionsHeart]

Mclaren df configs so far.

Lower df beam variation = *

High: Monaco, Spain
Med: Bahrain, Saudi, Australia, Baku* (No gurney), Canada, Austria*
Low: Miami*, Silverstone* (Lando no gurney)

Well, actually, Lando had a Gurney flap on the rear wing, but it was clipped. Do you mean rear wing or beam wing? These days, teams don't use the Gurney flap on the beam wing very often, if you compare the current cars with the cars of 10-12 years ago.

Edit: Aaaah, good. My mistake. I checked the photos. The rear wing of the Lando does not have a Gurney flap at all. It was only the coloring of the edge of the upper flap that misled me. That is, the flap itself was clipped, there is no Gurney auxiliary flap. True, it is on the front wings of McLaren.

[mclaren111]

Mclaren df configs so far.

Lower df beam variation = *

High: Monaco, Spain
Med: Bahrain, Saudi, Australia, Baku* (No gurney), Canada, Austria*
Low: Miami*, Silverstone* (Lando no gurney)

Well, actually, Lando had a Gurney flap on the rear wing, but it was clipped. Do you mean rear wing or beam wing? These days, teams don't use the Gurney flap on the beam wing very often, if you compare the current cars with the cars of 10-12 years ago.

Edit: Aaaah, good. My mistake. I checked the photos. The rear wing of the Lando does not have a Gurney flap at all. It was only the coloring of the edge of the upper flap that misled me. That is, the flap itself was clipped, there is no Gurney auxiliary flap. True, it is on the front wings of McLaren.

Pictures please...

[MrGapes]

Mclaren df configs so far.

Lower df beam variation = *

High: Monaco, Spain
Med: Bahrain, Saudi, Australia, Baku* (No gurney), Canada, Austria*
Low: Miami*, Silverstone* (Lando no gurney)

Well, actually, Lando had a Gurney flap on the rear wing, but it was clipped. Do you mean rear wing or beam wing? These days, teams don't use the Gurney flap on the beam wing very often, if you compare the current cars with the cars of 10-12 years ago.

Edit: Aaaah, good. My mistake. I checked the photos. The rear wing of the Lando does not have a Gurney flap at all. It was only the coloring of the edge of the upper flap that misled me. That is, the flap itself was clipped, there is no Gurney auxiliary flap. True, it is on the front wings of McLaren.

Pictures please...

I should of added one in the MCL60 thread a few days ago.

Yes, It really just seems like a cutout.. So hard to tell these day because the vinyl still leaves that black border.

I think this is the least downforce they have run all year, so it was good to see decent cornering numbers...

[LionsHeart]

Mclaren df configs so far.

Lower df beam variation = *

High: Monaco, Spain
Med: Bahrain, Saudi, Australia, Baku* (No gurney), Canada, Austria*
Low: Miami*, Silverstone* (Lando no gurney)

Well, actually, Lando had a Gurney flap on the rear wing, but it was clipped. Do you mean rear wing or beam wing? These days, teams don't use the Gurney flap on the beam wing very often, if you compare the current cars with the cars of 10-12 years ago.

Edit: Aaaah, good. My mistake. I checked the photos. The rear wing of the Lando does not have a Gurney flap at all. It was only the coloring of the edge of the upper flap that misled me. That is, the flap itself was clipped, there is no Gurney auxiliary flap. True, it is on the front wings of McLaren.

Pictures please...

These:
https://ibb.co/dQ0Z9dq
https://ibb.co/z6013DB
https://ibb.co/RvHTLKQ
https://ibb.co/Pc8Lwvs
https://ibb.co/dLgDXwP

[LionsHeart]

So. For the weekend in Hungary on Friday they promise +31 degrees Celsius , on Saturday +34, on Sunday +37 degrees. There will be heat. Who has any thoughts on this? Will everyone go to hard? Shoot Aston? Will McLaren fail?

[Emag]

So. For the weekend in Hungary on Friday they promise +31 degrees Celsius , on Saturday +34, on Sunday +37 degrees. There will be heat. Who has any thoughts on this? Will everyone go to hard? Shoot Aston? Will McLaren fail?

Nobody knows. Just gotta follow the race weekend.

[Farnborough]

So. For the weekend in Hungary on Friday they promise +31 degrees Celsius , on Saturday +34, on Sunday +37 degrees. There will be heat. Who has any thoughts on this? Will everyone go to hard? Shoot Aston? Will McLaren fail?

Its certainly going to be interesting, especially to observe if McL can carry over their significant progress from last two races.

Tyres of more resistant structure SHOULD give more protection from overheating the whole tyre in the way it accumilates temperature, track temp likely seen more in compound choice they run.
Quick laps showing ultimate pace, but notice the teams all watch very closely the long run pace as that gives true indication of chassis potential.
Teams really have to be acutely on the ball to respond in setup to maximise long run pace and avoid tragic degradation effect that'll see them go backwards. All the wheel's angles etc have to be right on point to get into the sweet zone of tyre performance.

This iteration of McL appears to be giving competitive load to get the various compound working effectively, the period at end of Silverstone with slower warmup of hard while holding off overtakes, then to see pace rise as full temp arrived, that looked quite promising.
It showed signs of entering the Goldilocks paradigm of chassis tyre performance.
A big test here nevertheless, and likely to give a very good view of updates in a wider condition sense to better judge overall effectiveness.
Very interesting weekend ahead.

[mclaren111]

Well, actually, Lando had a Gurney flap on the rear wing, but it was clipped. Do you mean rear wing or beam wing? These days, teams don't use the Gurney flap on the beam wing very often, if you compare the current cars with the cars of 10-12 years ago.

Edit: Aaaah, good. My mistake. I checked the photos. The rear wing of the Lando does not have a Gurney flap at all. It was only the coloring of the edge of the upper flap that misled me. That is, the flap itself was clipped, there is no Gurney auxiliary flap. True, it is on the front wings of McLaren.

Pictures please...

These:
https://ibb.co/dQ0Z9dq
https://ibb.co/z6013DB
https://ibb.co/RvHTLKQ
https://ibb.co/Pc8Lwvs
https://ibb.co/dLgDXwP

Excellent... Well Spotted... Thank You Kindly...

[MCLvamos]

Remember the tyre's construction changed towards giving more durability at Silverstone.

Light users AM may have effectively been at loss as they had good lifing before, with McL needing more durability in the tyre may have seen more favourable outcome, needing that extra durability to assist race pace longevity.

Pirelli don't say what is altered, as far as I know. Without changes to the compounds that would ordinarily be raised strength in the carcass to better resist heat building through that structure being flexed.

If the tyres weren't altered for Silverstone the normal direction would be to increase base pressure to reduce flex and likely hood of failure through overheating.
Strengthened casing but not increase in base pressure would have similar outcome, but interact with the chassis differently.

It looks like some went forward while others may have lost a little pace.

Mclaren in particular struggled with the manner in which the tyre deformed and affected the performance of the car, this was in part attributed to the long corners. With Stella explaining that their wind tunnel was not able to test this type of airflow. It is entirely possible that this is now better as a result of the structure of the tyre but..... wait for it...

We need more data and we need to wait and see.... lol

There is a lot that is different and too much that we don't know yet.

I wonder, speaking more with regards to the '24 car, will the new wind tunnel that's being rolled out/just come online help with this. Do we know any details on any specific technology improvements with the new one as compared to the Toyota facility they use?