This forum contains threads to discuss teams themselves. Anything not technical about the cars, including restructuring, performances etc belongs here.
I see that many claim McLaren ran a low DF setup in Silverstone? Is that really true? McLaren was fastest in high speed corners which indicate that they had a lot of downforce in those corners allowing them to change direction easier than Mercedes. McLaren didn't seem to be amazing on the straights, especially compared to Red Bull. Even Hamilton did not say it is fast in the straights, he just couldn't follow McLaren through the high speed twisty bits. Also I think that looking at rear wings at the start of the weekend you could see McLaren having a bigger rear wing.
I know that it doesn't really make sense - high DF but bad in slow corners but that may be because slower parts required more change of direction (not just point and shoot like Austria).
We were certainly quicker than Red bull on the straights in the race, we were good in the high speed because the MCL60 produces very good downforce at high loads, if Merc and Mclaren both ran the same levels of downforce the Mclaren would still be considerably quicker in the higher speed... I think our rear wing was comparable to most teams in size, but we also ran at lower df beamwing.
Norris hasn’t hidden the fact he’s not a big fan of the way his McLaren handles, and went into more detail when he spoke to the media on Thursday at the Hungaroring.
“I mean, it’s not just my liking, it’s also Oscar’s because we have pretty similar comments,” he replied, when asked about what changes he’d like to feel to bring it in line with what he’d prefer.
“It’s the same as last year, even when Daniel [Ricciardo] was driving, we had a lot of similar comments every day, every weekend.
“It’s just difficult to describe, I feel like I’m having a debrief now! But it’s just… you have to drive one way. But it’s also a way that I don’t want to drive, or would like to drive.
“I know it wasn’t a thing that, say, Daniel liked to drive the car that way.
“But, yeah, I don’t like to drive the car the way that I have to drive it. I feel like it isn’t to my strengths at all. I want to be able to carry minimum speed and ‘U’ a corner. The last thing I can do in the world now is ‘U’ a corner. I have to ‘V’ the corner more than ever. I have never been the biggest fan of doing that, and I don’t like it that much.
“So, basically, the car only really likes to go in a straight line! I mean, it doesn’t even go very quick in a straight line either!”
The recent sweeping changes made to the MCL60 have resulted in a big step forward in terms of performance for the Woking-based squad, but Norris says the improvement doesn’t extend to how the car handles.
He looked so miserable "V-ing" the corner to 2nd place in Silverstone .
That could simply be a part of the new ground effect cars and that's just the way you have to drive them to be quick.
He said it's been an issue for 5 years.
“We’re one of the slowest cars in the slow-speed corners. It’s just an area that’s been bad for us over the last five years that we’ve not really tackled that well. At no point have we gone ‘Wow, the slow-speed is strong now, let’s work on the high-speed’.
He looked so miserable "V-ing" the corner to 2nd place in Silverstone .
That could simply be a part of the new ground effect cars and that's just the way you have to drive them to be quick.
He said it's been an issue for 5 years.
“We’re one of the slowest cars in the slow-speed corners. It’s just an area that’s been bad for us over the last five years that we’ve not really tackled that well. At no point have we gone ‘Wow, the slow-speed is strong now, let’s work on the high-speed’.
Every car has a "problem". In spite of these problems, they nearly achieved a double podium last weekend. If this direction is positive for the overall performance of the car, then the drivers will have to get on with it. They'd rather have a fast car which does not handle to their liking, than a slow one that does. You can ask Pierre Gasly about that (RB vs AT)
He looked so miserable "V-ing" the corner to 2nd place in Silverstone .
That could simply be a part of the new ground effect cars and that's just the way you have to drive them to be quick.
He said it's been an issue for 5 years.
“We’re one of the slowest cars in the slow-speed corners. It’s just an area that’s been bad for us over the last five years that we’ve not really tackled that well. At no point have we gone ‘Wow, the slow-speed is strong now, let’s work on the high-speed’.
Every car has a "problem". In spite of these problems, they nearly achieved a double podium last weekend. If this direction is positive for the overall performance of the car, then the drivers will have to get on with it. They'd rather have a fast car which does not handle to their liking, than a slow one that does. You can ask Pierre Gasly about that (RB vs AT)
So why have we only heard our star driver (Lando) complaining about the same McLaren issue consistently for the past few years, and no other driver complaining about a specific issue with their car year after year?
Sorry mate, but as Lando says, (very diplomatically), "we’ve not really tackled that well". This is code for "nothing has changed" IMO.
Every car has a "problem". In spite of these problems, they nearly achieved a double podium last weekend. If this direction is positive for the overall performance of the car, then the drivers will have to get on with it. They'd rather have a fast car which does not handle to their liking, than a slow one that does. You can ask Pierre Gasly about that (RB vs AT)
So why have we only heard our star driver (Lando) complaining about the same McLaren issue consistently for the past few years, and no other driver complaining about a specific issue with their car year after year?
Sorry mate, but as Lando says, (very diplomatically), "we’ve not really tackled that well". This is code for "nothing has changed" IMO.
In Bahrain they were not even a points contender. In Silverstone they were a double podium contender.
I'm not saying it's wrong to point to an issue with the car which if they could address, would place them even closer to RB, but isn't some perspective needed?
Every car has a "problem". In spite of these problems, they nearly achieved a double podium last weekend. If this direction is positive for the overall performance of the car, then the drivers will have to get on with it. They'd rather have a fast car which does not handle to their liking, than a slow one that does. You can ask Pierre Gasly about that (RB vs AT)
So why have we only heard our star driver (Lando) complaining about the same McLaren issue consistently for the past few years, and no other driver complaining about a specific issue with their car year after year?
Sorry mate, but as Lando says, (very diplomatically), "we’ve not really tackled that well". This is code for "nothing has changed" IMO.
In Bahrain they were not even a points contender. In Silverstone they were a double podium contender.
I'm not saying it's wrong to point to an issue with the car which if they could address, would place them even closer to RB, but isn't some perspective needed?
I suggest you read the article, Lando goes into a lot of detail. eg:
Given that the ill-handling McLaren was one of the stars of the field at Silverstone, as well as proving occasionally quick in tricky conditions, Norris said there are certain characteristics that allow the car to show good speed.
“We’re very good at braking, in straight-line braking, which is why we were so quick in the wet, at times,” he said.
“I wouldn’t say we’re quick in the wet as a general note, but quick in the wet when braking is a big key – like in Monaco. It builds tyre temperature, builds confidence. That’s when we’re quick – we’re not quick in the corners when it’s wet.
“So there are certain things which allow us to be competitive. It’s just to be able to have scope to do different lines and drive in different ways. If the wind changes, if conditions change, different fuel loads, tyre degradation, we still always have to drive in one specific way. It’s not a way that I currently like, it’s one I’ve had to adapt to. Even last year, it still changes every year, I still have to adapt a lot as a driver, and far away from the car that I want to be able to drive.
and
The recent sweeping changes made to the MCL60 have resulted in a big step forward in terms of performance for the Woking-based squad, but Norris says the improvement doesn’t extend to how the car handles.
“At the minute, even with this upgrade we’ve had, the performance of driving the car, the handling has not get any better,” he explained.
“It still is just as difficult to drive, as difficult to execute qualifying laps with.
“In essence, it is slightly easier because, for a given mistake, we’re actually higher up there, especially in the last few weekends.
“In the high-speed corners, it’s harder to make a mistake because the cars performing better. For me and where we’ve been over the last five years, we’ve made the car quicker – obviously, I don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves, it’s only two weekends where we’ve been quick.
They want to extract more performance from what has already been brought to the track. Well, okay. If they found something in the settings on the simulator, maybe it makes some sense.
So this package, in its 75% of the total, turned out to be so good that they really found additional performance at the base after the race. In any case, there is more downforce and stability, so the Hungaroring will be a good test. The team decided not to waste time finding and adapting the remaining 25% of updates, instead focusing on work.
I mentioned earlier that Lando only had one training session in Austria to sort out the balance and the balance was not optimal back then, you can see it on the onboard. In Britain it was much better, the car was more stable and in my opinion the balance was not bad. Lando confirmed this to the race engineer. Perhaps they are just as curious how the updated bottom will behave, pontoons (sidepods) with maximum downforce, because this option has never been on the track before. For the future, this may allow them to squeeze more performance out of the remaining 25% of the updates they were supposed to bring to Hungary.
Whatever happens in Hungary won’t have an effect in the 25% of the upgrade package they were supposed to bring this weekend… That package (the 25%) has already been signed off, if it’s not ready for this weekend it is because of potential manufacturing delays and not because they want to assess the current package in a different configuration.
Every car has a "problem". In spite of these problems, they nearly achieved a double podium last weekend. If this direction is positive for the overall performance of the car, then the drivers will have to get on with it. They'd rather have a fast car which does not handle to their liking, than a slow one that does. You can ask Pierre Gasly about that (RB vs AT)
So why have we only heard our star driver (Lando) complaining about the same McLaren issue consistently for the past few years, and no other driver complaining about a specific issue with their car year after year?
Sorry mate, but as Lando says, (very diplomatically), "we’ve not really tackled that well". This is code for "nothing has changed" IMO.
As others have said, you'd rather have a fast car which has some quirks and requires the driver to adapt their style than a slow, benign car. This seems to be how the Alfa Romeo behaves this year - I recall seeing interviews earlier this year where Valterri was saying that the car feels nice to drive but is simply slow. I know which car I'd rather McLaren had though...
Every car has a "problem". In spite of these problems, they nearly achieved a double podium last weekend. If this direction is positive for the overall performance of the car, then the drivers will have to get on with it. They'd rather have a fast car which does not handle to their liking, than a slow one that does. You can ask Pierre Gasly about that (RB vs AT)
So why have we only heard our star driver (Lando) complaining about the same McLaren issue consistently for the past few years, and no other driver complaining about a specific issue with their car year after year?
Sorry mate, but as Lando says, (very diplomatically), "we’ve not really tackled that well". This is code for "nothing has changed" IMO.
As others have said, you'd rather have a fast car which has some quirks and requires the driver to adapt their style than a slow, benign car. This seems to be how the Alfa Romeo behaves this year - I recall seeing interviews earlier this year where Valterri was saying that the car feels nice to drive but is simply slow. I know which car I'd rather McLaren had though...
Tell that to Lando, he seems to disagree:
“But we have yet, over the last five years, [not] made that steady improvement in slow-speed handling and drivability. A bigger step would be improving how we drive the car, how easy it is to drive the car, rather than just adding 10 more points of [aerodynamic] load in slow speed, so to speak, because that’s only going to get us so far up the order. Red Bull have both.”
Regarding what Lando says, that the car turns badly, that it tries to drive in a straight line: I already noted this earlier. You can see it on onboard. Everything is perfectly visible in the race of Austria and Britain, and especially in the slow turn 3, what is there, what is there. The McLaren chassis is inconvenient to turn, there is not enough grip on the front wheels. This is the same understeer. You can't say that about Red Bull, it turns the way Max wants, easily breaks the trajectory if he wants to.
Earlier, I already received a hat from some of you here, saying that Lando is playing down. No, when it's seen on the onboard, it's not what some here describe. Some people seem to fail to understand that the car has inherent chassis features that prevent Lando from extracting more speed.
In qualifying, it's almost unnoticeable, because the car is lighter, the balance is slightly different, the tires are fresh and give maximum grip, here the chassis falls into the optimal frame and Lando as a whole can at least get the maximum of what he wants. Of course, within reason. For example, as a standard driver-car, I put Max, simply because this bunch is the fastest and most stable, he is the most convenient guide. When Max wants to go into a V-shaped trajectory, he does so, and the car easily enters a slow turn. In Austria, whether in qualifying or in the race, he never changed the racing trajectory, he rode the fastest trajectory every time. The grip on Max's front wheels is just fantastic, the whole car revolves around the front wheels, it's impressive. Chassis McLaren is not capable of doing this in principle. Which led to the fact that in Austria Lando began to break the trajectory in turn 3 as the tires wore out over the course of the race.
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