2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[101FlyingDutchman]

I've no opinion to offer regarding character and management abilities within the team.

But, this chassis in it's mechanical layout seemed good right frommthe start, and closest in concept to the RB from the off. It didn't appear to have the overall performance its suspension layout suggested to be possible in my mind, obviously now corrected with what we can see in aero on these developments that have brought such pace to the whole performance.

Then that is management of a WHOLE team to bring these elements to the fore. Understanding where the various strengths lay, and how to bring those to prominence is fundamental to overall success.

Quite what has gone on with personal positions within the team we're not privi to. But the improvement is clear for all to see. Sometimes there's a "nearly" fit in personell, with shifts needed to capitalise on what is there, that's for a good manager to recognise and place to maximise the affect those ideas are focused on.

Probably wrong to demonise individual traits on a personal level, but acknowledge for whatever reason that it didn't quite fit together. That both the subtle and the dramatic influence these differences can make.

One thing for sure, judgement in such a unremitting performance demonstration as this, F1, is easy for people to make, but very difficult to quantify exactly the parts that are holding something back. It's a complex balance with only a time base to illustrate success or not.

Absolutely. Impossibly to judge from the sidelines with only a snippet of the total picture. But I do think, where there is smoke there is fire. Bit like with Ricci, at some stage you got to pull the trigger when you admit it isn’t working. I feel the same thing with JK.

He will have his niche within engineering but as TD it’s about empowering the whole team to make it more than the sum of its parts. We needed a change and I’m so glad it happened

[BMMR61]

agree, what also strikes me, is the things thats been said in the many interviews since his departure, by outlining/underlining how it is now, they also very much highlighted how it was before, with and old school TD at the top of the food chain, taking on to much responsability, micro managing and worst, in some cases sidelining people(Prodromou) instead of handing out and encouraring individuals/tech groups to take responsability and listening to them. And on top of that, being to conservative in his decissions.
Its landos comments during the last 3 years, his growing annoynce that in build car flaws was not dealt with etc etc. All in all this paints an extremely bad picture of Key in my opinion.

The technical team structure is as important these days as the presence of a superstar TD, in fact superstar TDs are a dying or dead force in F1. Newey was the superstar designer of the 00s but has evolved into the leader who is always open for new influencer - the long gaze in pitlane is the giveaway of a man who is always thinking outside the square.

As a matter of politeness we don't criticise those who did their best, in JK's case he seems to have lacked an understanding of how aero is 80+% of F1 performance and how you integrate the chassis (the traditional "engineering") is the real key to moving the project forward. Now Prodromou has a real role in the evolution at McLaren, we should realise how very lucky it is that we didn't lose him. I come back to my hobby horse of how simulation untested and found accurate in practice, is no value at all. A steady evolution of the 2019 MCL34 to 2021 MCL35M culminating in 1/2 at Monza and pole and almost victory to Lando a week later in Sochi went sour - anyone ever question what went wrong? What went wrong (with the benefit of hindsight) seems to have been a poor conceptual understanding across aero/chassis philosophies. Poor teamwork at the apex of the technical team led to the McLaren ground effects generation going down a blind alley. This was picked up in simulations as early as November 2022. Team McLaren are demonstrating many great values across the team - team structure, humility, honesty and hard work, advancing where correlation proves the forward direction, and driver talent and attitude.

Zak has taken a lot of flak in the recent past, hopefully he will be cut a bit more slack. How far McLaren have advanced from, with honesty, is not common, but it shows how real teamwork can achieve great results. It has as far as I can see, gone unnoticed how pessimism has made way for positive resolve in the public comments of Lando after the solid 2/3 result at Suzuka. Let's go!

[mwillems]

agree, what also strikes me, is the things thats been said in the many interviews since his departure, by outlining/underlining how it is now, they also very much highlighted how it was before, with and old school TD at the top of the food chain, taking on to much responsability, micro managing and worst, in some cases sidelining people(Prodromou) instead of handing out and encouraring individuals/tech groups to take responsability and listening to them. And on top of that, being to conservative in his decissions.
Its landos comments during the last 3 years, his growing annoynce that in build car flaws was not dealt with etc etc. All in all this paints an extremely bad picture of Key in my opinion.

Very much so. But the fact that Zak has come out and openly said this is a huge slap in the face to Key, which suggests at least some strong feelings about the man himself and not just his performance.

I also wondered if those changes might also have been Seidl also? I don't think this can all be put on Key, Seidl obviously didn't reign him in and it is worth noting that aside from leading in design in season, we have also led in Value and realisation too, so not just Peter Prodromou.

They have obviously also found cost and resource savings to allow them to produce the amount of updates that they have this year, so the work has paid off everywhere, it's not just the Aero team. The fabrications, tech guys with the automations and machinery.... Everything has been improved massively this year, we've woken up finally.

[mwillems]

agree, what also strikes me, is the things thats been said in the many interviews since his departure, by outlining/underlining how it is now, they also very much highlighted how it was before, with and old school TD at the top of the food chain, taking on to much responsability, micro managing and worst, in some cases sidelining people(Prodromou) instead of handing out and encouraring individuals/tech groups to take responsability and listening to them. And on top of that, being to conservative in his decissions.
Its landos comments during the last 3 years, his growing annoynce that in build car flaws was not dealt with etc etc. All in all this paints an extremely bad picture of Key in my opinion.

The technical team structure is as important these days as the presence of a superstar TD, in fact superstar TDs are a dying or dead force in F1. Newey was the superstar designer of the 00s but has evolved into the leader who is always open for new influencer - the long gaze in pitlane is the giveaway of a man who is always thinking outside the square.

As a matter of politeness we don't criticise those who did their best, in JK's case he seems to have lacked an understanding of how aero is 80+% of F1 performance and how you integrate the chassis (the traditional "engineering") is the real key to moving the project forward. Now Prodromou has a real role in the evolution at McLaren, we should realise how very lucky it is that we didn't lose him. I come back to my hobby horse of how simulation untested and found accurate in practice, is no value at all. A steady evolution of the 2019 MCL34 to 2021 MCL35M culminating in 1/2 at Monza and pole and almost victory to Lando a week later in Sochi went sour - anyone ever question what went wrong? What went wrong (with the benefit of hindsight) seems to have been a poor conceptual understanding across aero/chassis philosophies. Poor teamwork at the apex of the technical team led to the McLaren ground effects generation going down a blind alley. This was picked up in simulations as early as November 2022. Team McLaren are demonstrating many great values across the team - team structure, humility, honesty and hard work, advancing where correlation proves the forward direction, and driver talent and attitude.

Zak has taken a lot of flak in the recent past, hopefully he will be cut a bit more slack. How far McLaren have advanced from, with honesty, is not common, but it shows how real teamwork can achieve great results. It has as far as I can see, gone unnoticed how pessimism has made way for positive resolve in the public comments of Lando after the solid 2/3 result at Suzuka. Let's go!

People just need to have a blame box when things don't go their way, and they act out and throw their toys. Zak has lifted this team and was the first piece in getting the house in order. Under his watch we have certainly had ups and downs, but the trend is very much up. As he says, perhaps he should have been more ruthless before. He won't make that mistake again I think.

[taperoo2k]

agree, what also strikes me, is the things thats been said in the many interviews since his departure, by outlining/underlining how it is now, they also very much highlighted how it was before, with and old school TD at the top of the food chain, taking on to much responsability, micro managing and worst, in some cases sidelining people(Prodromou) instead of handing out and encouraring individuals/tech groups to take responsability and listening to them. And on top of that, being to conservative in his decissions.
Its landos comments during the last 3 years, his growing annoynce that in build car flaws was not dealt with etc etc. All in all this paints an extremely bad picture of Key in my opinion.

The technical team structure is as important these days as the presence of a superstar TD, in fact superstar TDs are a dying or dead force in F1. Newey was the superstar designer of the 00s but has evolved into the leader who is always open for new influencer - the long gaze in pitlane is the giveaway of a man who is always thinking outside the square.

As a matter of politeness we don't criticise those who did their best, in JK's case he seems to have lacked an understanding of how aero is 80+% of F1 performance and how you integrate the chassis (the traditional "engineering") is the real key to moving the project forward. Now Prodromou has a real role in the evolution at McLaren, we should realise how very lucky it is that we didn't lose him. I come back to my hobby horse of how simulation untested and found accurate in practice, is no value at all. A steady evolution of the 2019 MCL34 to 2021 MCL35M culminating in 1/2 at Monza and pole and almost victory to Lando a week later in Sochi went sour - anyone ever question what went wrong? What went wrong (with the benefit of hindsight) seems to have been a poor conceptual understanding across aero/chassis philosophies. Poor teamwork at the apex of the technical team led to the McLaren ground effects generation going down a blind alley. This was picked up in simulations as early as November 2022. Team McLaren are demonstrating many great values across the team - team structure, humility, honesty and hard work, advancing where correlation proves the forward direction, and driver talent and attitude.

Zak has taken a lot of flak in the recent past, hopefully he will be cut a bit more slack. How far McLaren have advanced from, with honesty, is not common, but it shows how real teamwork can achieve great results. It has as far as I can see, gone unnoticed how pessimism has made way for positive resolve in the public comments of Lando after the solid 2/3 result at Suzuka. Let's go!

People just need to have a blame box when things don't go their way, and they act out and throw their toys. Zak has lifted this team and was the first piece in getting the house in order. Under his watch we have certainly had ups and downs, but the trend is very much up. As he says, perhaps he should have been more ruthless before. He won't make that mistake again I think.

I think people forget just how big of a task it is to turn around a team that was struggling for a longtime into a team that's on the cusp of being able to challenge for race wins and maybe titles.

Posted this in the MCL60 thread, it's an interesting read on how McLaren developed the car over the course of the season. https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/the- ... /10525546/

[MrGapes]

Just realised its a sprint race weekend...maybe someone should sneak into the redbull simulator and adjust some numbers for us

But seriously... The teams will need to put in a lot of preparation work to build up testing programmes for the one-hour practise session. With the high speed and aggressive kerbs, there will be a lot of ride height fluctuations; teams with wider operating windows will benefit. For a circuit they visited with previous generation cars, the requirements are quite different now.

I'm almost certain that most teams will operate close to their maximum DF (depending on their overall efficiency), it is also simpler to setup, and I think there are more important factors such as stiffness/ride-height etc. to evaluate than wing level.

[mclaren111]

Current team performance is astonishing. But knowing how long it takes in f1, to take an idea to a functional part of the car, I cannot imagine that James isn’t a little bit responsible for current performance. I mean I was leading all the development from 2022 in the car, than even after he left, a team cannot create an upgrade package in such short time. Some ideas of the upgrade must already been on the table, while Key was still there.

I? James, is that you? Don't worry Buddy, you'll do good at Audi...

[mclaren111]

I've no opinion to offer regarding character and management abilities within the team.

But, this chassis in it's mechanical layout seemed good right frommthe start, and closest in concept to the RB from the off. It didn't appear to have the overall performance its suspension layout suggested to be possible in my mind, obviously now corrected with what we can see in aero on these developments that have brought such pace to the whole performance.

Then that is management of a WHOLE team to bring these elements to the fore. Understanding where the various strengths lay, and how to bring those to prominence is fundamental to overall success.

Quite what has gone on with personal positions within the team we're not privi to. But the improvement is clear for all to see. Sometimes there's a "nearly" fit in personell, with shifts needed to capitalise on what is there, that's for a good manager to recognise and place to maximise the affect those ideas are focused on.

Probably wrong to demonise individual traits on a personal level, but acknowledge for whatever reason that it didn't quite fit together. That both the subtle and the dramatic influence these differences can make.

One thing for sure, judgement in such a unremitting performance demonstration as this, F1, is easy for people to make, but very difficult to quantify exactly the parts that are holding something back. It's a complex balance with only a time base to illustrate success or not.

Absolutely. Impossibly to judge from the sidelines with only a snippet of the total picture. But I do think, where there is smoke there is fire. Bit like with Ricci, at some stage you got to pull the trigger when you admit it isn’t working. I feel the same thing with JK.

He will have his niche within engineering but as TD it’s about empowering the whole team to make it more than the sum of its parts. We needed a change and I’m so glad it happened

I got the impression that Key stayed a manager instead of becoming a leader - not an easy thing to do...

[mwillems]

The technical team structure is as important these days as the presence of a superstar TD, in fact superstar TDs are a dying or dead force in F1. Newey was the superstar designer of the 00s but has evolved into the leader who is always open for new influencer - the long gaze in pitlane is the giveaway of a man who is always thinking outside the square.

As a matter of politeness we don't criticise those who did their best, in JK's case he seems to have lacked an understanding of how aero is 80+% of F1 performance and how you integrate the chassis (the traditional "engineering") is the real key to moving the project forward. Now Prodromou has a real role in the evolution at McLaren, we should realise how very lucky it is that we didn't lose him. I come back to my hobby horse of how simulation untested and found accurate in practice, is no value at all. A steady evolution of the 2019 MCL34 to 2021 MCL35M culminating in 1/2 at Monza and pole and almost victory to Lando a week later in Sochi went sour - anyone ever question what went wrong? What went wrong (with the benefit of hindsight) seems to have been a poor conceptual understanding across aero/chassis philosophies. Poor teamwork at the apex of the technical team led to the McLaren ground effects generation going down a blind alley. This was picked up in simulations as early as November 2022. Team McLaren are demonstrating many great values across the team - team structure, humility, honesty and hard work, advancing where correlation proves the forward direction, and driver talent and attitude.

Zak has taken a lot of flak in the recent past, hopefully he will be cut a bit more slack. How far McLaren have advanced from, with honesty, is not common, but it shows how real teamwork can achieve great results. It has as far as I can see, gone unnoticed how pessimism has made way for positive resolve in the public comments of Lando after the solid 2/3 result at Suzuka. Let's go!

People just need to have a blame box when things don't go their way, and they act out and throw their toys. Zak has lifted this team and was the first piece in getting the house in order. Under his watch we have certainly had ups and downs, but the trend is very much up. As he says, perhaps he should have been more ruthless before. He won't make that mistake again I think.

I think people forget just how big of a task it is to turn around a team that was struggling for a longtime into a team that's on the cusp of being able to challenge for race wins and maybe titles.

Posted this in the MCL60 thread, it's an interesting read on how McLaren developed the car over the course of the season. https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/the- ... /10525546/

Thanks for posting, it is an interesting read. I noticed this quote around the front wing changes in the season:

""Even if this generation of cars inherently reduced the outwashing massively compared to the previous generation of cars, teams are all trying to pursue this objective," he said. "Every little bit you cash in gives you better characteristics, especially in the medium/low-speed corners.""

Very much talking about how the slower outwash can really affect the aero, I would guess because there is less force pushing the dirty air away from the sensitive parts.

And

"With Red Bull's rivals having cottoned on to the fact that the RB19's DRS is so effective because of the drag balance between the rear wing mainplane and beam wing, McLaren has been pursuing that path too. " Which was my assertion for some time that it was critical to have these working together as a package.

There's a really interesting read on the floor wing too, which I can't fully get my head around. Has it replaced the skates?

[NL_Fer]

Current team performance is astonishing. But knowing how long it takes in f1, to take an idea to a functional part of the car, I cannot imagine that James isn’t a little bit responsible for current performance. I mean I was leading all the development from 2022 in the car, than even after he left, a team cannot create an upgrade package in such short time. Some ideas of the upgrade must already been on the table, while Key was still there.

I don't believe James Key has any significant part, if any, for the current form of the team. At the start of the season, Stella was very clear that the last thing thing signed off by the previous structure (Key) was the Baku upgrade, which was basically a new floor that would open up a new avenue of performance upgrades and concept. If you remember, AMR's resurgence actually started 2nd half of 2022, Dan Fallows joined in April of same year.
Besides, Key had admitted that the various philosophies seen on the grid at the start of the ground effect era were also considered by the team, but they ended up going the conservative route. Obviously, that would have been his decision. They later saw those concepts were the right way to go, but were already far behind. So they probably had a good idea how they worked and the only factors now were time and budget.

I’ve been reading some more into the matter and if I understand correctly, the ideas of the current updates were already floating around by the engineers. But it was Key’s decision to hold them back. So that would be the explanation, that after he left, the engineering teams immediately switched to those advanced ideas they liked in the first place.

I guess James Key was successfull in the smaller teams of Force India, Sauber and Torro Rosso, which all operated with only 60M budget or less. We’ll see what he will cook up in 2026 with Audi.

[Farnborough]

I'd still not be hasty in outright criticism of his, JK, work if there's no absolute details from internal appreciation published.

Only one team, from the whole of F1 hit the bullseye with chassis and aero concept !

One team went so far from "conservative" in aero that it completely routed the chassis concept too and still they haven't unwound their entrenched position.

McL seem to have been too careful with aero extreme concept, we can see that now, but with a chassis design that appears to be very well suited toward the aero design we can all observe as contemporary to the leaders. That's certainly a triumph of balance, engineering principles, and foresight that brought that chassis. It could be viewed that it was considerably in advance of all but the RB as it still seems to hold little in the way of vices, particularly around porpoising effects.
Without even more aero development placed on it we may not yet have seen the full potential of the chassis, right into that bleeding edge of performance. Casual observation has it the chassis is limiting the performance, thats not necessarily accurate though.
It was a good design from the off, and has taken aero development well. Is there now anyone there that can fully understand what that took in design, more importantly how to move it forward, if necessary to approach RB levels IF it's the chassis limiting it's outright pace.

Looks like he did a good design in the first place, that's no mean feat.

[mwillems]

https://www.planetf1.com/news/mclaren-k ... toto-wolff

Mclaren confirming a 1s gain since the start of the season.

[mwillems]

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/pias ... -weakness/

Piastri and his need to improve tyre management at high deg races.

[Tomsky]

[mwillems]

This quote as been posted already, although they omitted the second part where Stella says it is likely the same for everyone.
What I love about this picture is that it is a Ron Dennis garage all the way through, ergonomic design, clutter free, stylish, minimal and clean.

If only I didn't have kids, I would move in



That's got to be contender for one of the most beautiful garages, right?