2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[MCLvamos]

Norris continued, also displeased at his inconsistency. "If I want to be honest with myself, I should have fought for two pole positions this weekend and potentially two victories. I know it's a big thing to say, but I think things would have gone well if I just did a better job and didn't make the mistakes I did over the last two days, which is why I've been so frustrated because I knew what was on the cards, what we were able to potentially achieve, and that was victories both yesterday and today.

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/242228/n ... etter.html

Slightly clickbaity article title, Lando never directly mentions beating Oscar. Media trying to spin this into a toxic rivalry like they've done with Merc and Ferrari. No can do, the McL boys working well together!

[mclaren111]

I have a feeling that Rusell was at fault. Hamilton was in front when he went into the turn and Rusell punted him. He wasn't watching behind and he didn't break on time.

You're crazy.

[BMMR61]

I just noticed we are only 11 points behind AM in the constructors championship, lets take that P4 boys, and go top 3 next year!

I think P3 may be on the cards as well. Need to outscore Ferrari by 16 points per race for the rest of the season

Yep, and that doesn't include the chance to grab extra points with two more Sprint Races to come. All the same, Ferrari look just a little out of reach, today they lost out with a rare DNF but Aston look gone for all money!

Fantastic race pace today, with all the overtaking our guys had to do after every pitstop while Max sailed on in clear air, the closeness can't be overstated. That and the fresher tyres he was able to bring to the battle gave an offset that equated to laptimes hard to beat. I agree with those here that say having Lando and Oscar 2 & 4 on the grid would have given Max as much of a challenge as he faced at Silverstone and probably more. Interesting to hear Lando on the radio quite early saying that producing pace was the way to go, I don't have it to hand but it was like he felt the delta times he was receiving were a little conservative. Given the lack of thermal deg and the artificial limits on the tyres he almost certainly had a point.

We are getting used to podiums to the point where the excitement isn't the same. Now we are getting greedy for that first Grand Prix win since 2021. The same with qualifying on the front row, we expect it now - oh how things have changed since the second main step was made in Singapore! Stella seemed very upbeat in his interview about what they are seeing in the wind tunnel with the new car.

[PikeStance]

Great weekend for the team!

I think the tire rule helped Piastri "manage" his tires well. The Mediums and Hards could easily handle the 18-lap rule.
Norris had great pace, but Piastri seemed to be able to match it off and on in the race.

I think the two cars, RB and McLaren are quite close in performance. The problem is Max is on the edge of perfection. Unless I am mistaken I believe this is one of the closest finishes between Max and everyone else minus the i"interference" of a SC. Norris' pace suggests he had a lot to improve on and who knows what could have happened if he had started in P2 instead of P10. Norris had a bad weekend and he had two podiums (P3s). Bahrain seemed so far away in more ways than one. I also think Russel was failing back with each stint, so I wasn't worried at all. Moreover, when he went to softs, I knew we had P2 and P3 at hand.

Concerning Mercedes. It is definitely Hamilton's fault but I don't think the cause is any sort of rivalry. I believe Russell was meant to pin Max on the inside of the curve and Hamilton was supposed to go around the outside. I think Hamilton just pinched in too much most likely trying to get on the throttle quicker. Such as it was. It certainly benefited us.

[MrGapes]

Thanks for the insights into the future off SSB technologies and the next 3-6 years....

Meanwhile in 3 days we'll be getting a picture of McLaren's competitiveness at the Qatar circuit, I have some questions;
With the reported total resealing of the circuit which last saw F1 action in 2021 how will the McLaren work it's C1, 2, 3 (softest range) tyres in temperatures of up to 34 degrees?
Will this be another two stop race?
Therefore will this again be regarded as a "high deg" track requiring further evolution of Oscar's tyre management?
Have the Singapore updates brought about much improved aero efficiency in terms of non-DRs top speeds or am I missing something from the Suzuka data?
Wings - are that thorny topic on this forum - what wing do you think they will be bringing?
Anyone for believing McLaren can reduce the qualifying deficit to Max to significantly less than 0.5?

Consensus around most insiders appears to be that McLaren will be second fastest (again) ahead of Ferrari, then Mercedes trying to compensate poor outright pace with less tyre degradation. McLaren seem to be continuing a trend of quite decent deg relative to all except the Red Bulls.

Ambient temperatures will be very high… brake/engine cooling components will be interesting because teams will only have 1 session to optimize the right cooling requirements for these elements.

I think track temperatures will be somewhere between 30-40 degrees at night, which is obviously still very warm, and suggest a 2 stop, but to be honest the hardest compounds have been quite resilient this year imo.

There is only one DRS zone ...I think the overall aero. efficiency matters more and that has improved rather than whatever differential comes between non-DRS and DRS.

I know a lot of people were talking about Oscar's race management after Japan... I also think the gap was a bit augmented through setup choices and something I mentioned after qualifying. While Lando and Oscar ran the same wings, I'm sure Lando ran the ride height lower, hence more downforce.. it makes the car bottom more in qualifying and slower on the straights, but the performance is amplified on higher fuel.

https://ibb.co/HFGGGFb

https://ibb.co/B4Jyy2f

^^ Will likely see this configuration seen at Singapore with this beam-wing configuration… If they feel they need more downforce they will run the rear-wing with the connected main plane.

It’s very hard to make a numerical prediction on a sprint weekend because any team could easily get the setup wrong after 1 practice session… with a lot of unknowns in terms of new asphalt, kerbs, heat etc. any team could go to conservative on ride height and cooling or the other way around.

But my overly optimistic prediction is the gap in qualifying will be very close (<0.1) … and this maybe the closest in terms of race pace we may be all season with marginal losses coming in sector 2 (turns 6 and 10).

I guess my "optimistic prediction" wasn't too bad..

I unfortunately missed much of this race weekend because of university

But glad we were able to leave with so many points..

AND WHAT ABOUT THAT PITSTOP.... wild 1.8s with these heavier wheels....

Oscar had a wonderful weekend, very very impressed. I am the biggest Lando fan as many of you know... disappointed with his quali... I know its track limits, but a mistake is a mistake... I think that really cost him a shot at a Sunday race win.

maybe ill drop another short paragraph on what to expect in Cota.

[geogate]

drivers championship may be out of reach for 24 with Max performing the way he is, but its certainly not unreasonable to think they might just have a shout at the constructors. (it's been 25 years - about time i think)

[bauc]

I just noticed we are only 11 points behind AM in the constructors championship, lets take that P4 boys, and go top 3 next year!

I think P3 may be on the cards as well. Need to outscore Ferrari by 16 points per race for the rest of the season

Ahhh I think its a too big of a stretch to us, and we will need to be extremely lucky

[_cerber1]

[PikeStance]

drivers championship may be out of reach for 24 with Max performing the way he is, but its certainly not unreasonable to think they might just have a shout at the constructors. (it's been 25 years - about time i think)

I just noticed we are only 11 points behind AM in the constructors championship, lets take that P4 boys, and go top 3 next year!

I think P3 may be on the cards as well. Need to outscore Ferrari by 16 points per race for the rest of the season

Ahhh I think its a too big of a stretch to us, and we will need to be extremely lucky

It is all about the Constructors Championship. The drivers' championship is just lagniappe.

For P3 to be achieved, we will have to finish on the Podium while Ferrari suffers catastrophic failings.

In the drivers Championship
183 : Alonso
153 : Sainz
145 : LeClerc
136 : Norris (-9 - LeClerc/-17- Sainz)
132 : Russel (-4 to Norris)
.83 : Piastri (-49 to Russel)

Norris can reasonably catch Sainz. Ironically, catching Alonso may be possible, 47 points away.

[FittingMechanics]

I think McLaren had 4 of 5 fastest pitstops today.

To beat Ferrari we'd need Mercedes to be clearly ahead of Ferrari and for Perez/Alonso to pick up the pace to take away from Ferrari. To be honest I would prefer we finish super fast but in P4. We get more development time.

[mwillems]

I think McLaren had 4 of 5 fastest pitstops today.

To beat Ferrari we'd need Mercedes to be clearly ahead of Ferrari and for Perez/Alonso to pick up the pace to take away from Ferrari. To be honest I would prefer we finish super fast but in P4. We get more development time.

Yeah, it was awesome. What's even more amazing is that the fastest pitsop of all time was done with new regs from 21 that stop the sensors allowing you to "anticipate" when things will be complete and ensuring the .15 seconds after completion of a task before the mechanic can release the wheel nut tool when tightening up. And with the bigger wheels. It's even more impressive from that perspective.

[mwillems]

drivers championship may be out of reach for 24 with Max performing the way he is, but its certainly not unreasonable to think they might just have a shout at the constructors. (it's been 25 years - about time i think)

I think P3 may be on the cards as well. Need to outscore Ferrari by 16 points per race for the rest of the season

Ahhh I think its a too big of a stretch to us, and we will need to be extremely lucky

It is all about the Constructors Championship. The drivers' championship is just lagniappe.

For P3 to be achieved, we will have to finish on the Podium while Ferrari suffers catastrophic failings.

In the drivers Championship
183 : Alonso
153 : Sainz
145 : LeClerc
136 : Norris (-9 - LeClerc/-17- Sainz)
132 : Russel (-4 to Norris)
.83 : Piastri (-49 to Russel)

Norris can reasonably catch Sainz. Ironically, catching Alonso may be possible, 47 points away.

From a sporting perspective it makes total sense. But I maintain that we don't need to chase 4th or 3rd. We have all the brand value we need right now, we aren't short of money... so there's nothing really that 3rd or 4th can offer apart from a bit of a boost to pride, practically speaking.

Whereas finishing 3rd will get us 120 less hours in the tunnel, 100 less tunnel tests and 24 hours less wind on time. Feels like the start of next year we will still be steeped in a development war, and what do we need more? Constructors bonus or Dev time? I doubt the team will do anything but chase points but I really wish they didn't

At the start of 23.

Hours in wind tunnel Number of tunnel tests Wind on Time (hours)
1)Red Bull 756 605 151
2)Ferrari 900 720 180
3)Mercedes 960 768 192
4)Alpine 1020 816 204
5)McLaren 1080 864 216

[Spoutnik]

[mwillems]

I mean, that's a hugely backhanded compliment. The size of the compliment is equal to the size of the slap it gives Checo, given that Max is arguably the best driver on the grid right now.

[Spoutnik]

I mean, that's a hugely backhanded compliment. The size of the compliment is equal to the size of the slap it gives Checo, given that Max is arguably the best driver on the grid right now.

I mean... I didn't even think about Checo when I red this
I thought more about two others very competitive line-ups which are Mercedes & you could argue Ferrari too.