2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[FittingMechanics]

[saputra_25]

Is Mclaren still on old power units?

Oscar got a new one for Suzuka. Lando's is prehistoric, they're gonna have to take a penalty soon.

That's good for Lando then (and not good for RB ). I've heard the Mercedes PU still has considerable degradation.

https://www.f1-fansite.com/2023-f1-seas ... -elements/
this chart says otherwise, Lando is quite healthy in terms of engine allocation, why do you say they need to take penalty?

[AR3-GP]

Oscar got a new one for Suzuka. Lando's is prehistoric, they're gonna have to take a penalty soon.

That's good for Lando then (and not good for RB ). I've heard the Mercedes PU still has considerable degradation.

https://www.f1-fansite.com/2023-f1-seas ... -elements/
this chart says otherwise, Lando is quite healthy in terms of engine allocation, why do you say they need to take penalty?

Didn't Lando have one of his PUs fail prematurely?

[organic]

Oscar got a new one for Suzuka. Lando's is prehistoric, they're gonna have to take a penalty soon.

That's good for Lando then (and not good for RB ). I've heard the Mercedes PU still has considerable degradation.

https://www.f1-fansite.com/2023-f1-seas ... -elements/
this chart says otherwise, Lando is quite healthy in terms of engine allocation, why do you say they need to take penalty?

At Bahrain Lando's first ICE was lost as a result of a failure, so his allocation for the season is essentially one less than others...

Lando took his 4th ice at the Belgian GP. From Belgium to the end of the season is 11 rounds. It's not feasible to run a single ice for that many rounds

It's possible that they're juggling ices and just wanted an extra for the pool. But teams don't seem to do this all that often and the failure at Bahrain suggests that this is most likely not the case. They probably needed the new ice already.

I think it's fair to assume a 10-place penalty for an ice is likely for Lando in the next few races

I'm imagining they will take the penalty at Brazil where the degradation is high and overtaking is easy which should make coming through a bit easier

[BMMR61]

Oscar got a new one for Suzuka. Lando's is prehistoric, they're gonna have to take a penalty soon.

That's good for Lando then (and not good for RB ). I've heard the Mercedes PU still has considerable degradation.

https://www.f1-fansite.com/2023-f1-seas ... -elements/
this chart says otherwise, Lando is quite healthy in terms of engine allocation, why do you say they need to take penalty?

That's looking pretty decent especially for Lando who still hasn't used his last free ICE. And Oscar has only two races on his last ICE, everything else is pretty maxed out - for us and the opposition. Does the Honda engine still have a deficit at high altitude (Mexico)? I'd be expecting Lando to be using his last ICE at the next highly power sensitive track - suggestions anyone? I'd think that Oscar, while technically needing to make his Suzuka/Qatar engine go five more races, that won't necessarily be the case as there will be used engines waiting for less demanding tracks if necessary.
I'm not reading the chart (Lando - 3 used of 4 allowed) as you are Organic...

[the EDGE]

That's good for Lando then (and not good for RB ). I've heard the Mercedes PU still has considerable degradation.

https://www.f1-fansite.com/2023-f1-seas ... -elements/
this chart says otherwise, Lando is quite healthy in terms of engine allocation, why do you say they need to take penalty?

That's looking pretty decent especially for Lando who still hasn't used his last free ICE. And Oscar has only two races on his last ICE, everything else is pretty maxed out - for us and the opposition. Does the Honda engine still have a deficit at high altitude (Mexico)? I'd be expecting Lando to be using his last ICE at the next highly power sensitive track - suggestions anyone? I'd think that Oscar, while technically needing to make his Suzuka/Qatar engine go five more races, that won't necessarily be the case as there will be used engines waiting for less demanding tracks if necessary.
I'm not reading the chart (Lando - 3 used of 4 allowed) as you are Organic...

Not quite sure how you’re reading that and not realising that Lando has used all of his fresh ICE allowances, he still has a new MGUH, MGUK and turbo charger available, but as you can see he has already used four of four ICE’s

[BMMR61]

I was preparing for an overseas trip - so only now got have I got my breath for long enough to respond with some research into the Qatar Grand Prix. The tyre battle fought with Red Bull by McLaren brought up a whole lot of conundrums. McLaren deployed rather used mediums for the first two stints - leaving the new medium and hard sets on the rack till last. Was this in expectation of wanting to use the speed of new rubber once clear of traffic (which they achieved much earlier than expected)? Oscar was in clean air from lap 1 but only went to lap 12 when he dropped right out of the top 10, while Max went to lap 17 and emerged in the lead. Oscar only went 13 on his second stint, Max again 17 laps, at this stage the pitstop offset was HUGE (Max pitted 9 laps later) so advantages seesawed between the two.

My main point of view goes behind the obvious one that Oscar and particularly, Lando, lost time caught behind cars as slow as Alfa Romeos, Williams and Aston Martins. Just as detrimental. the tyre life that Max started with enabled him to extend his stints without any disadvantage since he was starting and restarting on fresher tyres. Lando started to come into play from about lap 30 when on fresher (new) tyres he made small inroads into Max's lead prompting the call to Max to look for more speed, but by the end of Max's last 17 lap stint the tyres were done

So did McLaren, and in particular Lando, have the pace to go with Max under different circumstances which didn't take away both McLaren drivers' likely 2 & 4 grid positions? You can point to Max's fastest lap on lap 56 and say no. Then you could argue that he only had a six lap final stint to deal with and could masterfully bring the tyres in for the last push, mission accomplished in Max fashion! You can look at the 30 second gap to the Mercedes and Ferrari in 3rd and 4th and say that Max didn't have a whole lot of extra speed left and it's not in his nature to be merciful..... We can say with certainty we have closed the gap a lot - mwillems says more than 1 second - and I tend to agree. What that means next week in Austin is beyond me!

[BMMR61]

https://www.f1-fansite.com/2023-f1-seas ... -elements/
this chart says otherwise, Lando is quite healthy in terms of engine allocation, why do you say they need to take penalty?

That's looking pretty decent especially for Lando who still hasn't used his last free ICE. And Oscar has only two races on his last ICE, everything else is pretty maxed out - for us and the opposition. Does the Honda engine still have a deficit at high altitude (Mexico)? I'd be expecting Lando to be using his last ICE at the next highly power sensitive track - suggestions anyone? I'd think that Oscar, while technically needing to make his Suzuka/Qatar engine go five more races, that won't necessarily be the case as there will be used engines waiting for less demanding tracks if necessary.
I'm not reading the chart (Lando - 3 used of 4 allowed) as you are Organic...

Not quite sure how you’re reading that and not realising that Lando has used all of his fresh ICE allowances, he still has a new MGUH, MGUK and turbo charger available, but as you can see he has already used four of four ICE’s

You're absolutely right, my bad!

[taperoo2k]

Let's hope that the new signings can bring forward some ideas and understanding of how to proceed. If that works well, the development next year should be good as well. Hopefully we will at least stay in the mix for the podium.

I don't want to get ahead of myself - it's possible we regress over the winter, but I am hopeful that this signals a long term return to the top tier.

I think it’s clear where McLaren still need to make progress. They have improved Deg, but work on this area will be critical to winning races

Rob Marshall should be key here, and hopefully it’s steps that can be made in-season. He has 8 weeks before the first race, which surely is not achievable, but hopefully won’t take much longe if McLaren have a chassis he can work with without fundamentally changes

I think they've done good work on the Aero side of dealing with the tyre behaviour, but that there is some work to do in a new chassis on the mechanical side. I'm guessing this will help the platform stay stay in the optimum windows for Aero during cornering, braking, accelerating away etc as well as help improve the way the tyre makes contact with the ground to improve grip and the cars thermal input into the tyre.

Rob Marshall might be able to help a bit with some of the suspension work but I wouldn't think much else for the 24 car, apart from bits of information he brings with him from Red Bull that might help us refine our concept. The chassis will be tied down by that point, largely so not much doing there.

I wonder if they will start conceptual work on the 25 car pretty early next year with Marshall and Sanchez getting up to speed with our concepts and planned future developments before they start to generate their own idea of how to improve the car in 25.

I expect Marshall and Sanchez will have an impact on the in season development of the 2024 car, as a lot of the parts will likely carry over into the 2025 car. The focus will be on the 2026 cars given the budget cap.

[mwillems]

I think it’s clear where McLaren still need to make progress. They have improved Deg, but work on this area will be critical to winning races

Rob Marshall should be key here, and hopefully it’s steps that can be made in-season. He has 8 weeks before the first race, which surely is not achievable, but hopefully won’t take much longe if McLaren have a chassis he can work with without fundamentally changes

I think they've done good work on the Aero side of dealing with the tyre behaviour, but that there is some work to do in a new chassis on the mechanical side. I'm guessing this will help the platform stay stay in the optimum windows for Aero during cornering, braking, accelerating away etc as well as help improve the way the tyre makes contact with the ground to improve grip and the cars thermal input into the tyre.

Rob Marshall might be able to help a bit with some of the suspension work but I wouldn't think much else for the 24 car, apart from bits of information he brings with him from Red Bull that might help us refine our concept. The chassis will be tied down by that point, largely so not much doing there.

I wonder if they will start conceptual work on the 25 car pretty early next year with Marshall and Sanchez getting up to speed with our concepts and planned future developments before they start to generate their own idea of how to improve the car in 25.

I expect Marshall and Sanchez will have an impact on the in season development of the 2024 car, as a lot of the parts will likely carry over into the 2025 car. The focus will be on the 2026 cars given the budget cap.

Possibly, I'm just not sure how much. As for what will carry over into the 25 car, I'm not sure how much we know will be carried over. it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that given the reg change that the 25 car may not develop as much so we can focus on '26... but since we have targeted '25 as the title challenge year, I don't think the team will be thinking like that.

Sanchez and Marshall are going to need to integrate, learn the car etc so they may have some input, particularly as Sanchez works out what is the right direction and concept of the 25 car, this might affect the direction of the 24 car. But to do that they need to run the 24 car in anger and learn from the winter so again... this brings them neatly up to the point that the 25 car would start development so I expect Sanchez focus would be here.

Marshall, if the chassis and development budget allows, might be able to help with some of the integrations in the chassis and the suspension I guess but how tied down this is by the team he can have meaningful input, I don't know.

[eurwynf1]

I don't think they will use another PU as that will add to budget which will be very close to limit as it is.

[Macklaren]

McLaren deployed rather used mediums for the first two stints - leaving the new medium and hard sets on the rack till last. Was this in expectation of wanting to use the speed of new rubber once clear of traffic (which they achieved much earlier than expected)?

This was to give them max possible pace in the event of a late safety car. If they used new sets at the top of the race, any advantage would have been negated by a late SC and they would be on used tires at that point

[mwillems]

I don't think they will use another PU as that will add to budget which will be very close to limit as it is.

Normal PU Expenditure doesn't come under the budget cap and I'm not sure any engine costs come under the budget cap. There are rules on engine costs but these are not deducted from the cap. They will consider the engine on sporting terms only, if they need it they will pay for it, and they may well need it as they will have been cycling 3 engines for a massive season, around about 8 races per engine minus the races the failed engine were used at, so possibly 7 races per engine currently in the pool.

Does anyone know if they have been using an engine they expect to die for the practise sessions and changing out for Qualy and the races?

As for Merc Engine Deg, there certainly was an issue with engine Deg (Was it 2 years ago, 1 year ago?) , but that was more to do with the fact they took advantage to bring an engine that was enhanced for performance under the guise of working with the increased biofuel element of the fuelling, I think that since introducing a strong but high wear engine, they performed some "reliability changes" to maintain the performance and reduce the engine wear.

[mwillems]

Mclaren are to trial using recycled Carbon Fibre parts at the US GP. Nice way to help the environment and to save some cash.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/67087399

[Juzh]

Does the Honda engine still have a deficit at high altitude (Mexico)?

Was this ever the case?