2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[MCLvamos]

Hopefully McLaren and Lando choose to do an aggressive two-stop race without managing tires throughout the race. Since both cars have two new hard tires, soft/hard/hard or medium/hard/hard strategies I would love to see.

Agreed, the P2s are nice but we should be looking for opportunities in every race from now to the end. There's no bigger picture fight with passing Aston Martin all but done so we just need to be punchy and make bold calls every race. Perhaps even today sacrificing Piastri on a one stop if the scenario plays out that we need to hold Max up.

[mwillems]

I don't doubt VER is faster, I doubt many are claiming Lando is faster than VER here.

My point is that VER starts in P6 and that Lando has decent chance to take P1 in T1. He had a good start yesterday (was ahead of HAM but got boxed in due to LEC and VER fighting).

If Lando ends up P1 and VER is in P5 or 6 who is to say Lando can't stay ahead over race distance. If VER is faster 0.5s a lap that might be not enough to overtake. Lando was about 1s faster tham SAI and struggled.

One of best chances for a win this year. What is amazing is that the track is not obviously suited to the car so I'd say the performance of the car improved so much that the car is good everywhere.

It was a mix of response to yourself and Pikestance, I think it was Pikestance who was thinking of P1 and yourself I think said "slightly" slower than max, I guess towards you I was just saying we are more than slightly slower than Max, he looks Dominant on pace yesterday, it's going to be hard to stay in front of him.

As for the performance improvement of the car and it being well rounded, I totally agree and have been saying as much myself, I don't think Austin was going to be massively challenging for us and I thought we'd be top 6 here, but I tend to take a conservative view until I see the car more. I'll be happy with top 3 today, anything more is a bonus.

To be fair, I said "If smart...Challenge for P1." I do think car vs car, we are on par, if Perez's pace is anything to say about it. However, Max is clinical. We have to be smart and Max may need some bad fortune.

...If we are smart tomorrow then we have the race pace for Norris to challenge for P1. Piastri needs to keep it cool and let race come to him tomorrow; he seems to struggle for pace.

Fair enough. I'm not sure that any amount of Smartness will help us get close to the pace of the Red Bull, I think it depends on early race events for Max, more than it being in our hands, and I think that to stay away from him we not only need Max to struggle but for us to get past Leclerc quickly, so I think more than smartness it is a narrow window for success, but not impossible.

Plenty of ifs and buts but in general I think they are much faster than us on race pace, but perhaps we will be surprised today? The start is key, and it felt to me that we struggled more than the others to get the tyres working on Lap 1 yesterday before it came together (Sainz aside, we dropped back before the pace came to us), so I just want to see us out of trouble and with a good getaway.

But I'll be hoping for the win as much as anyone!

[MCLvamos]

Start is critical, Norris HAS to jump Leclerc. That Ferrari is quick in a straight line and will be very difficult to overtake and we may have to wait a few laps for Charles' tyres to degrade to get past, which will cost us valuable time

[mwillems]

Start is critical, Norris HAS to jump Leclerc. That Ferrari is quick in a straight line and will be very difficult to overtake and we may have to wait a few laps for Charles' tyres to degrade to get past, which will cost us valuable time

The corners look good in their telemetry, and speed looks fantastic, so the idea that they are running slightly softer may be the reason they struggle with the tyres, or perhaps they just cooked them at the start of the GP.

[ThijsMuis]

I didnt realise level of cold in Vegas

[mwillems]

Not representative of the sprint race, but interesting.

[PikeStance]

It was a mix of response to yourself and Pikestance, I think it was Pikestance who was thinking of P1 and yourself I think said "slightly" slower than max, I guess towards you I was just saying we are more than slightly slower than Max, he looks Dominant on pace yesterday, it's going to be hard to stay in front of him.

As for the performance improvement of the car and it being well rounded, I totally agree and have been saying as much myself, I don't think Austin was going to be massively challenging for us and I thought we'd be top 6 here, but I tend to take a conservative view until I see the car more. I'll be happy with top 3 today, anything more is a bonus.

To be fair, I said "If smart...Challenge for P1." I do think car vs car, we are on par, if Perez's pace is anything to say about it. However, Max is clinical. We have to be smart and Max may need some bad fortune.

...If we are smart tomorrow then we have the race pace for Norris to challenge for P1. Piastri needs to keep it cool and let race come to him tomorrow; he seems to struggle for pace.

Fair enough. I'm not sure that any amount of Smartness will help us get close to the pace of the Red Bull, I think it depends on early race events for Max, more than it being in our hands, and I think that to stay away from him we not only need Max to struggle but for us to get past Leclerc quickly, so I think more than smartness it is a narrow window for success, but not impossible.

Plenty of ifs and buts but in general I think they are much faster than us on race pace, but perhaps we will be surprised today? The start is key, and it felt to me that we struggled more than the others to get the tyres working on Lap 1 yesterday before it came together (Sainz aside, we dropped back before the pace came to us), so I just want to see us out of trouble and with a good getaway.

But I'll be hoping for the win as much as anyone!

I think car vs car, I think they are close. The difference is Max. We need more than pace. We need to make the right call and make the right decision or we won't challenge for P1. Max or Red Bull making errors is a key hurdle, but we can control that. I'm American; a 0.1% chance of a P! is still a chance! LOL

[mwillems]

To be fair, I said "If smart...Challenge for P1." I do think car vs car, we are on par, if Perez's pace is anything to say about it. However, Max is clinical. We have to be smart and Max may need some bad fortune.

Fair enough. I'm not sure that any amount of Smartness will help us get close to the pace of the Red Bull, I think it depends on early race events for Max, more than it being in our hands, and I think that to stay away from him we not only need Max to struggle but for us to get past Leclerc quickly, so I think more than smartness it is a narrow window for success, but not impossible.

Plenty of ifs and buts but in general I think they are much faster than us on race pace, but perhaps we will be surprised today? The start is key, and it felt to me that we struggled more than the others to get the tyres working on Lap 1 yesterday before it came together (Sainz aside, we dropped back before the pace came to us), so I just want to see us out of trouble and with a good getaway.

But I'll be hoping for the win as much as anyone!

I think car vs car, I think they are close. The difference is Max. We need more than pace. We need to make the right call and make the right decision or we won't challenge for P1. Max or Red Bull making errors is a key hurdle, but we can control that. I'm American; a 0.1% chance of a P! is still a chance! LOL

Possibly, I tend to look at fastest car vs fastest car. It may be Max but he's part of the package and we need to beat the package, but there's no doubt that the Macca is fast.

If it's any consolation and my opinion means anything I think it is more than 0.1% of a chance

[Spoutnik]

I think three things are critical for McLaren to win : i) no mid race safety car ii) some tenacious guy around Verstappen start on softs (Russell & Sainz come to mind) iii) Verstappen gets stuck a bit behind a DRS train/the very speedy in straight line Ferrari

[mwillems]

Optimal strategy is indeed 2 stop, 1 stop is possible.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... KreJt.html

[MCLvamos]

I think three things are critical for McLaren to win : i) no mid race safety car ii) some tenacious guy around Verstappen start on softs (Russell & Sainz come to mind) iii) Verstappen gets stuck a bit behind a DRS train/the very speedy in straight line Ferrari

I think if Lando is in a decent position and there's any chance of it, they should put Oscar on a 1 stop and try hold up Max as much as possible. It might not be useful at all, but it's worth throwing everything at it. I'll be disappointed if that scenario plays out with Lando in the lead and they don't use Oscar.

[AR3-GP]

I think three things are critical for McLaren to win : i) no mid race safety car ii) some tenacious guy around Verstappen start on softs (Russell & Sainz come to mind) iii) Verstappen gets stuck a bit behind a DRS train/the very speedy in straight line Ferrari

I think if Lando is in a decent position and there's any chance of it, they should put Oscar on a 1 stop and try hold up Max as much as possible. It might not be useful at all, but it's worth throwing everything at it. I'll be disappointed if that scenario plays out with Lando in the lead and they don't use Oscar.

I don't think this is a productive strategy for Oscar. His tires will be too old to put up any defense for more than a lap on a circuit with 2 DRS zones.

Oscar has a car that is capable of beating both Ferraris here. That should be the goal. Throwing him on a 1 stop will make that impossible given Ferrari will be 2 stopping.

[FittingMechanics]

Norris needs to take P1 on the first lap and then run an ideal race, clean pitstops and no mistakes. This is maximum we can do. If Verstappen gets delayed in traffic we could get a victory. From the formula1.com article it seems the optimum strategy is Medium-Hard-Hard - which only Piastri, Norris and Perez have.

Piastri should be left to do his best race possible. Let the guy learn - it will be a good learning opportunity.

[CjC]

I think three things are critical for McLaren to win : i) no mid race safety car ii) some tenacious guy around Verstappen start on softs (Russell & Sainz come to mind) iii) Verstappen gets stuck a bit behind a DRS train/the very speedy in straight line Ferrari

I think if Lando is in a decent position and there's any chance of it, they should put Oscar on a 1 stop and try hold up Max as much as possible. It might not be useful at all, but it's worth throwing everything at it. I'll be disappointed if that scenario plays out with Lando in the lead and they don't use Oscar.

Personally I’d prefer Oscar to run the fastest optimal strategy and keep Max behind for as long as possible. Which is going to be impossible as Oscar is 10th on the grid and Max is 6th

[mwillems]

Everything can change in a flash, strategy will in part be determined by what happens at the start and what others do, who we need to respond to, who we end up being in a fight with. Whilst targeting P1 is a good goal, we are also in a fight with Mercedes and Ferrari, neither of which will be burdened by the same tire degradation issues when running a two stop which makes them a big danger to us, I just think we need to not get ahead of ourselves. Everything is possible, everything to win, everything to lose.

Whilst we can technically do a 1 stopper, it is unlikely to be any kind of a sensible idea to do so for either of our drivers, at least on face value. But hey, who knows, not every crazy person is on the Ferrari pit wall