2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

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Was they set of tyres he used the same as the set he put on when he pitted just before the red flag?

yes, it was. Maybe Aston Martin's "scrub the tires" tactic does indeed work?

[Ben1980]

I think landos start on the restart actually helped in the end. He backed off a bit, and was able to bring the tyres in pretty slowly. He took his time initially. Didn't over heat them, and then they stayed in longer.

[proteus]

Was they set of tyres he used the same as the set he put on when he pitted just before the red flag?

yes, it was. Maybe Aston Martin's "scrub the tires" tactic does indeed work?

There was a piece about the tyres once, where it was said that teams intentionally use tyres for a fast lap and then use them for the race. It was something about preparing the surface, i guess it makes them stickier right away which brings the grip with it. So it is preffered that they have 2 or 3 laps done when being mounted on.

[BMMR61]

With regards Oscar’s pace there are a couple of mitigating factors for the last stint. There’s the mentioned floor damage, both early and later (presumably contact with Yuki) which according to the team reduced downforce by twenty points, that’s a lot. Then there was a four lap offset on the scrubbed medium tyres. I also think Oscar from recent race experience would be concerned about his tyre conservation especially given most people doubted they could go the distance. All this doesn’t diminish the absolutely fantastic drive by Lando who was consistently faster than the Ferraris. Oscar’s times were at the same point quite up and down and obviously once Yuki started working him over he lost a lot of speed. I think his drive was a little stronger than what its anonymity suggested. On the other hand, Lando drove with what I perceived as a controlled fury, maybe it will find a new home in the boy’s approach.

I’m pretty optimistic about Brazil, I reckon the refinements make the car a real all rounder. I don’t see much in the circuit to suggest any thoughts should be
on less than second fastest.

[Farnborough]

With regards Oscar’s pace there are a couple of mitigating factors for the last stint. There’s the mentioned floor damage, both early and later (presumably contact with Yuki) which according to the team reduced downforce by twenty points, that’s a lot. Then there was a four lap offset on the scrubbed medium tyres. I also think Oscar from recent race experience would be concerned about his tyre conservation especially given most people doubted they could go the distance. All this doesn’t diminish the absolutely fantastic drive by Lando who was consistently faster than the Ferraris. Oscar’s times were at the same point quite up and down and obviously once Yuki started working him over he lost a lot of speed. I think his drive was a little stronger than what its anonymity suggested. On the other hand, Lando drove with what I perceived as a controlled fury, maybe it will find a new home in the boy’s approach.

I’m pretty optimistic about Brazil, I reckon the refinements make the car a real all rounder. I don’t see much in the circuit to suggest any thoughts should be
on less than second fastest.

I feel the start position set that approach up. With nothing really to lose, not like starting in front two rows and trying to out race, manoeuvre his immediate starting competitors, then a F*ck it and throw tyres at it, while giving it maximum is much easier to contemplate being of free-er mind and concerns about first win etc. Quite productive it seems.

The mediums appear to give mixed messages here (soft last year ? ) in that they look like they "grain" and fool the driver into thinking they are finished, but once scrubbed to clean again they appear to have plenty of mileage left in them, at fast pace too.

Going offline into dusty areas, although usually thought of as limiting grip, here may play a part in stopping the shedding rubber sticking more securely to the active tyre (bit like flouring pastry as you are rolling it) which is what graining is, the sticking of worn rubber to it's own tyre surface instead of being dispensed with in usual "marbles" fashion.

However it came about, it's an important experience for the driver realising he's just living on his wits, nothing to lose and gains valuable experience from the situation.

Did anyone see the footage of Lando entering tight line into corner 1 in overtake ? Proper classy overtaking with rear loose and rotation of chassis to effectively slide rear end past inside curb......very good to watch.

[wilson02]

Sainz's defence against Verstappen at Monza is hailed as the closest thing yet but I would submit that Lando v Max at Silverstone was probably closer, and closer than Lando thought really true at the time. Post-race analysis showed that Max was pushed hard enough to start encountering tyre concerns. Suzuka looks like an ideal place to continue the Silverstone promise of closer encounters....

Agreed, that was arguably the closest any driver from a rival team had pushed Verstappen for a race win this season.

However Red Bull brought their heavily revised sidepods a race later to Hungary and in my opinion gained maybe half a second so restored their 6ths a lap advantage in race pace.

That what makes me think it’ll be a long shot for Mclaren or anyone to win this season in a straight fight regardless of how well the circuit layout suits the car.
Unless the floor and side pod update is another incredible leap in performance which isn’t what is being speculated- unless Haikkenen says anything this week.
Stella hopes the upgrade keeps them in the fight for the podium and I think he ruled that the update won’t give them enough laptime benefit to win races.

Referring to the chat about next year and development start times, I’m concerned (but not surprised) Red Bull are going to walk it again in 2024, not that I follow the developments of Red Bull but from what im aware they have only taken circuit specific updates and the one pure performance update to the sidepods which I mentioned before. So they’ve invested heavily their resources into next season car already.
Pierre Wache has already said that the 2024 Red Bull is a big step forward from this years car which has basically walked to the WDC and WCC titles.
The other 9 teams have some serious work to do over Christmas!

It's indeed a tough challenge for any team to catch up with Red Bull's current performance level, and their early investment in the 2024 car could potentially widen the gap even further. It'll be interesting to see how the other teams respond and how the competition unfolds in the upcoming seasons. F1 fans have a lot to look forward to!

[Ground Effect]

Andrea Stella on the team's surprising positive performance at Mexico.

"I wouldn't have expected to be half a second behind [in qualifying] and I wasn't expecting to be so competitive [in the race], so I think there's a bit of analysis to do," Stella said. "It's a pattern that we will have to put together like a bit of a jigsaw.

"The other element that is quite peculiar here in Mexico is that in low speed, you can use ride heights that normally you can't use in any other circuit, just because you can set up the car quite low. So in a way, we mitigate some of our sensitivities.
"But actually, what happened [on Saturday], we started to suffer in high speed, Lando lost the car in high speed. We'll have to analyse this pattern, because it's not a straightforward interpretation.

"Translating the Italian way of saying, I will say our blanket is a little short. So if we centre the car for medium speed and low speed, then we have some other issues in high speed. There's a lot of compromise.

"The work we are undertaking for next year is to make this blanket quite a bit longer."

He also mentions they've lost a bit of predictability in qualifying, while gaining stronger race pace.

Full article

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-m ... /10540755/

[SmallSoldier]

Like LionHeart I have avoided the forum after the various qualifying tirades by some here. But I watched the race live and undistracted by the keyboard! Then I did a watch-through with timing charts. Then I read the last 15 pages since the start of the race. A very interesting race from various team perspectives but especially exhilarating for McLaren fans. As only happens quite rarely, someone lights up the race with an inspired and controlled drive through the field - that was excellent from Lando and arguably his best drive yet in F1.

I think we can now put to bed the notion that the McLaren is weak in slow corners (where Lando did most of his overtaking) like the old factoid that the car flatters in qualifying only to deceive in the race with high tyre degradation. Does this recently found ability to be easy on the tyres have anything to do with an adjustment in Lando's approach which Oscar is having to learn? Just asking... The car WAS good at bringing (particularly hard compounds) tyres into a good window which may have been linked to the degradation deficiency.

The car's characteristics have had two major shifts - Silverstone, and Singapore - that are putting us all on the spot with making predictions about what might happen next! Let's be honest, all here who thought the C4 (medium) would last the remainder of the race out after the restart? I wonder if the team did. Lewis was sceptical on the radio. I certainly didn't though I am often bemused by teams who underestimate the effects of lower fuel load and rubbered-in tracks. This car has become quite benign and compliant and "all-rounderish" confounding everyone's predictions - Lando??? I'm confidently going for a Verstappen/Norris/Hamilton podium next weekend, unless it rains, in which case I'll go for a McLaren win!

The amount of lifespan the Medium tires has in the last stint is even more impressive when we consider that Lando was pushing and battling all throughout that stint… Not a lot of “tire management” going on when you are making overtakes on the dirty / outside part of a corner, outbreaking your opponents and going early on throttle to catch the car in front… Obviously the team has a lot of data at their disposal, they knew what tire degradation was after practice, but at the same time, they didn’t had many options left after the red flag… There wasn’t a new or lightly used hard tire available… Softs probably wouldn’t have made it all the way (and they had the information from the first stint)… The scrubbed mediums was really the only option they had… Whether it was based on data or just luck, it was impressive

Was they set of tyres he used the same as the set he put on when he pitted just before the red flag?

Yes, no tire change during the Red Flag… It was the set that had “1 Qualy Lap” (the aborted run in Q1)

[CjC]

Andrea Stella on the team's surprising positive performance at Mexico.

"I wouldn't have expected to be half a second behind [in qualifying] and I wasn't expecting to be so competitive [in the race], so I think there's a bit of analysis to do," Stella said. "It's a pattern that we will have to put together like a bit of a jigsaw.

"The other element that is quite peculiar here in Mexico is that in low speed, you can use ride heights that normally you can't use in any other circuit, just because you can set up the car quite low. So in a way, we mitigate some of our sensitivities.
"But actually, what happened [on Saturday], we started to suffer in high speed, Lando lost the car in high speed. We'll have to analyse this pattern, because it's not a straightforward interpretation.

"Translating the Italian way of saying, I will say our blanket is a little short. So if we centre the car for medium speed and low speed, then we have some other issues in high speed. There's a lot of compromise.

"The work we are undertaking for next year is to make this blanket quite a bit longer."

He also mentions they've lost a bit of predictability in qualifying, while gaining stronger race pace.

Full article

https://www.motorsport.com. f1/news/f1-mclaren-issue-weaker-circuits/10540755/

Thanks for the article.

I’ll take better race pace over quali any day.
Like Stella said hopefully McLaren fully understand what’s going on and so they can cut their blanket a little longer for next season

[Mostlyeels]

Was they set of tyres he used the same as the set he put on when he pitted just before the red flag?

yes, it was. Maybe Aston Martin's "scrub the tires" tactic does indeed work?

There was a piece about the tyres once, where it was said that teams intentionally use tyres for a fast lap and then use them for the race. It was something about preparing the surface, i guess it makes them stickier right away which brings the grip with it. So it is preffered that they have 2 or 3 laps done when being mounted on.

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/deep ... 12009.html

One more issue related to heat in Formula 1 is called tire scrubbing, because regardless of how helpful the tire blankets are, the tires must first be prepared for racing. The synthetic rubber used for this series of open-wheel racing is not ready to deliver peak performance right out of the box.

Consequently, drivers will often race on tires that have gone through a heat cycle to cure the rubber and have been prepared for racing. Usually, this is achieved by doing one or two warm-up laps in either practice or qualifying, which is enough to heat treat the tires without wearing them out.

I remember many teams doing this with previous tyres (different construction of course), but now only AMR seem to do it.

[SmallSoldier]

yes, it was. Maybe Aston Martin's "scrub the tires" tactic does indeed work?

There was a piece about the tyres once, where it was said that teams intentionally use tyres for a fast lap and then use them for the race. It was something about preparing the surface, i guess it makes them stickier right away which brings the grip with it. So it is preffered that they have 2 or 3 laps done when being mounted on.

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/deep ... 12009.html

One more issue related to heat in Formula 1 is called tire scrubbing, because regardless of how helpful the tire blankets are, the tires must first be prepared for racing. The synthetic rubber used for this series of open-wheel racing is not ready to deliver peak performance right out of the box.

Consequently, drivers will often race on tires that have gone through a heat cycle to cure the rubber and have been prepared for racing. Usually, this is achieved by doing one or two warm-up laps in either practice or qualifying, which is enough to heat treat the tires without wearing them out.

I remember many teams doing this with previous tyres (different construction of course), but now only AMR seem to do it.

I don’t think scrubbed tires are better than new tires when in a like for like comparison… A brand new Medium vs a scrubbed Medium will still outperform it and most teams use new tires if available… It is when you have a toss between different compounds, for example scrubbed mediums vs new Hards that one may favor the scrubbed ones (given that you can do the stint you are anticipating)

[Farnborough]

There's two different properties there in "scrub" and "heat cycle" I believe. Scrub may be just one lap out and in again to get the top surface abraded, which may or may not give advantage if they need to be used spontaneously, for example a safety car.
Heat cycle ordinarily involved full pace laps to get them up to working temperature, without leaning on them too much. Then letting them cool (Saturday to Sunday for eg) then brought back to temp in blankets ready for use. This has been used in the past for getting the tyre to give more durability over and above its fresh used same compound. In this case it may have played a part in the long run experienced after restart in Mexico.

[SmallSoldier]

There's two different properties there in "scrub" and "heat cycle" I believe. Scrub may be just one lap out and in again to get the top surface abraded, which may or may not give advantage if they need to be used spontaneously, for example a safety car.
Heat cycle ordinarily involved full pace laps to get them up to working temperature, without leaning on them too much. Then letting them cool (Saturday to Sunday for eg) then brought back to temp in blankets ready for use. This has been used in the past for getting the tyre to give more durability over and above its fresh used same compound. In this case it may have played a part in the long run experienced after restart in Mexico.

Scrub is the action of “shaving” the top layer of tire… After the cars hit the track for a lap, between the natural tire deg, pick up from tire rubber on the track, etc the tires need to be “cleaned”, a tire that has been shaved is called a “scrubbed tire”… It would have a heat cycle already in it regardless.

In terms of F1, teams will only scrubbed, for potential use in the race, those tires that have had a limited amount of laps on them.

[SmallSoldier]

On another note… Mike Elliot left Mercedes… Doubt he would be coming to McLaren (overlapping positions), but would have been interesting to get someone from RB (Marshall), Ferrari (Sanchez) and Mercedes (Elliot)… A lot of knowledge between those 3

[CjC]

On another note… Mike Elliot left Mercedes… Doubt he would be coming to McLaren (overlapping positions), but would have been interesting to get someone from RB (Marshall), Ferrari (Sanchez) and Mercedes (Elliot)… A lot of knowledge between those 3

That would have been handy.
I imagine he’ll be joining his mate at Williams though?