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So Max had saved a new soft for the final stint, Lando a scrubbed. We have seen evidence that a scrubbed tyre has a property of "sealing in" greater durability and the new has to be treated very carefully for a few laps. This seems to gel with what we saw and GP's radio comms with Max where they were not wanting to prematurely kill of the tyres.
Another observation, McLaren now regularly hit the ground running from FP1 - the car just has a good way with setup and that setup is we'll understood after fine-tuning through Silverstone, Turkey, but more especially after Singapore. Wherever they go they have something close to the second fastest. With the sprint format, this knowledge and generally benign condition - Mexico temperatures excluded - McLaren have the second fastest car and Brazil was the most impressive showing other than Silverstone. Terrific drive Lando, not as enthralling as his drive at Mexico, but it points to the gap being reduced to RB, increased to Mercedes and Ferrari. Better than that, the team haven't lost understanding of "the package" although Oscar has had a bit of a mixed bag of late, not all of it his own doing.
I'm assuming you meant Hungary? Spot on with the rest though....
But of course my bad! Point there was McLaren have had remarkable consistency since the upgrades with the lack of a low downforce rearwing for Spa and Monza and the unpredictable Dutch weather the main interruptions in a string of strong results. To think that without the Q1 mess up by Lando at Mexico he would be sitting on six straight podiums, most of them seconds, is extraordinary!
But of course my bad! Point there was McLaren have had remarkable consistency since the upgrades with the lack of a low downforce rearwing for Spa and Monza and the unpredictable Dutch weather the main interruptions in a string of strong results. To think that without the Q1 mess up by Lando at Mexico he would be sitting on six straight podiums, most of them seconds, is extraordinary!
This turnaround is unprecedented in history. I don't think any team made such a big jump in performance, especially in the modern era. We are just unlucky that it happened in a year that has second most dominant car in history (first one being MP4/4 - in 12 races both cars finished they ended up 1-2 in 10).
It will be a big disappointment if the team regresses over the winter. But we have to be prepared for that possibility. Hopefully that does not happen and new high level engineers deliver even more performance.
I just hope that Lando can take one win or at least one pole in the next two races. It would be perfect ending to the season.
P3 in the WDC is achievable for Norris. Vegas will be difficult for Mclaren though.
The only thing we know is that the car struggles more with is bumps, I think, other than that in the past few races we can dial the car in well for each track to mitigate some of the cars weaker areas. The team only really discovered this in COTA so it is a new avenue for them and I don't think anyone really understands what makes it fall over with this new knowledge. Just that it is second best in different tracks with varying degrees of gaps all of which everyone has different perspectives on
True. 6 slow corners though. Baku Config or still pure low df?
It's a complicated equation.
It's going to be very cold meaning air will be denser. Air temp change by 3C is around ~1% density change and Vegas could be close to 0C I think? This will make efficiency more important.
Track temps cold means getting heat into the carcass of the tyre will be important, and a lower DF setup might not be able to energize the tyre properly and end up sliding with high surface temps and lower carcass temps.. So that would suggest running more DF
in 2020 the Eifel GP was similar in the sense that it was extremely cold and teams focused on setups that increased tyre temp more than anything. And it lowered field spread a lot IIRC.
Teams will be making a pivotal choice on wing level. Enough wing to have good 1-lap pace and you might have an unraceable car - McLaren at Spa.. and too little wing and you won't get any tyre temp for one lap and will grain the tyres in the race. Cars that have good natural tyre warmup can compromise less on this and pick more based on efficiency, whilst some of the more typically efficient cars may struggle more in this aspect - Ferrari for example have been weak on tyre warmup since their Barcelona upgrade and could be forced to run a larger RW for quali pace.
First and foremost it's about tyre warmup, then picking the efficient RW. If it's Monza DF levels despite this, then advantage Ferrari/McL as RB doesn't have a dedicated Monza RW. But if it's Spa/Baku levels then RB has the perfect RW for it
There's also the factor of cooling: at Vegas teams will be able to close up a lot of their cooling. Some teams will benefit more than others from doing so.. I don't claim to know who would take more advantage from this compared to others.
Hoping for a better result in Las Vegas than at the Eifel GP for Lando, I believe he retired from the race but he was racing Ricciardo and Perez for a podium.
So Max had saved a new soft for the final stint, Lando a scrubbed. We have seen evidence that a scrubbed tyre has a property of "sealing in" greater durability and the new has to be treated very carefully for a few laps. This seems to gel with what we saw and GP's radio comms with Max where they were not wanting to prematurely kill of the tyres.
Another observation, McLaren now regularly hit the ground running from FP1 - the car just has a good way with setup and that setup is we'll understood after fine-tuning through Silverstone, Turkey, but more especially after Singapore. Wherever they go they have something close to the second fastest. With the sprint format, this knowledge and generally benign condition - Mexico temperatures excluded - McLaren have the second fastest car and Brazil was the most impressive showing other than Silverstone. Terrific drive Lando, not as enthralling as his drive at Mexico, but it points to the gap being reduced to RB, increased to Mercedes and Ferrari. Better than that, the team haven't lost understanding of "the package" although Oscar has had a bit of a mixed bag of late, not all of it his own doing.
I'm assuming you meant Hungary? Spot on with the rest though....
But of course my bad! Point there was McLaren have had remarkable consistency since the upgrades with the lack of a low downforce rearwing for Spa and Monza and the unpredictable Dutch weather the main interruptions in a string of strong results. To think that without the Q1 mess up by Lando at Mexico he would be sitting on six straight podiums, most of them seconds, is extraordinary!
Lando had the pace to challenge for pole in Mexico so yea it should have been another front row and more than likely another podium to keep what would have been an incredible run of podium.
It’s just fantastic to be able to talk about this considering McLaren have basically been a midfield team for the past 4 seasons
It’s been noticeable that Lando has been starting to take more risk in qualifying to retain new tyres. This comes from a perspective of aggression (taking on RedBull) rather than defensiveness (getting into next Q session). Lando seems to have shifted gears in a confidence he can take on the Maximiser. This has probably resulted in a few of the little errors that have crept into his performances recently. It’s incredibly exciting that the team are now looking forward to the target (Max) rather than backward and tending to take conservative approaches to save tyre life. At Brazil Lando actually pushed Max which revealed itself in how far away from the rest the two were. The fastest lap revealed that Max was near the limit of tyre risk so he concentrated on preserving his win.
Talk of Las Vegas being a difficult track for McLaren is ridiculously premature. This pessimism has looked ridiculous in hindsight at Austin, Mexico and Brazil all of which showed the car is a solid platform everywhere. It’s ability to be wheeled out for Sprint weekend format and perform well is evidence the concept is strong and (probably) starting to reach maturity. All the understanding from the evolutions Austria to Brazil (compare to Ferrari and especially Mercedes!) are providing a solid base of knowledge for the car which is in development at Woking.
Yeah I agree it is different and asks a lot of questions, not sure there is enough to make a conclusion but totally get your perspective and couldn't argue with you too much.
I think when you realize that Norris did to the rest of the field what Verstappen used to do (gap them easily) you realize the pace was real. Without VER Norris would be a pitstop clear on P2.
Otherwise if Verstappen had hidden pace then he could have left Alonso/Perez/Sainz/Hamilton 50 seconds behind.
Also remember Norris starting 17th and finishing 5th (or 15 to 5 in half race).
The pace is real. Ver is still faster but not much.
That’s a contrast to the pessimistic Lando and in my opinion, much better aligned to reality. Yes, it’s good to have your feet on the ground but three excellent drives and results at tracks judged “difficult” illustrate that the car evolution is even more “on track” (pun not intended) than previously thought. Now Lando has moved the target of WDC contending ahead from 2025 to 2024! That’s a massive goal and realistically the team will still be building next year with their two new signings from RedBull and Ferrari, and other factors. I would offer a realistic goal for next year - to be consistently closer to RedBull than the chasing pack and taking wins on merit. Given the huge leap McLaren have made in 10 races or so that goal would almost seem pessimistic! Certainly realistic.
That’s a contrast to the pessimistic Lando and in my opinion, much better aligned to reality. Yes, it’s good to have your feet on the ground but three excellent drives and results at tracks judged “difficult” illustrate that the car evolution is even more “on track” (pun not intended) than previously thought. Now Lando has moved the target of WDC contending ahead from 2025 to 2024! That’s a massive goal and realistically the team will still be building next year with their two new signings from RedBull and Ferrari, and other factors. I would offer a realistic goal for next year - to be consistently closer to RedBull than the chasing pack and taking wins on merit. Given the huge leap McLaren have made in 10 races or so that goal would almost seem pessimistic! Certainly realistic.
It's hard not to be enthused by the progress this team has made, even Negative Norris can't help get excited
Oof, I am scared to have expectations to be honest. But everything is looking positive right now.
Stella said after Singapore that the upgrades brought there were the last of the season because, firstly, they wanted to focus on 2024, but also because the rest of the development increments they have planned for this concept are not compatible with the mechanical platform of this year's car.
And that got me thinking. We are literally running the same mechanical platform of the conservative concept created under James Key in 2022. We started 2023 with a clear evolution of 2022 with failed development targets which put the team miserably as 9th quickest at the start of the season.
The upgrades they have put on, while incredibly impressive, are still "patches" on top of a fundamentally weak mechanical platform. They are running an handicapped concept this year and have managed to pull that car into a performance window which could safely put them as the most reliable #2 challenger after RedBull.
That just makes it even more impressive. There's literally so much to gain for them over the winter, it's not like we have hit the wall of diminishing returns, not even close. And with more technical talent joining the team, there's plenty of reasons for optimism.
But I digress, I still am cautious with my optimism. It's been what, 11 years at this point since the last McLaren car that actually started the season as a proper podium/win contender. After so many years, fear of disappointment is still there.
So, until the cars get running in the first race of 2024, I will keep my expectations on check.
Point there was McLaren have had remarkable consistency since the upgrades with the lack of a low downforce rearwing for Spa and Monza and the unpredictable Dutch weather the main interruptions in a string of strong results. To think that without the Q1 mess up by Lando at Mexico he would be sitting on six straight podiums, most of them seconds, is extraordinary!
