2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[mwillems]

You can look at F1 Tempo, it has data going back to 2018. Racefans also has interactive race data.

Organic posted a nice site that I meant to bookmark, but I can't for the life of me recall what it was.

Edit:

https://en.mclarenf-1.com/2019/gp/s7847/results

Sainz seemed on average to be a little faster on race day, but nothing dramatic. You can see that for many races only one of the drivers would actually finish the race, there's probably more races where one driver finished than two.

If I recall correctly, I think Sainz had better racecraft and Lando was more cautious in his first season - this impeded his progress. But the racepace was in Sainz favour by a small margin.

Thank you so much!

Lando is an exceptional driver that went under the radar in his rookie season because people did not have a good read on Sainz.

Because Sainz was underrated, Lando beating him on the quali head to head wasn't seen as much of an achievement.

But of course we know now that while Carlos might not be "elite" tier with Charles, Max and so on, he definitely isn't far from it. And given a car he is comfortable with, he can be really fast.

So in hindsight, given the car he had, Lando had a very strong rookie season.

Agreed.

Whilst there are those who don't like the comparison of drivers in this manner, it is one of the few measurements that we have, which is to compare drivers against each other in the recent history of the head to heads in the sport. It is worth mentioning though that in 2019 both were new to this car that was apparently already tricky to drive, so this would have some advantage that Sainz might have had as he was also learning to drive a car that he suggests was tricky at that point.

[mwillems]

Hi! Kind of unrelated, but does anyone have any data of the race pace gap between Lando and Carlos back in 2019? I know it was virtually non-existent in 2020, but I can't find anything on 2019, and I don't remember it being that big of a gap

You can look at F1 Tempo, it has data going back to 2018. Racefans also has interactive race data.

Organic posted a nice site that I meant to bookmark, but I can't for the life of me recall what it was.

Edit:

https://en.mclarenf-1.com/2019/gp/s7847/results

Sainz seemed on average to be a little faster on race day, but nothing dramatic. You can see that for many races only one of the drivers would actually finish the race, there's probably more races where one driver finished than two.

If I recall correctly, I think Sainz had better racecraft and Lando was more cautious in his first season - this impeded his progress. But the racepace was in Sainz favour by a small margin.

Thank you so much!

My pleasure.

[Macklaren]

Interesting to see multiple sources talk about Carlos potentially coming back in 2026 if Lando were to bounce and Carlos didn't renew with Ferrari. I like him a lot but would seem like a backwards step for the team and I think Oscar will destroy him with his 3 years of experience with the team/car

[mwillems]

Mclaren probably have a car, team and trajectory that would interest most drivers.

But for Piastri, he now has that tricky second season where the points need to start to match the promise and get closer to Lando. I'm not ready to call it a forgone conclusion, but it's hard to argue that he won't continue to make strong progress.

[remertiol]

Comparing drivers within the same team can indeed provide valuable insights into their relative performances, although it's important to consider various factors such as experience with the team and the specific characteristics of the car. It's also notable that a driver's performance can evolve over time as they become more familiar with the car and the team.

[mwillems]

https://www.planetf1.com/news/sky-pundi ... turnaround

Somewhat controversial. And I think it was 8 races after key left that we improved, not 7.

[AR3-GP]

https://www.planetf1.com/news/sky-pundi ... turnaround

Somewhat controversial. And I think it was 8 races after key left that we improved, not 7.

I don't understand the point in the article. If James Key could have added value, they would have kept him. Mclaren didn't need a scapegoat and they wouldn't have sacked someone who was instrumental to their second half of the season simply to have one.

[mwillems]

https://www.planetf1.com/news/sky-pundi ... turnaround

Somewhat controversial. And I think it was 8 races after key left that we improved, not 7.

I don't understand the point in the article. If James Key could have added value, they would have kept him. Mclaren didn't need a scapegoat and they wouldn't have sacked someone who was instrumental to their second half of the season simply to have one.

I don't agree with the Article, but it relates to a point that SmallSoldier was making a while ago around how much knowledge Key had of what made the Mclaren updates a success. The logical extension to that conversation would be how much was he also able to set in motion and not just knew about, as the article suggests that since he was finding time with the Austria update then he must have been doing a good enough job.

Personally I'm not sure how much of a hand he had in it, and this seems to be what the article hinges on in terms of whether Key had led the way for those updates. I also think the debacle over this winter with the late concept change realisation and the previous winter with the brake cooling was enough to suggest he was struggling to unleash the ability within the team.

The Austria GP was nearly 3 and a half months after Key officially left. I'm not sure how much time he was away from the factory before that, but I don't think it was unreasonable to suggest he was away from the car for 4 months before the Austria GP. He hadn't seen the parts completed and run in the Baku GP which were floor correlation to help direct the next phase of developments. So I personally don't think he had much of a hand in the Austria update or was a scapegoat. I post it just because the opinions within might be interesting to others.

[Emag]

https://www.planetf1.com/news/sky-pundi ... turnaround

Somewhat controversial. And I think it was 8 races after key left that we improved, not 7.

I don't understand the point in the article. If James Key could have added value, they would have kept him. Mclaren didn't need a scapegoat and they wouldn't have sacked someone who was instrumental to their second half of the season simply to have one.

I don't agree with the Article, but it relates to a point that SmallSoldier was making a while ago around how much knowledge Key had of what made the Mclaren updates a success. The logical extension to that conversation would be how much was he also able to set in motion and not just knew about, as the article suggests that since he was finding time with the Austria update then he must have been doing a good enough job.

Personally I'm not sure how much of a hand he had in it, and this seems to be what the article hinges on in terms of whether Key had led the way for those updates. I also think the debacle over this winter with the late concept change realisation and the previous winter with the brake cooling was enough to suggest he was struggling to unleash the ability within the team.

The Austria GP was nearly 3 and a half months after Key officially left. I'm not sure how much time he was away from the factory before that, but I don't think it was unreasonable to suggest he was away from the car for 4 months before the Austria GP. He hadn't seen the parts completed and run in the Baku GP which were floor correlation to help direct the next phase of developments. So I personally don't think he had much of a hand in the Austria update or was a scapegoat. I post it just because the opinions within might be interesting to others.

Even if he did have a hand in it, McLaren is getting David Sanchez and Rob Marshall in 2024. Thats more than enough "compensation" for Key's departure.

Those are both people who come with a lot of knowledge from teams which have had better cars than McLaren for the bigger part of the last decade.

[mwillems]

I'm not sure that key did much for us this year, I don't think he was a scapegoat and I don't think our progress forward under Key was that strong over the duration of his tenure at Mclaren. I'm very much looking forward to what the new guys can bring to this car. But also all of the new knowledge that joined the team during the year that I'm sure helped us push the car forward.

[Marc.W]

IMO the embarassing starts we had for 22 and 23 were enough for me to warrant Key's departure, definitely not being used as a scapegoat, fault lay with Key

[Balalu]

This ^

Key was not sacked because of just 2023. That article is just words arranged in gibberish order.

[Dafnalina]

You can look at F1 Tempo, it has data going back to 2018. Racefans also has interactive race data.

Organic posted a nice site that I meant to bookmark, but I can't for the life of me recall what it was.

Edit:

https://en.mclarenf-1.com/2019/gp/s7847/results

Sainz seemed on average to be a little faster on race day, but nothing dramatic. You can see that for many races only one of the drivers would actually finish the race, there's probably more races where one driver finished than two.

If I recall correctly, I think Sainz had better racecraft and Lando was more cautious in his first season - this impeded his progress. But the racepace was in Sainz favour by a small margin.

Thank you so much!

Lando is an exceptional driver that went under the radar in his rookie season because people did not have a good read on Sainz.

Because Sainz was underrated, Lando beating him on the quali head to head wasn't seen as much of an achievement.

But of course we know now that while Carlos might not be "elite" tier with Charles, Max and so on, he definitely isn't far from it. And given a car he is comfortable with, he can be really fast.

So in hindsight, given the car he had, Lando had a very strong rookie season.

Yeah, definitely! I was curious to check this out because I was sure the race pace gap was significant in 2019. After looking at some data, the race pace gap in 2019 was much smaller than I had previously assumed.

I remember some people saying Lando had never been as close to Carlos than Oscar to Lando in their rookie seasons (in the races), but data seems to say otherwise.

This is not to take anything away from Oscar, cause like you all said, Lando had 4 years on this team/car already and he also wasn't driving in new, high-deg tracks week after week with little to no practice like Oscar did, but just to point out that Lando's jump from 2019 to 2020 wasn't THAT big when it came to race pace. I think he just worked on his starts and his confidence while overtaking. Oscar has that down, only needs to work on tyre management.

[Darth-Piekus]

James Key wasnt just responsible for just 2023. He suceeded Pat Fry in 2021 and he produced nothing compared to Fry.

[Ground Effect]

James Key wasnt just responsible for just 2023. He suceeded Pat Fry in 2021 and he produced nothing compared to Fry.

To be fair, the MCL34, overseen by Fry and Stella was the car that started the trend of poor performance in slow corners.