2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

[PapayaFan481]

Looking at Williams decision to give Sargeant "car" to Albon, due to unfixable chassis, I was wondering if this is something related to "smaller teams" (and I have a pain in the heart saying this about Williams but '90s are so far away in the past) or this can happen also to McLaren, Ferrari or RB? If a chassis is not fixable, you have to race with only one car?

No. Williams are in unique situation where they couldn't produce spare chassis due to low production capacity, poor logistics management and a completely revamped 2024 car. McLaren like most teams will have a few spare chassis or fly one overnight if need be.

I believe most teams, certainly the top teams, have an entire spare car ready to be built up. The only reason they don't have one parked in the garage waiting any more is the rules don't allow it - which is silly in my opinion.

[Dafnalina]

I agree with Lando, actually. The race pace is being flattered by a high engine mode compared to RB, Ferrari and Aston. And the one lap pace didn't look good. Not sure what happened cause they looked better on mediums.
But we'll see if they figure something out for tomorrow, hopefully.

What have you seen which might suggest a higher engine mode?

Someone compared the fastest laps in their long runs without DRS, and McLaren had a higher engine RPM's

[mwillems]

McLaren is struggling in the slow/medium speed corner compared to Ferrari which was previously highlighted by Stella, like the last corner in Saudi.

On the other hand is super strong in high speed.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GJSYonVXwAI ... name=large

In fact looking at those laps, we used DRS on our lap and Ferrari didn't on the lap you selected and this is the only reason for the speed vs Ferrari.

[proteus]

Looking at Williams decision to give Sargeant "car" to Albon, due to unfixable chassis, I was wondering if this is something related to "smaller teams" (and I have a pain in the heart saying this about Williams but '90s are so far away in the past) or this can happen also to McLaren, Ferrari or RB? If a chassis is not fixable, you have to race with only one car?

No. Williams are in unique situation where they couldn't produce spare chassis due to low production capacity, poor logistics management and a completely revamped 2024 car. McLaren like most teams will have a few spare chassis or fly one overnight if need be.

I believe most teams, certainly the top teams, have an entire spare car ready to be built up. The only reason they don't have one parked in the garage waiting any more is the rules don't allow it - which is silly in my opinion.

Every team has a spare tub with them, from which they can assemble another car overnight if needed. The rules specify how far can the tub be done. Williams itself got to trouble some time ago when they had their tub overly completed and in FIA eyes it looked like a spare car altogether. So for them not being able to get a car ready for Albon is basically their own mistake. Reorganization really hampered them down dramatically.

[mwillems]

I agree with Lando, actually. The race pace is being flattered by a high engine mode compared to RB, Ferrari and Aston. And the one lap pace didn't look good. Not sure what happened cause they looked better on mediums.
But we'll see if they figure something out for tomorrow, hopefully.

What have you seen which might suggest a higher engine mode?

Someone compared the fastest laps in their long runs without DRS, and McLaren had a higher engine RPM's

Dr Obbs does very good analysis and he thinks it is close between Ferrari and Mclaren. Here is hoping he is right! As he says, fuel loads will make a big difference in the corners that we struggle at. Hence today is not that representative.

[Xyz22]

McLaren is struggling in the slow/medium speed corner compared to Ferrari which was previously highlighted by Stella, like the last corner in Saudi.

On the other hand is super strong in high speed.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GJSYonVXwAI ... name=large

In fact looking at those laps, we used DRS on our lap and Ferrari didn't on the lap you selected and this is the only reason for the speed vs Ferrari.

I don't think Norris was using DRS in that lap.
Leclerc did his fastest race pace lap with DRS and the impact on top speed was much much bigger.

[mwillems]

McLaren is struggling in the slow/medium speed corner compared to Ferrari which was previously highlighted by Stella, like the last corner in Saudi.

On the other hand is super strong in high speed.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GJSYonVXwAI ... name=large

In fact looking at those laps, we used DRS on our lap and Ferrari didn't on the lap you selected and this is the only reason for the speed vs Ferrari.

I don't think Norris was using DRS in that lap.
Leclerc did his fastest race pace lap with DRS and the impact on top speed was much much bigger.

True, I swapped over their laps. None the less, I still don't think that comparison is representative of the actual comparative strengths and weaknesses of the cars at this track. I may turn out to be wrong though, but the Ferrari is similar in pace through high speeds compared to the Mclaren, I can't imagine that much of a swing compared to previous races and compared to one lap pace.

[CjC]

I agree with Lando, actually. The race pace is being flattered by a high engine mode compared to RB, Ferrari and Aston. And the one lap pace didn't look good. Not sure what happened cause they looked better on mediums.
But we'll see if they figure something out for tomorrow, hopefully.

What have you seen which might suggest a higher engine mode?

Someone compared the fastest laps in their long runs without DRS, and McLaren had a higher engine RPM's

Thanks.
My initial reaction to Oscars strong race run was that he had a ‘strong’ race run in FP2 in Bahrain but in the actual race it they had decent points scoring pace rather than podium pace.

Regarding Aston, I thought we had seen from the opening 2 rounds that Aston run with a higher engine mode in FP2 compared to McLaren.

[Vanja #66]

It's fairly close to what we saw in Jeddah in terms of race performance on straights. Ferrari may have been harvesting a bit more than usual race pace, but it should be fully expected to see McLaren doing a bit better on straights than both RB and Ferrari.

Looks to me like McLaren can extract a bit more still in S1 and S3, they should be closer to RB than Merc/Aston will be to McLaren in the race.

[SmallSoldier]

I agree with Lando, actually. The race pace is being flattered by a high engine mode compared to RB, Ferrari and Aston. And the one lap pace didn't look good. Not sure what happened cause they looked better on mediums.
But we'll see if they figure something out for tomorrow, hopefully.

What have you seen which might suggest a higher engine mode?

Someone compared the fastest laps in their long runs without DRS, and McLaren had a higher engine RPM's

RPM’s are not a measure of Engine Modes… Yes, McLaren may using a higher RPM range, but the engine could be detuned

[mwillems]

What have you seen which might suggest a higher engine mode?

Someone compared the fastest laps in their long runs without DRS, and McLaren had a higher engine RPM's

RPM’s are not a measure of Engine Modes… Yes, McLaren may using a higher RPM range, but the engine could be detuned

This exact phenomenon of being fast on the straights is exactly the same as FP2 at Jeddah when you compare the long runs and we know how the pace turned out on the straights, with no DRS we had little or no advantage.



Granted, there is always the unknown of fuel and we don't know how this will turn out, but I doubt Dr Obbs is simply looking at RPMs, you can see on his graphic that we used 8th whereas Ferrari didn't. Another clue. Previous history of this FP2 Race pace speed is another clue. Overall speed of the Mclaren in the races vs Ferrari is another clue. We may well be a bit faster here, but this much faster on the straights than Ferrari is too much to believe right now. I hope I'm wrong though.

[mwillems]

Another clue is that in both previous races the j ump in RPMs from FP2 to race has been bigger for Ferrari than Mclaren.

We are closer here than Jeddah though. But then you can see from our telemetry that in the previous races we would tail off at the end of the straights due to deployment, further slowing down our race pace and compounding the top speed difference. If this has ceased to be an issue here than that is another matter entirely.

Deployment is another means to understand how much we are pushing, and another total unknown. I wish the FIA would release electrical energy telemetry, but we may be simply using more of the electrical systems than others.

[SmallSoldier]

Someone compared the fastest laps in their long runs without DRS, and McLaren had a higher engine RPM's

RPM’s are not a measure of Engine Modes… Yes, McLaren may using a higher RPM range, but the engine could be detuned

This exact phenomenon of being fast on the straights is exactly the same as FP2 at Jeddah when you compare the long runs and we know how the pace turned out on the straights, with no DRS we had little or no advantage.

https://i.ibb.co/nzDj1cg/Speeds-Jeddah.png

Granted, there is always the unknown of fuel and we don't know how this will turn out, but I doubt Dr Obbs is simply looking at RPMs, you can see on his graphic that we used 8th whereas Ferrari didn't. Another clue. Previous history of this FP2 Race pace speed is another clue. Overall speed of the Mclaren in the races vs Ferrari is another clue. We may well be a bit faster here, but this much faster on the straights than Ferrari is too much to believe right now. I hope I'm wrong though.

It will be interesting to see how it turns out during the race… And I wouldn’t bet on McLaren been that much faster on the straights to be fair… Obbs is making the assumption based on RPM’s (we discussed it in PM)… The only way to really tell would be looking at GPS data to really know the impact… The high RPM range may very well be due to gearing.

I would be really surprised if McLaren had the engines turned up during practice in Australia, not only would it be a very different approach to the weekend (which they could be trying), but also Australia is one of those circuits where you build speed through the days, the danger of having an “Albon” situation is high.

[FittingMechanics]

Doesn't McLaren have "shorter" gears. I'd be surprised McLaren all of a sudden started to use more pace in FP1 and FP2 when they never did that in previous years.

I expect slightly better pace than last weekend. Hoping for an interesting race.

[Emag]

RPM is not a viable metric to determine engine modes. McLaren doesn't usually turn up the engine on practice sessions so unless they had an explicit reason to do so, then I don't think they did this time. Only reason I can think of, is if they perhaps have not gotten what they have expected from the car in the previous races' practice sessions when the engine was turned up. But in that case I would expect only one of the drivers to go on a higher engine mode and keep the other one at the "standard practice" level for comparison.

Anyway, not too long before we find out where they stand.