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I hope they start bringing some stuff in Austria and Silverstone. No matter how small, it will make a difference at this point.
Decoding Zak's Sky post-race interview they are bringing bits for Silverstone, but how significant is anyone's guess.
I wouldn't read too much into it. His point was that they're focused solely on the next race (Austria) and not even thinking about those afterward (Silverstone, etc.) *except* the team at the factory, which is obviously focused on the development race. Possible McLaren brings upgrades in Silverstone but I believe Stella said they are done with big upgrade packages. They will bring iterative updates in a lot of races. One part here, another there. Sort of like Mercedes. So they could bring something in Austria, too. I don't think any of the front running teams will have a major upgrade package that gives them more than a tenth from now until the end of the season. It's all about optimizing setups and bringing a few parts here and there that broaden that setup window. Strong indicators that we're hitting diminish returns.
I'm not one to shy from criticising. I just don't agree. I was upset about the call and then the Delta gave way more back than it cost and I realised I was wrong.
I have no doubt that if Lando Max had been in his place, the strategists would have stopped him right after Russell and they would have stopped at the pit in Canada
Not sure if a troll or not, but either way you seem fully convinced on your view so I am personally not gonna indulge further after this.
However, you are wrong
With the pace he had on the dry tires, Lando would have lost in Canada on-track anyway, even if he pit at the first safety car.
And the strategy here, as pointed out for the millionth time in the thread already was just an attempt at trying something different after getting on the back foot at the start. The race was already lost when Max started pulling away from George.
Of course, any other opinion is immediately a troll.
They say here that the car was the fastest, make a pit after Russell, Lando would be in second place, 2-4 seconds behind, catch up and cut in the second pit.
I have no doubt that if Lando Max had been in his place, the strategists would have stopped him right after Russell and they would have stopped at the pit in Canada
Not sure if a troll or not, but either way you seem fully convinced on your view so I am personally not gonna indulge further after this.
However, you are wrong
With the pace he had on the dry tires, Lando would have lost in Canada on-track anyway, even if he pit at the first safety car.
And the strategy here, as pointed out for the millionth time in the thread already was just an attempt at trying something different after getting on the back foot at the start. The race was already lost when Max started pulling away from George.
Of course, any other opinion is immediately a troll.
They say here that the car was the fastest, make a pit after Russell, Lando would be in second place, 2-4 seconds behind, catch up and cut in the second pit.
If I didn't know you just have a very rigid perspective, I'd also think your a troll.
I disagree with your viewpoint and to be fair we've gone over it so it's probably time to move on.
It's always easy to be clever after the race but Norris should have let Max pass and focus on Russel avoid being passed by. He had had 65 more laps to catch Max. There is no question we had faster cars here than Red Bull. Thats a pity.
The most telling part for me was Norris’ comment ‘95% of the people designing the car have been here 5 to 10 years’
He’s confirmed what I’ve been thinking over the last 12 months, what the hell have they been doing all these years??
The most telling part for me was Norris’ comment ‘95% of the people designing the car have been here 5 to 10 years’
He’s confirmed what I’ve been thinking over the last 12 months, what the hell have they been doing all these years??
10 years only puts you back to 2014. If you assume they only started working back then for McLaren, I don't remember any "big name" making headlines (apart from Peter Prodromou being snatched from RedBull), then it's not unreasonable to think these were people with not so much experience in the sport. 10 years is a significant amount of experience in any professional environment, and it will make pretty much anyone better at their job, whatever that job is.
Before 2014, McLaren had been bleeding people left right and center from the moment Mercedes decided to join F1 as a works team. Add to that a very very poor upper management, with certain people remaining responsible for too long after fumbling the bag multiple times. Also very poor infrastructure compared to the top teams at the time combined with the Honda slump.
There's really so much that went wrong with McLaren the past decade, it's difficult to sum it up in just a single comment on an online forum.
The long story short is,
Setting aside the much needed investments in terms of infrastructure that came from 2018-2019 and onwards, a Formula 1 team's ceiling (much like any business) is heavily decided by human resources and how well those resources are managed.
You could have 10 Neweys in a team, if you put them under a lower-caliber individual, you've just severely bottlenecked the talents in your team. And you know, engineers aren't exactly known for being super outspoken individuals. Most are there to just do their jobs much like you and me in every day life.
If you are confident that you have a better idea about a certain thing, but management decides to go in a completely different direction, most people will just go ahead and carry out with what management desires. It's one of the biggest limiters McLaren had to deal with over the last couple of years since their resurgence.
They really had quite some talented people working for them, but they were poorly managed and under-utilized.
And we're talking about a sport where margins are measured in tenths of seconds. It's just a bunch of little things stacked together that make the difference in the end. If your team is firing in all cylinders, then you're right there at the top. If part of it is slipping ever so slightly, it will be reflected on laptime.
Last edited by Emag on 24 Jun 2024, 00:35, edited 1 time in total.
I barely made it through all the messages from the start of the race. It was incredible to read that there are people on the forum who immediately wrote that McLaren's strategists are repeating Ferrari's strategists, or that they are drunk, or stupid, and so on. For starters! Lando himself demanded to extend the first stint, because his goal was not to overtake Russell, but to have a further fight for the win with Verstappen.
Moving on: Yes, it was a gross mistake on Lando's part in the first corner of the first lap, when he gave up his position. Lando got stuck behind Russell and lost a lot of time. That's right. But the team developed an optimal strategy to have the best chance of catching Max in the 3rd stint of the race. He almost succeeded. Moreover, if it weren't for the fight with Russell, when Lando gave up his position in turns 4 and 5, and then passed him again, quite a lot of time would have been lost there, at least a second. Another second was lost at the second pit stop by the mechanics, who changed the tires in 3.6 seconds. In total, we already have at least 2.5 seconds that were lost.
Even taking into account Lando's mistake on the first lap, victory was still possible and Lando was right that it was necessary to extend the stint. I don't understand the guys on the forum who wrote that it was stupid, that it was the wrong decision. Let me explain something on my fingers. The Barcelona track is not the best for overtaking, that's one. To overtake, you need to have an advantage of one and a half seconds per lap. This was the case before, now I don't know the exact values. That was two. Not having a car at hand that could weigh less thanks to refueling and have an advantage in speed due to this, that's three! There remains one sensible option: to have a significant advantage in speed, you need fresher tires. This is only possible if the first stint of the race was extended. Ideally, the second stint would be extended to have some reserve.
Lando's pace was sufficient, and he knows how to take care of the tires, moreover, after the updates in Miami, the chassis takes care of the tires well, not overloading them. Now that the early mistakes had been made, it remained to follow the strategy in order to have an advantage at the end. But even here there was a bummer: Max had a fresh set of tires on the last stint, and Lando had a rolled-in set that had participated in qualifying. But even so, Lando's pace was higher, and Max's engineer demanded an increase in pace.
What we get as a result: even having lost two positions in the first turn, the victory was not yet lost. The direct fight for first place itself was lost when Lando fought with Russell for a long time, and then a hitch at the pit stop. Yes, I can add here and note that both of Oscar's pit stops were exactly 3 seconds. This is bad. Having a fast car at hand, this should not happen. This is the weekend when both the driver and the mechanics at the pit stop lost the victory, having at hand the fastest car. Well, as the fastest... at least a car that is not inferior in pure pace to the fastest of the Red Bulls. I would put an equal sign. And here one little thing here, another little thing there decided the outcome of the race. Missed opportunities.
After the finish I was as upset as Lando and I understand perfectly well how he felt.
The fans of the team should be more serious and not talk nonsense on the technical forum. Honestly, it's a shame. I don't understand how this couldn't be understood right away? Otherwise, the fight for victory would have been impossible without tire delta. I read all the comments and saw that some changed their minds during the race, both about the team's strategists and about Lando's ability to overtake.
McLaren will definitely have more victories this year. Yes, perhaps the updates will not be superfluous, so at least having a reserve will make it easier to win. But even now the team has missed a couple of opportunities. Imola, Monaco, Canada, and now Barcelona. McLaren could have won all of the above races. There was enough pure pace both in the race and in qualifying. It's just that this difference is so small, I would even say insignificant, that to take these victories, you need both luck and a perfectly spent weekend. It is necessary that the drivers themselves do not make minor piloting errors, and the mechanics change the tires without mistakes. The same goes for the work of engineers and strategists. The car itself is fast, but its pure speed has not yet been converted into victories. Can I call this some kind of karma, or that the team has simply not grown to this winning level? Probably not. The team is, first and foremost, living people who, at one time or another, make certain decisions. Sometimes they turn out to be right, sometimes not.
Austria should be good. The high kerbs could be a problem for Red Bull. Ferrari could improve in this regard. I was sure of that in Canada, but they simply disappeared there. Mercedes is not yet capable of fighting for victories. They lack pure pace. The Barcelona race clearly showed this both in relation to Russell in the first stint and in relation to Hamilton in the third stint. There will be another attempt, where Lando should fight for victory. Let's see how it goes. We have a weekend with a sprint race ahead of us.
I am not going to continue my thoughts about the race that has passed. It has passed and that is a fact. Now we need to look forward. And the team will do just that, having analyzed all the mistakes they made.
There were two critical moments in the race that meant Lando lost the victory.
1. Bad start by Norris and Verstappen and Russel overtake him
2. Verstappen overtakes Russel on lap 2
If VER didn't manage to overtake or RUS didn't get ahead of Lando I am sure the victory would have been ours with the caveat that maybe a slow stop could have lost him a win as well.
Verstappen was just perfect and the gaps are too small to beat him if you make mistakes.
But the pace was good, strategy made sense and Lando drove great (except the start)
And Max even admitted himself in the cool down room. He had to make that overtake that early because then the tires would overheat and he would be stuck behind George. It's not like Lando didn't have the pace to go past George, he just missed the window.
I think it's a trait of both cars too. We saw many times when Max starts (and restarts) and open up a +1.5s gap in one lap, that car is good at put temperatures fast in tyres, on the other side appears to me that Lando needs to go gently in his first laps to get full tyres potential.
To do something well is so worthwhile that to die trying to do it better cannot be foolhardy. It would be a waste of life to do nothing with one's ability, for I feel that life is measured in achievement, not in years alone. ― Bruce McLaren
Very impressed by Lando's growing maturity. The way he manages his stints, lives to fight another day, his feedback and his reactions to events. Some of that is no doubt the result of a faster car, but good to see him grow as well. Now just clean up the high pressure mistakes esp.in Q3 and starts and he can be World Champion.
PS: where is everyone who called him an idiot for committing to McLaren, now?
You keep saying this but haven't provided an alternative strategy that could have gotten us the win after the start was messed up.
There was a slight risk with this strategy having to overtake cars but it was the only one available that made the win an option. If they pitted in line with everyone else then sure there would have been less risk from the Mercedes but we wouldn't have had any tire delta to overtake which is needed at this track.
The fact is if they had pitted in line with everyone else they would have sat in dirty air for almost the entire race chewing up his tyres. The strategists got Norris into clean air as much as they could which is what allowed him to have the pace at the end.
If you believe the graph, then Max's tempo drop was more intense. This is exactly the case when the tires are already worn out, and not when Max is supposedly saving the tires and the car. When they save the tires, they drive at the same pace.
