2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

[Emag]

And that is what it is, your opinion.
I have mine.
Oscar isn’t 1 and a half seasons into his career yet, I personally think he’s shown enough to be get to a very high level in the sport.

He has a point. It depends on what sort of expectations you put on drivers.

If you want to take a recent extreme, when you look at what Leclerc did in his 2nd season (2019), Oscar hasn't been up to the same standard. But I look at it from a different perspective.

Gaps are super tight this year, and these cars are arguably harder to drive to the limit compared to the previous generation. Plus, Oscar has more races to show he has gotten better and be closer to Lando on a more consistent basis.

After all, you only have to go back to Imola & Monaco, and he outqualified Lando.

It's his race pace that is more of a concern for me.

Yea his race pace is quite weak.

For now, all I’ll respond with is this.
Who else would you prefer in the car other than Verstappen, Hamilton, Leclerc, Russell or Alonso?

Out of the current grid, you just discarded the best drivers so I wouldn't want any other driver in the second McLaren seat. I don't even think bringing Carlos back would have been a good idea. Carlos might bring some more pace & experience, but I highly doubt he would play the team game if he was Lando's 2nd (and I highly believe that would be the case).

I do wish McLaren rush Ugo Ugochukwu to F2 next year though. I really want to see how he fares there. He has had some promising results on a couple of junior series.

[LionsHeart]

Very tight in every sector. The top speeds are also comparable. Considering that McLaren is again at the bottom of the list, but it is only a couple of kilometers per hour to the other top teams. There is no real advantage here, since acceleration at the exit of the corners is much more important.

McLaren is still the most efficient at the exit of the corners and accelerates more intensely than the others. Even taking into account a small loss at the end of the straights, the chassis still passes the sectors faster than the others, well, perhaps Red Bull can counter with something.

To sum it up: Globally, the chassis no longer suffers from an acute deficit in top speed, as well as an acute deficit in speed in slow corners.

It remains to be seen how effective the updated kit will be on low-downforce tracks. It hasn't been there yet. Baku, Spa, Monza, Las Vegas. That's the weakest point so far, based on last season. That means the team needs to make a new rear wing.

[Emag]

Very tight in every sector. The top speeds are also comparable. Considering that McLaren is again at the bottom of the list, but it is only a couple of kilometers per hour to the other top teams. There is no real advantage here, since acceleration at the exit of the corners is much more important.

McLaren is still the most efficient at the exit of the corners and accelerates more intensely than the others. Even taking into account a small loss at the end of the straights, the chassis still passes the sectors faster than the others, well, perhaps Red Bull can counter with something.
https://i.ibb.co/n6khsrb/2-B7-F348-C-60 ... 3332-F.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/M7nVVB0/B2-E12-D02-C07 ... 30-DAB.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/HPHbh83/91-B4-D049-AFD ... 3-F7-C.jpg

Basically, only with a perfect first sector would Lando be able to snatch pole away from Verstappen today.

The RedBull just flies in the high speed stuff.

[LionsHeart]

Very tight in every sector. The top speeds are also comparable. Considering that McLaren is again at the bottom of the list, but it is only a couple of kilometers per hour to the other top teams. There is no real advantage here, since acceleration at the exit of the corners is much more important.

McLaren is still the most efficient at the exit of the corners and accelerates more intensely than the others. Even taking into account a small loss at the end of the straights, the chassis still passes the sectors faster than the others, well, perhaps Red Bull can counter with something.
https://i.ibb.co/n6khsrb/2-B7-F348-C-60 ... 3332-F.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/M7nVVB0/B2-E12-D02-C07 ... 30-DAB.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/HPHbh83/91-B4-D049-AFD ... 3-F7-C.jpg

Basically, only with a perfect first sector would Lando be able to snatch pole away from Verstappen today.

The RedBull just flies in the high speed stuff.

The first sector was already decent. There is no point in discussing how Lando could have taken pole. He didn't. Another attempt will be tomorrow. Let him give it his all there.

[organic]

Very tight in every sector. The top speeds are also comparable. Considering that McLaren is again at the bottom of the list, but it is only a couple of kilometers per hour to the other top teams. There is no real advantage here, since acceleration at the exit of the corners is much more important.

McLaren is still the most efficient at the exit of the corners and accelerates more intensely than the others. Even taking into account a small loss at the end of the straights, the chassis still passes the sectors faster than the others, well, perhaps Red Bull can counter with something.
https://i.ibb.co/n6khsrb/2-B7-F348-C-60 ... 3332-F.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/M7nVVB0/B2-E12-D02-C07 ... 30-DAB.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/HPHbh83/91-B4-D049-AFD ... 3-F7-C.jpg

Basically, only with a perfect first sector would Lando be able to snatch pole away from Verstappen today.

The RedBull just flies in the high speed stuff.

Yeah I think usually red bull were commanding in s3 but Lando would have Max's number in S1. However in the final sq3 laps max had the better S1 but struggled in T9-T10. I think neither Lando nor Verstappen put sensational laps together. Most likely to do with the slightly compromised outlaps as a result of traffic & tight time cut

[BMMR61]

With the new parts they had quite a lot to do to be ready for SQ. The expectations of some here is off the charts. P2 & P3 is perfectly decent and with a 3 tenths gap to the Mercedes on this short lap is fair. I don't know how people's expectations can be met quite honestly. There's every reason that 0.09 can be bridged by the time they get to the main qualifying with some further optimisation of the new bits. It's Sunday that the real points are handed out not the sprint.

[LionsHeart]

Very tight in every sector. The top speeds are also comparable. Considering that McLaren is again at the bottom of the list, but it is only a couple of kilometers per hour to the other top teams. There is no real advantage here, since acceleration at the exit of the corners is much more important.

McLaren is still the most efficient at the exit of the corners and accelerates more intensely than the others. Even taking into account a small loss at the end of the straights, the chassis still passes the sectors faster than the others, well, perhaps Red Bull can counter with something.
https://i.ibb.co/n6khsrb/2-B7-F348-C-60 ... 3332-F.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/M7nVVB0/B2-E12-D02-C07 ... 30-DAB.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/HPHbh83/91-B4-D049-AFD ... 3-F7-C.jpg

Basically, only with a perfect first sector would Lando be able to snatch pole away from Verstappen today.

The RedBull just flies in the high speed stuff.

Yeah I think usually red bull were commanding in s3 but Lando would have Max's number in S1. However in the final sq3 laps max had the better S1 but struggled in T9-T10. I think neither Lando nor Verstappen put sensational laps together. Most likely to do with the slightly compromised outlaps as a result of traffic & tight time cut

On a fast lap, it's easy to overheat the tires. The weather is warm. It will be even hotter on Saturday.
The difference between the cars is too small to judge who could potentially win where and in what place.

[LionsHeart]

With the new parts they had quite a lot to do to be ready for SQ. The expectations of some here is off the charts. P2 & P3 is perfectly decent and with a 3 tenths gap to the Mercedes on this short lap is fair. I don't know how people's expectations can be met quite honestly. There's every reason that 0.09 can be bridged by the time they get to the main qualifying with some further optimisation of the new bits. It's Sunday that the real points are handed out not the sprint.

People are like that, sometimes impatient.

[stonehenge]

McLaren has been quicker in race pace since Imola. Their biggest weakness remains qualifying. Tomorrow will be super interesting because I reckon both McLarens should pass Verstappen on pace--however, they need a clean getaway. I think this weekend will tell us a lot about how the season may play out. Ferrari is clearly still lost. Mercedes is improving but probably *just* a few steps too far back. McLaren is the team that can challenge Red Bull. They need to start winning. Let's see how this plays out!

[LionsHeart]

Some more telemetry

[LionsHeart]

McLaren has been quicker in race pace since Imola. Their biggest weakness remains qualifying. Tomorrow will be super interesting because I reckon both McLarens should pass Verstappen on pace--however, they need a clean getaway. I think this weekend will tell us a lot about how the season may play out. Ferrari is clearly still lost. Mercedes is improving but probably *just* a few steps too far back. McLaren is the team that can challenge Red Bull. They need to start winning. Let's see how this plays out!

Amen

[mwillems]

It is interesting comparing the telemetry to the mini sector maps we are seeing.

It makes it look like the Mclaren has great traction. But like last week, it appears more to be an artifact of the way McLaren attack the corner, which is to either scrub speed quicker and earlier than Max, or to start scrubbing speed earlier than Max. Either way, they are doing more work earlier or harder on the entry of the corner to ensure the car can carry speed at the apex and is ready to exit as early as possible. This creates the impression that we have great traction, but in reality it is because the car appears that it can be worked more on entry to the corners and because Lando has obviously found a great way to get the most out of the car in these corners. The speed we carry through the corners is also being carried down the straights. As already mentioned, speed with DRS open is slower than other cars, but it doesn't matter because for the bulk of the straights we are faster by 5+ kph.

The only corners that I can see that we lose out to Red Bull are 4, 7 and 9. 7 and 9 are Over 220kph, which is where RB start to get the advantage. Turn 4 is an odd one, not sure if he made a mistake here or not.

We were also uncharacteristically slow on the start finish straight at the beginning of the lap, probably losing us .04

[Tomsky]

[trinidefender]

Did both cars get the new front wing?

Piastri said in the interviews that the wing was working well.

[Tomsky]

Did both cars get the new front wing?

Piastri said in the interviews that the wing was working well.

Yes