This forum contains threads to discuss teams themselves. Anything not technical about the cars, including restructuring, performances etc belongs here.
Red Bull keeping Checo, so the WCC fight is still very much on! Has it reported when Newey's destination is expected to be announced? From the chatter around, AMR are the firm favourites, but you never know.
Q: (Stefano Mancini – La Stampa) Kimi, will you help Vettel to win his championship this year?
Kimi Raikkonen: I can only drive one car, obviously.
@2018 Singapore Grand Prix drivers press conference.
Red Bull keeping Checo, so the WCC fight is still very much on! Has it reported when Newey's destination is expected to be announced? From the chatter around, AMR are the firm favourites, but you never know.
Yeah the media total switch to "McLaren is the fastest car" from "4th best team fighting at the head of the midfield" in just 3 months is overheating the McLaren fans to expect wins. Sure, some of the strategies have seemed a bit lame and I wouldn't name them the "best strategy team" but learning how to win is what they are having to go through. Like Oscar has had to learn the art of tyre preservation - Tick!
Indeed, been too many dark years, so managing expectations can be a bit hard. It's insane though, how the car development exploded with the new tech team structure. The pace of the car has definitely outpaced the development of the team itself, but once the team gets that experience I think McLaren should be in a very solid spot.
Stella explained after the race that we faced dificulties in Spa and a lot to be done in certain areas… ok its true.
But if there had not been rainy Saturday or we had run the same strategy as Russel did we would have easily won this race, which is funny.
Stella explained after the race that we faced dificulties in Spa and a lot to be done in certain areas… ok its true.
But if there had not been rainy Saturday or we had run the same strategy as Russel did we would have easily won this race, which is funny.
Quite promising
Yea definately.
In equal measure, the recent weather has aided Mercedes success and hindered McLarens.
I said it after Spa, Mercedes have basically won the races Mclaren should have.
In my opinion, Mercedes deserved the win in Spa. Their car had good pace, especially on the first two stints and they were better on the wet weather quali. Track position helped a lot. In Austria they obviously lucked themselves into a win, but also Silverstone was gifted to them because McLaren had two drivers capable of going for the win there but they were both screwed over by questionable strategy decisions. It is what it is though, can't do anything about it now.
McLaren's biggest weakness at the moment seems to be the long run pace on heavy fuel. If they could put the same margin they have over the others on the last stints of the race for the first stints as well, then they would have won races comfortably. Also operationally, they're not at the level of other top teams yet and they almost always make decisions from a defensive stance because they're acting like a midfield team trying to protect a "lucky" great result instead of a top team who got into that position by pure pace.
There were frequent talks of potential upgrades in the last couple of months, but they never materialized, with the front wing in Austria being the only significant performance upgrade they have brought since Miami. Pure speculation with what we know, but there is a chance potential upgrades have been scrapped in the factory because they haven't delivered expected results once tested in WT and simulator. The rest of the top teams have proven that it's quite difficult to get things to work in harmony in this regulation set and we are nearing the performance ceiling perhaps. McLaren has remained fighting at the sharp-end of the field in spite of having less upgrades than all 3 of their direct competitors and this shows that knowledge of the package is often worth more than chasing numbers with large upgrade packages as those numbers don't always translate into actual results when you bring them to the track. Ferrari is perhaps the most extreme version of this, but even Mercedes and to some extent, RedBull have had some difficulties with dialing in upgrade packages.
Unsure on what to expect from the second half in terms of development, but considering where they were in Bahrain, what they have done in the last couple of months has been really impressive. Perhaps even more so than their turnaround last year. Going from podium-contender to win-contender is arguably a much more difficult task and they had to overcome quite a significant gap. Results like the ones they have been getting lately were literally a fever dream 1.5 years ago. To outdevelop RedBull and Ferrari, both cars which started the season with much more competitive cars, is remarkable.
Overall, a bit frustrating that they have let points on the table out of their own "incompetence", but perhaps we are putting unrealistic expectations on this team. They haven't been in this position for over 12 years now, and a significant portion of people who were there back then are perhaps no longer with the team now. This is an almost brand new team which is just now starting to learn how to fight at the top having been stuck in the midfield for a long time. Just like anything else, it will take some time.
Nevertheless, they started the season slow again, and by the time they got the first win, a very healthy margin was built on the WDC. There's so much more competition at the front now, it's much harder to get those results Max was getting almost for free until Miami, so perhaps they should just focus in improving and using this season as a learning experience for beyond. If somehow they find themselves into an actual title fight then great, but they shouldn't be "crucified" if that doesn't happen.
Fight for the WCC is on though, and that should absolutely be a target if the car maintains this level of competitiveness.
Would be nice to have a reset on the WCC counter, which is currently still going from 1998.
Nice overview Emag. It's been my view too. On the matter of updates/upgrades - Mercedes have come to every race weekend announcing "upgrade" packages. I've questioned how this is possible under the cost cap regulations, in any case more than half of them had little to no positive effect or actually impaired the team's understanding. McLaren, by contrast, seem to have been very methodical, introducing components when they are confident of the integration. Even major upgrades at a Sprint weekend (Miami) worked pretty good from the get go. Sure, they have required optimisation over a couple of events but they haven't taken a backward step in engineering all season.
The failure to nail wins has at times been at least partly due to changing conditions at crucial times which McLaren have suffered for, when more even conditions would likely have produced dominant results as Hungary did. Spa was a case of running wet qualifying knowing the race would be held in dry conditions. Their approach was to trim for speed and sectors 1 & 3 knowing how well this went in FP. By tiny margins we failed to get track position and overtakes done at crucial points in the race, who would have risked a good chance of a podium for an improbable single stop modification to Plan A? Well this is where I was SCREAMING at the screen - Oscar had fresh air, a good lead and the tyre drop-off was very very low. Definitely lost the win right there. I think the live data analysis of the strategy team has actually been really poor but we should be optimistic for the second half of the season.
It's pretty clear that Stella has some significant upgrades (as opposed to optimistic updates) coming. I'm a little bit scared of Monza but every time we doubt the McLaren's suitability for a track it defies the predictions. Perez is staying put at Red Bull so every chance McLaren will have the WCC points lead by about Singapore if we keep up this incredible finishing record. Lando's "brush" with Max at Austria is the only DNF for the team in 14 events. We are well on track to exceed 600 points - no team scoring 600+ points has failed to win the WCC since the inception of this points system.
IIRC Stella said that they needed to investigate & understand as to why the car's performance was better than expected after Miami and I suspect this is why there are delays in upgrades...
IIRC Stella said that they needed to investigate & understand as to why the car's performance was better than expected after Miami and I suspect this is why there are delays in upgrades...
Yes I believe so as well, otherwise you can go backwards.
but also Silverstone was gifted to them because McLaren had two drivers capable of going for the win there but they were both screwed over by questionable strategy decisions.
I don't agree with this at all. We were only the fastest car in Silverstone when it was damp and everyone was running worn inters. The only way we win that race is if we build a huge gap in that phase and then there are no safety cars. But in full wet or full dry conditions, other cars were much faster.
but also Silverstone was gifted to them because McLaren had two drivers capable of going for the win there but they were both screwed over by questionable strategy decisions.
I don't agree with this at all. We were only the fastest car in Silverstone when it was damp and everyone was running worn inters. The only way we win that race is if we build a huge gap in that phase and then there are no safety cars. But in full wet or full dry conditions, other cars were much faster.
Oscar was the fastest driver, or joint-fastest with Max at the last stint ...
If Lando goes out on mediums instead of softs, it's almost 100% guaranteed he overtakes Lewis on-track. Only had 2.something seconds to make up.
but also Silverstone was gifted to them because McLaren had two drivers capable of going for the win there but they were both screwed over by questionable strategy decisions.
I don't agree with this at all. We were only the fastest car in Silverstone when it was damp and everyone was running worn inters. The only way we win that race is if we build a huge gap in that phase and then there are no safety cars. But in full wet or full dry conditions, other cars were much faster.
Oscar was the fastest driver, or joint-fastest with Max at the last stint ...
If Lando goes out on mediums instead of softs, it's almost 100% guaranteed he overtakes Lewis on-track. Only had 2.something seconds to make up.
My mistake, I am a gigantic moron and was thinking of Montreal.
I don't agree with this at all. We were only the fastest car in Silverstone when it was damp and everyone was running worn inters. The only way we win that race is if we build a huge gap in that phase and then there are no safety cars. But in full wet or full dry conditions, other cars were much faster.
Oscar was the fastest driver, or joint-fastest with Max at the last stint ...
If Lando goes out on mediums instead of softs, it's almost 100% guaranteed he overtakes Lewis on-track. Only had 2.something seconds to make up.
My mistake, I am a gigantic moron and was thinking of Montreal.
