2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

[BMMR61]

There's a lot of assumption that McLaren had a great race pace advantage over Leclerc. They didn't and the Ferrari tended towards lower front degradation. Not to say that McLaren didn't underperform on strategy. Oscar should have been told to stay out, he wasn't losing time to Charles and it would have done one of two things - forced Charles to pit again or held him up for Lando to put the pressure on from behind. The blind belief that most McLaren fans here have that we had the fastest car, end of story, was the same error the strategists were victim to. Yes, the decision to stay out by Ferrari was adventurous, especially with how early his pitstop was. But with a good allrounder car and two very fast drivers a split strategy should have covered the red cars off. I don't agree that Lando would have breezed past Charles had he stayed out another few laps.

Did you see how NOR closed the gap to LEC after the first 10-11 laps ?
That is not from tyre offset, that is pure pace.

Did you see how PIA nearly made up 1.6s/lap in his last stint ?
That is not from tyre offset alone, that is pure pace.

23 lap older tyres, averaging just over 1.2 seconds a lap faster, and you're sure that wasn't tyre offset? OK we have to agree to disagree, I am happy to concede that Charles and his Ferrari was the better one today.

[Hoffman900]

There's a lot of assumption that McLaren had a great race pace advantage over Leclerc. They didn't and the Ferrari tended towards lower front degradation. Not to say that McLaren didn't underperform on strategy. Oscar should have been told to stay out, he wasn't losing time to Charles and it would have done one of two things - forced Charles to pit again or held him up for Lando to put the pressure on from behind. The blind belief that most McLaren fans here have that we had the fastest car, end of story, was the same error the strategists were victim to. Yes, the decision to stay out by Ferrari was adventurous, especially with how early his pitstop was. But with a good allrounder car and two very fast drivers a split strategy should have covered the red cars off. I don't agree that Lando would have breezed past Charles had he stayed out another few laps.

Did you see how NOR closed the gap to LEC after the first 10-11 laps ?
That is not from tyre offset, that is pure pace.

Did you see how PIA nearly made up 1.6s/lap in his last stint ?
That is not from tyre offset alone, that is pure pace.

That's simplifying it too much. The tires dictate the pace.

The ONLY time we see these car's true pace is in qualifying, everything else is just varying forms of managing.

[venkyhere]

That was pointed out by the team. Charles was doing similar lap times as Oscar, in dirty air, with less degradation. The team pretty much conceded based on that, that Charles had more pace in the car than they had.

Ferrari had the car (speed and degradation) which allowed their strategy to work.

I think one thing people are missing is the car dictates the strategy. You can't force a car to do something it can't do.. that's just pounding a round peg into a square hole. Ferrari's car allowed that strategy to work. Both Mclarens were having issues, with Lando having more issues with the left front than OP.

So it's always the car, and driver input has no role, in determining graining/deg ?
The Ferrari was very gentle on it's tyres, but wasn't as fast as the Mclaren. But I wont buy the argument that it was the Ferrari car in itself that made the tyres last, it was the driver as well. LeClerc clearly drove to a target-laptime and did it expertly. Don't discount the skill of the driver from tyre wear. The driver input has to compensate commensurately, and sacrifice laptime a bit, if his car is faster on pace, but not as good on tyres as the next fastest car.

NOR was told 'box to overtake' when the tyres were just 14 laps old, just as he was about to DRS pass leClerc. Why ? that was a stupid call, throwing away life on the M tyre. He could've ran 3-4 (if not 5-6) more super fast laps on M, eaten the life out of them, and then boxed. PIA had a nett ~3s lead on NOR and a nett 5s lead on LEC, when he boxed. Why did he have to do that ? He could have ran 3-4 more laps, allowed NOR to get ahead/neck-n-neck when coming out of pits but surely stayed ahead of LEC.

Why did Mclaren panic like this ?
I wont buy the argument that they were bleeding laptime when they decided to change from M to H. They were fine with the M tyres. It's the super-bombing quali runs on fresh-H tyres that I blame the most. Both drivers said they couldn't do the one stop, and it was the driving style that caused it.

[Hoffman900]

That was pointed out by the team. Charles was doing similar lap times as Oscar, in dirty air, with less degradation. The team pretty much conceded based on that, that Charles had more pace in the car than they had.

Ferrari had the car (speed and degradation) which allowed their strategy to work.

I think one thing people are missing is the car dictates the strategy. You can't force a car to do something it can't do.. that's just pounding a round peg into a square hole. Ferrari's car allowed that strategy to work. Both Mclarens were having issues, with Lando having more issues with the left front than OP.

So it's always the car, and driver input has no role, in determining graining/deg ?
The Ferrari was very gentle on it's tyres, but wasn't as fast as the Mclaren. But I wont buy the argument that it was the Ferrari car in itself that made the tyres last, it was the driver as well. LeClerc clearly drove to a target-laptime and did it expertly. Don't discount the skill of the driver from tyre wear. The driver input has to compensate commensurately, and sacrifice laptime a bit, if his car is faster on pace, but not as good on tyres as the next fastest car.

NOR was told 'box to overtake' when the tyres were just 14 laps old, just as he was about to DRS pass leClerc. Why ? that was a stupid call, throwing away life on the M tyre. He could've ran 3-4 (if not 5-6) more super fast laps on M, eaten the life out of them, and then boxed. PIA had a nett ~3s lead on NOR and a nett 5s lead on LEC, when he boxed. Why did he have to do that ? He could have ran 3-4 more laps, allowed NOR to get ahead/neck-n-neck when coming out of pits but surely stayed ahead of LEC.

Why did Mclaren panic like this ?
I wont buy the argument that they were bleeding laptime when they decided to change from M to H. They were fine with the M tyres. It's the super-bombing quali runs on fresh-H tyres that I blame the most. Both drivers said they couldn't do the one stop, and it was the driving style that caused it.

I think Oscar said it best, "everyone is a legend on Monday".

I'm not discounting it. but all the teams have TONS more data we all don't. They have carcass temperatures, air pressure, etc. Their models are continuously refined. At this point in the season, they have a ton of data on how the tires perform.

Most people here are just looking at aggregate lap time data and the ol' ocular tire looksie "yep, looks good!" This is all way more complicated than that in reality.

[mwillems]

Mclaren said that the Ferrari didn't have the same pace but was better with the tyres.

[venkyhere]

I think Oscar said it best, "everyone is a legend on Monday".

I'm not discounting it. but all the teams have TONS more data we all don't. They have carcass temperatures, air pressure, etc. Their models are continuously refined. At this point in the season, they have a ton of data on how the tires perform.

Most people here are just looking at aggregate lap time data and the ol' ocular tire looksie "yep, looks good!" This is all way more complicated than that in reality.

Mate, I can come up with 10 other euphemisms to counter. Don't want to.
How exactly did TONS of data, cause panic, and prevent the double stack in Silverstone ?
So it's not really about data, it's about 'thinking on one's feet'. They are paid to do that. We all are armchair critics in forums like these. What else is the purpose of this forum otherwise ? To offer unqualified opinion. Nothing else.

So don't try to 'shoot down' an opinion that you disagree with, by saying "what do you know, the team has data that you don't". We are all aware it's only opinion. The purpose of this forum is lost if 'posts will be allowed' only if they are based on 'actual data that the teams have'.

Mclaren said that the Ferrari didn't have the same pace but was better with the tyres.

So Mclaren said it based on the 'TONS of data' that they have.
Thank god.

[BMMR61]

Mclaren said that the Ferrari didn't have the same pace but was better with the tyres.

They also believed that Monza was not a great track for McLaren so were decently pleased overall. Does the team's consistent competitiveness tend to overhype the fans. I don't see the MCL38 as a dominant car like the RB19 or 20 in it's earlier state. It tends to be a regular top two car since Miami but the other three teams are alternating around it. The speed difference was never as great as Hungary and Zandvoort so smashing the opposition hasn't been a given.

[mwillems]

They did. We'll see how things pan out in Baku.

[crapu7]

Let's get over this. In hindsight everybody can point out a lot of things that went wrong. Everybody in Mclaren team serves a portion of blame, be that Mclaren strategy to pit drivers way to early, Norris exposing himself once again to an overtake in the first lap be that from his teammate or somebody else, or Piastri with an overconfident move on his teammate that cost him another position. Debates of this sort are kind of useless at the moment and I'm sure the team and drivers will eventually learn from their mistakes and improve in the next stints.

How are we looking in Baku? There's no point comparing the last year performance as the car in totally different, but are we competitive with the likes of Ferrari and Redbull?

[geogate]

the biggest mistake was pitting Norris early, which meant CL and OP had to respond. I heard or read somewhere that Norris had locked his tyre trying to overtake Charles though, which forced the issue.
By this time Mclaren didn't believe they could one stop anyway

[geogate]

yeah at the end of the day, as disappointing as it was, that was a great motor race and Ferrari won it more than we lost it in my opinion.
You would think Baku would again have mclaren right up there, probably fighting Mercedes with ferrari dropping back a little - they don't seem to like the slow stuff at all. Who knows where Red Bull will be

[franbatista123]

yeah at the end of the day, as disappointing as it was, that was a great motor race and Ferrari won it more than we lost it in my opinion.
You would think Baku would again have mclaren right up there, probably fighting Mercedes with ferrari dropping back a little - they don't seem to like the slow stuff at all. Who knows where Red Bull will be

Charles will be the man to beat in quali, just look at his record here. With the cars being so close i think it'll be very tight between all teams like Monza, with Red Bull stronger. Track position is very important now and Lando or Oscar need to nail it in quali.

[Emag]

Car was good in the lesmos, but they're not your usual 90 degree corners. Just generally speaking though, they have had a great car in medium-speed corners since Miami, so bar any anomalies, they should be competitive in Baku.

I have lost faith in the drivers and the team to not f*ck something up though, so I am just going to tune in to see what they have left unchecked from the book of different ways you can screw things up in Formula1

[mwillems]

Car was good in the lesmos, but they're not your usual 90 degree corners. Just generally speaking though, they have had a great car in medium-speed corners since Miami, so bar any anomalies, they should be competitive in Baku.

I have lost faith in the drivers and the team to not f*ck something up though, so I am just going to tune in to check what they have left unchecked from the book of different ways you can screw things up in Formula1

I laughed out loud reading this, something I often don't do on F1T.

[Szabi1112]

Having slept one day what was came to my mind is, i really hope Norris didn’t decide to leave the team to join Red Bull.

I think the team wasn’t fair. He had a good start and they had to let him lead the first lap (ordering Piastri not to carry out hatsh attack like he did).

It would have meant a lot for Lando who suffered a lot from losing positions in the first lap. Lando was a team player in Hungary but the team and Oscar wasn’t in Italy.