2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

[geogate]

Mark Webber on Coulthard and Jordans podcast

[CjC]

@Emag:

We could potentially have seen McLaren do the opposite of the other 3 top 4 teams.
Ferrari, Red Bull and now Mercedes have brought upgrades that took them/ is taking them some time to understand and in doing so seeing their performance dip, where as for Mclaren they had a dramatic upturn in performance which they didn’t expect and we know Stella has confirmed that they had to understand what happened, so I guess I’m essentially saying that all the top 4 teams have had to do the same amount of investigation work but with massively different race results on track.
I could argue that considering the Miami update came first, McLaren had to start and finish their investigation works before the other 3 and and have now been finding pure gains for a lot longer than the other 3, theoretically giving them a potential laptime advantage over the field in development. Remember Stella himself said they find a tenth a week in development.

The other 3 are having to bring ‘developments’ to a development to make them work, where as McLaren could just be making pure gains back at the factory to eventually send them into the stratosphere?

Also you said before that you are slightly worried about next season… didn’t Rob Marshall recently say in Zandvoort how impressed he was with Mclarens correlation?

@Mwillems:

I too have a feeling that the floors are kinda at their limit.
I also think with the Miami floor Mclaren kinda aced it and reached the ‘useable’ limit so I’m actually surprised that Stella has even admitted that they have developed a new floor at all.
I’ve been thinking for some time now that the teams are at the limit of peak downforce within this rule set and the development war will be to create the same level of downforce for less drag/ more efficiency as they call it. I thought we were starting to see this in Zandvoort when Mclaren introduced those new brake ducts and suspension fairings.

One thing I will keep saying, Stella
said before Monza that there are still developments planned for the coming RACES. So stuff is still on the way

[mwillems]

Yeah I'm sure I read there are updates at Baku. But don't quote me.

[FittingMechanics]

I think they are just thorough. Why rush things? You spend money making them and then if it doesn't work you lost that money. The upgrade path with bigger packages insteaf of trickling it in is obviously working.

Don't worry about journalists taking things out of context and pushing narratives. If anything it says the team has more aces in their sleeve.

It is Andrea Stella who says they were worried they would hit the same road-block Mercedes & Ferrari hit though. I do not concern myself with clickbait titles.
I read the articles that are interesting to me and draw my own conclusions.

So you are forcing me to quote Stella:
“But there's a reason why we haven't brought some upgrades – because we see that, had we pressed the go button, we might have had some doubts when these parts were tested full-scale on the real car.

“So we are taking our time to convince ourself that the development is mature to be taken trackside.”

Emphasis (bold) mine. To me this reads not as worrying but as being smart and prudent with the developments. They will exhaust simulation options and "low hanging fruit" in the development BEFORE making the parts and bringing it to the car.

It doesn't say they are sure they would hit problems, it does not say they are worried, it says they are not pushing updates as fast as possible as they want them to be rock solid. And to me all that makes sense and is obviously working.

I know people tend to be cautious but in a situation where McLaren looks to be fastest, all upgrades work as intended when they bring them to the car, why the doom and gloom?

[FittingMechanics]

Yeah I'm sure I read there are updates at Baku. But don't quote me.

In the team stream during Monza weekend they said that the new rear wing was really meant for Baku and that they will run Spa wing in Monza as that is what the data showed.

Found the quote from FP1 by Jarvis.

Andrew Jarvis
August 30th, 2024 13:23
Obviously, Monza is famous for its long straights, which makes it a low drag circuit, so understanding our rear wing choices is going to be important too. We’ve got two versions with us: there is the low-downforce rear wing that was introduced for Spa, and an ultra-low downforce version being introduced here that may also be useful in Baku and Las Vegas.

[geogate]

that is surprising - i thought Baku was medium-low downforce

[Emag]

I think they are just thorough. Why rush things? You spend money making them and then if it doesn't work you lost that money. The upgrade path with bigger packages insteaf of trickling it in is obviously working.

Don't worry about journalists taking things out of context and pushing narratives. If anything it says the team has more aces in their sleeve.

It is Andrea Stella who says they were worried they would hit the same road-block Mercedes & Ferrari hit though. I do not concern myself with clickbait titles.
I read the articles that are interesting to me and draw my own conclusions.

So you are forcing me to quote Stella:
“But there's a reason why we haven't brought some upgrades – because we see that, had we pressed the go button, we might have had some doubts when these parts were tested full-scale on the real car.

“So we are taking our time to convince ourself that the development is mature to be taken trackside.”

Emphasis (bold) mine. To me this reads not as worrying but as being smart and prudent with the developments. They will exhaust simulation options and "low hanging fruit" in the development BEFORE making the parts and bringing it to the car.

It doesn't say they are sure they would hit problems, it does not say they are worried, it says they are not pushing updates as fast as possible as they want them to be rock solid. And to me all that makes sense and is obviously working.

I know people tend to be cautious but in a situation where McLaren looks to be fastest, all upgrades work as intended when they bring them to the car, why the doom and gloom?

I mean, of course he will say “might”, nobody knows what happens until it happens. It’s pretty clear they have had issues with the development plan though, I don’t see how you can conclude anything else. If you had a plan and you don’t stick to it because you think there might be problems if you go on with that plan, then that’s not good.

They have the luxury of being in a position where their main competitors fumbled and have been wasting time fixing things. If any of them had successful developments, you wouldn’t be saying this, instead you would be complaining.

In an alternate universe people would be asking why hasn’t there been a major upgrade since Miami when competitors have brought 2-3 and now McLaren is at the bottom of the leading group?

And it’s not like they have been dominating races anyway even if the car has been good enough to win more times than they have. They need a straightforward race to win with the current maturity of the pitwall, so obviously a faster car would help. They are not withholding upgrades because they can, they are withholding them because they have been unsure about their effect on the car.

[FittingMechanics]

that is surprising - i thought Baku was medium-low downforce

Possibly it won't be used in Baku, they did say "may be useful". But I guess it is something to evaluate.

[FittingMechanics]

I mean, of course he will say “might”, nobody knows what happens until it happens. It’s pretty clear they have had issues with the development plan though, I don’t see how you can conclude anything else. If you had a plan and you don’t stick to it because you think there might be problems if you go on with that plan, then that’s not good.

They have the luxury of being in a position where their main competitors fumbled and have been wasting time fixing things. If any of them had successful developments, you wouldn’t be saying this, instead you would be complaining.

In an alternate universe people would be asking why hasn’t there been a major upgrade since Miami when competitors have brought 2-3 and now McLaren is at the bottom of the leading group?

And it’s not like they have been dominating races anyway even if the car has been good enough to win more times than they have. They need a straightforward race to win with the current maturity of the pitwall, so obviously a faster car would help. They are not withholding upgrades because they can, they are withholding them because they have been unsure about their effect on the car.

But there were several updates since Miami, in last three races for example.
In Spa they brought low downforce package, something they did not have last year (rear wing, beam wing, rear brake duct)
In Zaandvoort they brought new front brake scoop, revised front suspension, revised floor edge, modified rear suspension and new high downforce rear wing and beam wing (making older one obsolete).
In Monza they brought new front brake duct, new front wing flap and new sidepod shape.

They also brought a new ultra low drag wing in Monza but didn't use it. These types of updates are similar in scope to most updates other teams bring, exception being Ferrari with their Monza special.

Ofcourse if the team was slow, we would be more critical. My point is why the doom and gloom if the team is taking more time to mature the updates when things are clearly working? Things they bring are good and bring performance. I think that we will see a shift toward McLaren style development with bigger updates but more spread out, because teams are realizing the cars are so complex that trickling things in is risky.

[Emag]

I mean, of course he will say “might”, nobody knows what happens until it happens. It’s pretty clear they have had issues with the development plan though, I don’t see how you can conclude anything else. If you had a plan and you don’t stick to it because you think there might be problems if you go on with that plan, then that’s not good.

They have the luxury of being in a position where their main competitors fumbled and have been wasting time fixing things. If any of them had successful developments, you wouldn’t be saying this, instead you would be complaining.

In an alternate universe people would be asking why hasn’t there been a major upgrade since Miami when competitors have brought 2-3 and now McLaren is at the bottom of the leading group?

And it’s not like they have been dominating races anyway even if the car has been good enough to win more times than they have. They need a straightforward race to win with the current maturity of the pitwall, so obviously a faster car would help. They are not withholding upgrades because they can, they are withholding them because they have been unsure about their effect on the car.

But there were several updates since Miami, in last three races for example.
In Spa they brought low downforce package, something they did not have last year (rear wing, beam wing, rear brake duct)
In Zaandvoort they brought new front brake scoop, revised front suspension, revised floor edge, modified rear suspension and new high downforce rear wing and beam wing (making older one obsolete).
In Monza they brought new front brake duct, new front wing flap and new sidepod shape.

They also brought a new ultra low drag wing in Monza but didn't use it. These types of updates are similar in scope to most updates other teams bring, exception being Ferrari with their Monza special.

Ofcourse if the team was slow, we would be more critical. My point is why the doom and gloom if the team is taking more time to mature the updates when things are clearly working? Things they bring are good and bring performance. I think that we will see a shift toward McLaren style development with bigger updates but more spread out, because teams are realizing the cars are so complex that trickling things in is risky.

There is no doom and gloom as I see it to be honest. Just discussing the meaning of latest words by Stella and the possible impact their issues might have. I just don’t agree with the view that there is absolutely nothing wrong with what he has said. Definitely something has been a little bit off with the development plan this year. How impactful it might be medium to long term, we can’t really know at this point.

[BMMR61]

The talk of "no updates since Miami" is misleading I think. The Miami update was a major major. It worked to a considerable extent immediately but also gave a lot of scope for evaluation and refinement. Then there were the circuit specific things, especially rear wing and beam wing, which Stella knew needed addressing since being caught out at Spa last year. Then there have been the enhancement parts which have minimal impact on balance with the rest of the car - suspension fairings and brake ducts to improve efficiency being the obvious examples. as our competitors have discovered, when you mess around with new floor designs it's much easier to upset the dynamics of the car. Correct me if I'm wrong but at the very least Mercedes and Ferrari have suffered with new floors that didn't work as per simulation in the last 8 races. This fact would naturally be troubling for Stella. Alternately with McLaren's excellent correlation so far, you could commit to using Oscar as the "mule" to test this new floor at Baku on Friday. McLaren's use of single car updates is the obvious way to avoid going down blind alleyways, or at least reduce the risk.

[BMMR61]

I think it's right to hold back on whether "the Monza upgrade" made the difference and maybe even became a gamechanger. When we went great with the new updates at Miami we all held our breath and waited for a much better indicator at a track like Imola. Answer confirmed. With Mercedes they had a sudden return to form at Canada - an outlier track and outlier conditions then uncertain form at Spain and Monaco. Russell's win at Austria was hardly vintage then the two wins by Hamilton had the caveat of things going their way - Spa less so. Until Spa I doubted Mercedes had done more than reduce the gap. In fat to date that's where they are.

So with Ferrari, we need to wait several races. Leclerc is a Baku specialist, and Ferrari would appear to suit Singapore before we go back to more "flowing" tracks at Austin, Mexico and Brazil, These three I would expect would provide RedBull the best chance to beat us. USA (Austin), Brazil and Qatar are all sprint weekends and tracks that should suit us so - more points on offer there!

[mwillems]

Yeah I'm sure I read there are updates at Baku. But don't quote me.

In the team stream during Monza weekend they said that the new rear wing was really meant for Baku and that they will run Spa wing in Monza as that is what the data showed.

Found the quote from FP1 by Jarvis.

Andrew Jarvis
August 30th, 2024 13:23
Obviously, Monza is famous for its long straights, which makes it a low drag circuit, so understanding our rear wing choices is going to be important too. We’ve got two versions with us: there is the low-downforce rear wing that was introduced for Spa, and an ultra-low downforce version being introduced here that may also be useful in Baku and Las Vegas.

It's an odd thing I noted at the time, because Baku requires more DF than Monza, so I'm interested to see what they run.

[Macklaren]

as long as Lando outscores Max by 10+ points in each race and McL scores more points that Ferrari and RBR, it doesn't matter if we win in Baku and Singapore

[mwillems]

If on average max finishes 4th each race then Lando needs to get over 20 points per race. If Max on average finishes 5th then Lando needs to average 2nd per race.