2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

[Ben1980]

Lando destroyed Max today. If Oscar had started a bit farther up and put some pressure on Max I think he could have pushed Max into a big mistake.

The only one making mistakes iwth a healthy lead was Norris, it was actually a pretty poor performance brushing those walls and the lockup with the front wing damage. Poor mistakes with 0 pressure.

0 pressure?

Stop showing yourself up.

[chrisc90]

Ah yes. Red Bull magically lost a 0.8 sec advantage over Mclaren after Miami and then is 0.5 at a disadvantage for some reason other than the asymmetric braking being removed. Look nobody wants anyone to be cheating but you cant help it. Red Bull is full of controversy. Budget gate, Abu Dhabi fix, Horner gate, Jos vs Red Bull, asymmetric helping wheels, special rules for Max. Take your pick.

To be fair, probably a combination of a lot of things. McLaren bringing a good update which brought them from midfield to front runners, then red bull and ferrari taking a wrong upgrade path and losing months of time and upgrades. Ferrari had a bad upgrade with the Barcelona floor, which made their car bounce like mad. Mercedes have been ebbing and flowing all season. Still no proof of Red bull being told to remove magic suspension, asymmetric braking valves or whatever.
The only thing that has been clamped down this season, that we know for a fact, is Mclaren Flexi DRS flap.

[bananapeel23]

Ah yes. Red Bull magically lost a 0.8 sec advantage over Mclaren after Miami and then is 0.5 at a disadvantage for some reason other than the asymmetric braking being removed. Look nobody wants anyone to be cheating but you cant help it. Red Bull is full of controversy.

Red Bull brought upgrades that made them lose a bit of performance. McLaren brought a massive upgrade that brought 3-4 tenths.

Red Bull kept having correlation issues and brought upgrades that made the car more unpredictable and harder to drive. McLaren brought more upgrades that made the car faster. Thus Red Bull lost their advantage.

Correlation issues tend to manifest in a strange way. Teams bring updates. The car just doesn't respond like they think it will, so they go back to the drawing board to make the updates work like intended. Then the issues just get even worse, becuase the data in the CFD or wind tunnel doesn't align with reality. It's a terribly slippery slope and extremely difficult to dig yourself out of. Mercedes and Ferrari have dealt with it for years before resolving it (Mercedes arguably still hasn't). Aston Martin hasn't brought a single upgrade that worked since before Canada 2023. Correlation issues are just absolutely horrible and can compound very quickly.

This is F1. People encourage and celebrate cheating as long as it's just a clever interpretation of the regulations. People would be happy to admit Red Bull did use asymmetric braking if there was any evidence of it. Problem is that there isn't. Everyone up and down the grid fervently denies that Red Bull was even using the trick, including all the other top teams.

[Emag]

It's unfortunate that it is very unlikely to happen at this point, but I really hope Lando wins it just to rub it in the face of all of these salty fans who can only get satisfaction out of the sport when their favorite team/driver is winning or by sh*tting on the competition when they aren't.

I don't even think Lando deserves it if we are going from a pure race conversion/maximizing point of view, but man would it be funny to see the total meltdown and the cope all over the social media calling Lando an unworthy WDC at the end of the season

And just as an extension of this. As a person who enjoys the sport as a whole and browses around the social media fan pages of several teams even if at the moment I might be biased more towards one, you see posts like these and I honestly think they are just repulsive :



Never have I witnessed an era in the sport, where fanbases of opposing teams have collectively bashed a driver for not being 100% perfect on a title fight before. Everywhere you go at the moment, is filled with McLaren/Lando hate.

One has to wonder if it's all stemming from jealousy. After all, McLaren was nowhere for a long time. People were starting to think of them as a midfield team. But here they come now, all of a sudden, completely outdeveloping teams which for the better part of the last decade, were completely out of touch for them.

[bananapeel23]

Max fans coming here talking about mistakes? Remember 2021 when Hamilton made Max lose a 40 points advantage with a lot of mistakes? What about Miami and Austria when Max had the lead? Hungary?

Lets not talk about how the Dutch is the FIA's golden boy escaping race bans and penalties for various schennanigans.

[Emag]

Another good take by Matt here, who is a Ferrari / Leclerc fan.

Honestly, even Vettel early in his RB career wasn't getting this level of slandering. And boy was RedBull/Vettel disliked back then. Seb Vettel is the original "car merchant". I guess if social media was this predominant back then it could have been similar, but people did end up having a change of heart for Seb later when he joined Ferrari.

Lando hasn't been perfect this season, no doubt about that, but everyone seems to keep him under a microscope.

The moment he makes the slightest mistake, this is what I imagine people at twitter are doing before writing their hate messages :

[Vanja #66]

And just as an extension of this. As a person who enjoys the sport as a whole and browses around the social media fan pages of several teams even if at the moment I might be biased more towards one, you see posts like these and I honestly think they are just repulsive :



Never have I witnessed an era in the sport, where fanbases of opposing teams have collectively bashed a driver for not being 100% perfect on a title fight before. Everywhere you go at the moment, is filled with McLaren/Lando hate.

One has to wonder if it's all stemming from jealousy. After all, McLaren was nowhere for a long time. People were starting to think of them as a midfield team. But here they come now, all of a sudden, completely outdeveloping teams which for the better part of the last decade, were completely out of touch for them.

That's not an official fan-club account and is in no way affiliated to the team. That's just a person getting traction by using Ferrari name, like many other team fan/news/insider accounts leeching on team fanbases

[Emag]

And just as an extension of this. As a person who enjoys the sport as a whole and browses around the social media fan pages of several teams even if at the moment I might be biased more towards one, you see posts like these and I honestly think they are just repulsive :



Never have I witnessed an era in the sport, where fanbases of opposing teams have collectively bashed a driver for not being 100% perfect on a title fight before. Everywhere you go at the moment, is filled with McLaren/Lando hate.

One has to wonder if it's all stemming from jealousy. After all, McLaren was nowhere for a long time. People were starting to think of them as a midfield team. But here they come now, all of a sudden, completely outdeveloping teams which for the better part of the last decade, were completely out of touch for them.

That's not an official fan-club account and is in no way affiliated to the team. That's just a person getting traction by using Ferrari name, like many other team fan/news/insider accounts leeching on team fanbases

I am fully aware of that. I did mention it is a fan page. But for a twitter page named "Ferrari News", to have a post which is publicly slandering the driver of another team to be one of the most liked in their page, just shows the current state of the fandom and the general toxicity there is towards Lando in particular, but McLaren in general.

I am not saying they don't deserve some criticism for throwing away some results, but this is too much.

[bananapeel23]

Another good take by Matt here, who is a Ferrari / Leclerc fan.

Honestly, even Vettel early in his RB career wasn't getting this level of slandering. And boy was RedBull/Vettel disliked back then. Seb Vettel is the original "car merchant". I guess if social media was this predominant back then it could have been similar, but people did end up having a change of heart for Seb later when he joined Ferrari.

Lando hasn't been perfect this season, no doubt about that, but everyone seems to keep him under a microscope.

The moment he makes the slightest mistake, this is what I imagine people at twitter are doing before writing their hate messages :

https://i.imgur.com/AntKcae.png

It's not hate. It's just that people (including me) are arguing that he isn't making the most of a car that has been capable of winning almost every race since Miami, and that the championship should be closer than it is.

Singapore was not one of those days. His pace was excellent, he was just taking too many risks he probably didn't need to.

I'm not even complaining. Norris not being on the level of Verstappen or Hamilton is making this season a lot more exciting.

[CMSMJ1]

Back on topic please.

All this Yin-Yang waffle needs to be taken to Reddit

[Darth-Piekus]

Then bananapeel you clearly dont remember how many mistakes Max did before he got his first title in a year that he had a good car for the first time. As the rest here said Mclaren never had a car that could give 1 second to the competition as the Red Bull of 2022 and 2023. And I wouldnt call sending others off the track a good driver but that is my preference.

At the end of the day you need to give Lando some slack. Its the first time he is challenging for a championship in his life.

[CjC]

Social media is defiantly an issue and not just with F1.

What a lot forget is this is Landos first season in a race winning car in F1, he has to learn from all of the new experiences he’s encountering.

The ‘mega’ Leclerc, Hamilton and Verstappen had the luxury of racing in race winning machinery in their 1-2 seasons in F1 so any mess ups they made (there was many) it gets chalked up as rookie/ in-experienced mistake. Lando isn’t being afforded such slack in his 5th season.

Haters and just gonna hate though no matter what but it’s only their race/ mood/ day they are spoiling so just leave them too it. Life is too short

[BMMR61]

If you allow it, all these unknown posters that come here spreading their dislike of this and that to make some kind of obscure point - can be wearying if you let it. That it suddenly explodes into pages that are mostly unworthy additions to any sane argument, is frustrating. Or you could just describe them like we used to as "pissing on somebody's parade"! Can I say that without Mr Bin Salayam coming after me?

[Emag]

I just went on this rant because it's been the norm lately that whenever this team gets any decent result, there is a downpour of comments coming here from fans of other teams picking on small things just to demean the value of the achieved result. And it's not only happening here, you see it everywhere.

I'll be off for a while now anyway, with the large break until the next race. Hopefully people would have calmed down a bit until Austin.

[BMMR61]

Another good take by Matt here, who is a Ferrari / Leclerc fan.

Honestly, even Vettel early in his RB career wasn't getting this level of slandering. And boy was RedBull/Vettel disliked back then. Seb Vettel is the original "car merchant". I guess if social media was this predominant back then it could have been similar, but people did end up having a change of heart for Seb later when he joined Ferrari.

Lando hasn't been perfect this season, no doubt about that, but everyone seems to keep him under a microscope.

The moment he makes the slightest mistake, this is what I imagine people at twitter are doing before writing their hate messages :

https://i.imgur.com/AntKcae.png

It's not hate. It's just that people (including me) are arguing that he isn't making the most of a car that has been capable of winning almost every race since Miami, and that the championship should be closer than it is.

Singapore was not one of those days. His pace was excellent, he was just taking too many risks he probably didn't need to.

I'm not even complaining. Norris not being on the level of Verstappen or Hamilton is making this season a lot more exciting.

See. Just blinkered reporting of things to make a point. Did Max ever dominate a race and suddenly a TV replay shows him going off or having a close encounter with the barriers while "taking too many risks he didn't need to"? ANSWER - numerous times.

Driver "levels" are bandied around on these fan-based sites like they are objective facts.

The media have hyped up McLaren to being the "dominant", "fastest". A better description would be "consistently fast" or "competitive". As as has rightly been stated earlier, the McLaren has only been dominant at Hungary, Netherlands and Singapore, and I would dispute Monza as race pace was somewhat shaded. So the tally of "domination" really looks thus;
Rounds 1- 5 uncompetitive
Rounds 6-12, 14, 16, 17 competitive
Rounds 13, 15, 18 dominant

At various stages of "competitive" races McLaren's drivers encountered conditions like changing weather and grip levels that made for better or worse results - Silverstone and Canada seemed to play into Mercedes to some degree, being just one example. Clear air, qualifying issues, just a couple of things beyond the driver, are other factors. Strategy is the biggest area of weakness and that seems to be of late somewhat improved. Lando's starts/first laps, seem to be getting sorted.

Am I trying to make a point for Lando? Only that he has been subjected to some pretty unfair criticism as well as more valid points, certainly he hasn't been perfect. The pressure of him, and the team, somehow being expected to win the WDC from -80 points is ludicrous, Will Buxton being the worst of offenders.