2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

[FittingMechanics]

I am sick with a flu from Friday and I feel really spent in terms of energy regarding F1 since its already decided who should be WDC.

Does that explain your continual pessimism about the racing? Is who wins the sole reason for your interest here?

My mother used to say when, as a schoolboy, I was off to the races "just enjoy the racing and don't worry about all the other stuff". Maybe she was right. If we can't enjoy an extraordinary season like F1 in 2024 because our driver or team didn't win then, what does that say?

It's important to keep things into perspective. We did not come into the season expecting to fight for WCC or WDC and yet here we are, looking with a decent chance of getting WCC and being still in the running for WDC (although unlikely).

Let's not doom and gloom. This is an amazing season so far with plenty positives. Drivers will learn a lot from it, the team will learn a lot from it and hopefully we can build on this for the future.

Anytime you are mad about the result, remember how it looked few years ago.

[basti313]

....

Change the rules, we want them to stay side by side so no point in allowing defending driver to push people off legally.

......

Don't get me wrong - I think there needs a change in guidelines as right now they are poor. Just I think it need to be carefully though out.

I guess you are missing, that there was a constant change of rules. First Mercedes introduced some nonsense to judge the battles between Rosberg and Hamilton, which the FIA took over (remember the Powerpoints?). Since then the show is spoiled with a new rule every year. That we are now sitting here discussing this bull$hit with "who is ahead at the apex" is a result of Silverstone 21 and not being able to agree on simple rules, that otherwise are present in any other racing series without issues.
For example in any other racing series they do not discuss the point, if you rotate your opponent by driving into his rear wheel, you drive through the pits. Simple and fine everywhere. In F1 we need to check if the front wheel was ahead at the apex, so that we know if you are allowed to rotate your opponent or not
Same goes for leaving space. F1 is the only racing series, that allows not to leave space...by the rules!
For me the worst part is even Toto nasty commenting on this madness he created...

I don`t know, I am a bit sick of these rule changes. Since Merc started the madness in 2015, it simply did not get better, just worse from year to year. I would say leave it, not more bull$it, please...

[BMMR61]

....

Change the rules, we want them to stay side by side so no point in allowing defending driver to push people off legally.

......

Don't get me wrong - I think there needs a change in guidelines as right now they are poor. Just I think it need to be carefully though out.

I guess you are missing, that there was a constant change of rules. First Mercedes introduced some nonsense to judge the battles between Rosberg and Hamilton, which the FIA took over (remember the Powerpoints?). Since then the show is spoiled with a new rule every year. That we are now sitting here discussing this bull$hit with "who is ahead at the apex" is a result of Silverstone 21 and not being able to agree on simple rules, that otherwise are present in any other racing series without issues.
For example in any other racing series they do not discuss the point, if you rotate your opponent by driving into his rear wheel, you drive through the pits. Simple and fine everywhere. In F1 we need to check if the front wheel was ahead at the apex, so that we know if you are allowed to rotate your opponent or not
Same goes for leaving space. F1 is the only racing series, that allows not to leave space...by the rules!
For me the worst part is even Toto nasty commenting on this madness he created...

I don`t know, I am a bit sick of these rule changes. Since Merc started the madness in 2015, it simply did not get better, just worse from year to year. I would say leave it, not more bull$it, please...

Is there a better track than Austin (it's hairpins) to illustrate the subjective nature of "the apex". Different lines produce early apex, late apex, even double apex, but at Austin, early v late, the variance is huge. I think that rule or guideline should be subservient to one for "forcing another driver off the track". Just my opinion. BUT, if Max's clever approach to using the rules were used in some corners of some tracks the results could be catastrophic. Max on the outside at Silverstone 2022 just one example of how bad this could get. Interestingly Lando getting more than a clear car length in front going into the braking zone on that lap (and lap 1) doesn't constitute him as the defender of the lead. Max simply eased off the brake and went straight on, knowing the rules would probably protect him. Clever. Vulgar. What would Jim Clark have thought?

[mwillems]

There will always be ways to exploit the rules, due to the fact that so many parts of their application are subjective. The rules would work a lot better if, for instance, certain track layouts complemented them. Pointing only to the rules is disingenuous.

The simple fact is that the car wasn't fast enough with DRS open and in my view, for a couple of evenly matched cars in straight line pace, the DRS zone was too short. I also think that gravel, as many have suggested, would be a great idea. I have no issue with changing the rules so that a driver has to afford space in a larger window of opportunity than now, but it'll still be abused.

I'm disappointed with the outcome, but Austin produced fantastic racing yesterday.

[basti313]

Is there a better track than Austin (it's hairpins) to illustrate the subjective nature of "the apex". Different lines produce early apex, late apex, even double apex, but at Austin, early v late, the variance is huge. I think that rule or guideline should be subservient to one for "forcing another driver off the track".

Yes, the rule is nonsense. Still they needed something to get "common sense" into the rules because they screwed up with "leaving space" rules that were derived from team internal rules. They threw away the simple point that you get a drive through if you rotate your opponent, and just ask on this forums...unfortunately for much too many people here it is ok to touch the rear wheel of your opponent to send him off. This translates to F1 circus. So once you go hard on the leaving space rule, we see much worse crashes again.

Interestingly Lando getting more than a clear car length in front going into the braking zone on that lap (and lap 1) doesn't constitute him as the defender of the lead.

I think this does not play a role? Only the apex judgement counts?

Max simply eased off the brake and went straight on, knowing the rules would probably protect him. Clever. Vulgar. What would Jim Clark have thought?

Well...with Jim Clark there would have been a gravel trap.

By the way: I do not think Max eased off, he was similar to Lando much too late on the brake. Not sure if Lando could have made it. If he floors it, he needs to make sure to be ahead at the apex...outsmarted, sorry...
For the start: Staying more clean to the outside in T1 would not have helped any of the two, they would have needed to go even slower opening it for Sai. Their squeezing on the inside into the corner was not good for both.

[basti313]

There will always be ways to exploit the rules, due to the fact that so many parts of their application are subjective.

I do not see the subjective part. Lando was behind at any apex, Russel was behind at any apex. So if we take the "apex" rule, there was no subjective judgement possible on this at least at the points that we discuss now.
The problem is, that you do not want to have subjective judgement, where an experienced steward can say "this is clean racing, this is not". The problem is objective bull$hit rules coming from intra team battles where no one trusted each other. And the stewards...

The simple fact is that the car wasn't fast enough with DRS open and in my view, for a couple of evenly matched cars in straight line pace, the DRS zone was too short.

.... but Austin produced fantastic racing yesterday.

How does this go together?
As mentioned before, I think the issue is cooked tires. There was excellent racing as the track allowed to defend. And once people cooked their tires, the DRS simply was not enough anymore. Lando took 5? laps from getting into DRS until he did his first attempt and was under 0.7sec at the DRS point. But at this time he was 5 times much too close in the fast corners and much too close in the last sector. Same happend to Magnussen und Perez, both also got stuck when failing to execute on the second lap after getting into DRS range.

[Emag]

Really weird first stint. Both McLaren's so slow but here it's Lando vs Leclerc vs Max.

Leclerc and Max both display a normal progression of pace. They start at a certain level, Leclerc a bit faster because he wants to break DRS. Then they both stabilize to a certain level of pace and from there their laptimes get progressively slower the deeper into the stint they go right until they pit.

Lando on the other hand, starts out with horrible performance, getting faster and faster as the stint progresses, until he too (not shown in this graph because it happened a couple of laps later), starts showing signs of tire wear and gets slower before he pits.

Other than those first 15 laps, Lando was on par or faster than Leclerc, discounting the laps stuck behind Max. Hard to gauge the second stint, because of the 5 lap tire delta, but I imagine without that it would have been on par with Leclerc.

Very bizarre car behavior. Perhaps some weird problem with taking too long to get the tires at the right operating window. Maybe an over-correction via the setup in a bid to try and improve the tire wear problems they saw in the sprint.

If it wasn't for that huge slump at the start, Lando would have overcut Max with pace alone, so it's frustrating that they couldn't get the car into the right window. The sprint format really screwed them because they did not hit the ground running from the get-go like RedBull and Ferrari did.

[venkyhere]

One common trait with many of us here in this thread is that members are too emotionally invested in the team and drivers. Just take a step back and look at the big picture holistically :

McLaren has been the faster car than RedBull from race#6 (miami) to race#19 (texas) , on some tracks it's even been 0.8-1.0s faster per lap.

Miami onwards until now (14 races where Mclaren is the faster machine) :
VER has scored 244 points, with 3 race wins, 4 podium places and 4 sprint wins.
NOR has scored 239 points. with 3 race wins, 6 podium places and 0 sprint wins.
This simply means 'execution of race' by team and driver is superior by Redbull and Verstappen, in comparison to McLaren and Norris. Whether we like it or not, this is the simple truth.

And I don't blame McLaren or Norris for this. They haven't been on the WDC/WCC fighting level for decades, they can't simply flick a switch and turn into a winning machine all of a sudden. The latter half of 2023 and 2024 are excellent seasons for Mclaren and Norris, they are learning and sharpening themselves so much. They made a brilliant driver call by throwing out Ricciardo and bringing in Piastri, and that's the reason they are leading WCC this year.
Look at the positives. Give Norris a 'a year of fighting' to bring home the WDC. This media and fan pressure is what is probably getting to him. Leave the guy alone.

[FittingMechanics]

There will always be ways to exploit the rules, due to the fact that so many parts of their application are subjective. The rules would work a lot better if, for instance, certain track layouts complemented them. Pointing only to the rules is disingenuous.

The simple fact is that the car wasn't fast enough with DRS open and in my view, for a couple of evenly matched cars in straight line pace, the DRS zone was too short. I also think that gravel, as many have suggested, would be a great idea. I have no issue with changing the rules so that a driver has to afford space in a larger window of opportunity than now, but it'll still be abused.

I'm disappointed with the outcome, but Austin produced fantastic racing yesterday.

Not sure I agree that the DRS was too short. They were two closely matched cars, maybe Norris was 0.5s faster at that time. Giving an easy overtake due to DRS would rob us of close racing.

What is the problem for me is that the defending driver can always just defend the inside, ease off on his brakes and run the other guy wide and it's a unbeatable defense. Piastri did a similar thing in Baku but he wasn't forcing the other driver off or going off to do it.

In an ideal world, DRS wouldn't allow easy overtakes between similar cars but the racing etiquette and rules would allow two drivers to go side by side in the corner. Then we would get an amazing side by side action with leaving enough space. The way the rules are now you only get the side by side action if the defender is not hugging the inside and forcing the other off.

[FittingMechanics]

If it wasn't for that huge slump at the start, Lando would have overcut Max with pace alone, so it's frustrating that they couldn't get the car into the right window. The sprint format really screwed them because they did not hit the ground running from the get-go like RedBull and Ferrari did.

Very weird weekend. Usually they were very good in sprint weekends finding the optimal setup quickly but here it just didn't work out. Maybe because they were evaluating new parts they lost too much time on that and couldn't find a good setup for a resurfaced track?

Other possibility is that they were too cautious because of the sprint, thinking that their tires will go off much quicker and only realized after a while that it's better than the top teams. This would be strange but who knows? It's hard to explain away otherwise.

Btw during the race I saw a comment from the team about the wind changing and this helping the car? Not sure of exact phrasing as I used Multiviewer and they transcribe the audio so sometimes it's not super accurate.

[basti313]

What is the problem for me is that the defending driver can always just defend the inside, ease off on his brakes and run the other guy wide and it's a unbeatable defense.

No, you can brake earlier and switch back. Lando was just not sharp enough.
You could never just hang on the outside of heavy braking corner, in no racing decade, in nearly no racing series.

I think a Hamilton or Alonso would not just try to overtake on the outside...not the first time this season to be honest.

In an ideal world, DRS wouldn't allow easy overtakes between similar cars but the racing etiquette and rules would allow two drivers to go side by side in the corner.

Well, again, this was never wanted in F1 since Mercedes was fighting themselves. That would have cost time, so they applied rules where one driver needs to yield. The issue is, that their lobby was too strong and this was taken into F1 rules (not FIA!).

[FittingMechanics]

One common trait with many of us here in this thread is that members are too emotionally invested in the team and drivers. Just take a step back and look at the big picture holistically :

McLaren has been the faster car than RedBull from race#6 (miami) to race#19 (texas) , on some tracks it's even been 0.8-1.0s faster per lap.

Miami onwards until now (14 races where Mclaren is the faster machine) :
VER has scored 252 points, with 3 race wins, 4 podium places and 4 sprint wins.
NOR has scored 242 points. with 3 race wins, 6 podium places and 0 sprint wins.
This simply means 'execution of race' by team and driver is superior by Redbull and Verstappen, in comparison to McLaren and Norris. Whether we like it or not, this is the simple truth.

And I don't blame McLaren or Norris for this. They haven't been on the WDC/WCC fighting level for decades, they can't simply flick a switch and turn into a winning machine all of a sudden. The latter half of 2023 and 2024 are excellent seasons for Mclaren and Norris, they are learning and sharpening themselves so much. They made a brilliant driver call by throwing out Ricciardo and bringing in Piastri, and that's the reason they are leading WCC this year.
Look at the positives. Give Norris a 'a year of fighting' to bring home the WDC. This media and fan pressure is what is probably getting to him. Leave the guy alone.

McLaren was not that much faster on majority of races. That is blatantly false. Only race where they were Lando was that much faster was Singapore and this was a race where Max finished P2.

McLaren could have had a better year. Some situations were handled badly (Hungary, Italy, Silverstone) but there was also bad luck (Austria DNF, Azerbaijan P16 in qualy) but it's very unfair and unrealistic to say that they had a dominant car and sing praises of Verstappen.

[mwillems]

There will always be ways to exploit the rules, due to the fact that so many parts of their application are subjective.

I do not see the subjective part. Lando was behind at any apex, Russel was behind at any apex. So if we take the "apex" rule, there was no subjective judgement possible on this at least at the points that we discuss now.
The problem is, that you do not want to have subjective judgement, where an experienced steward can say "this is clean racing, this is not". The problem is objective bull$hit rules coming from intra team battles where no one trusted each other. And the stewards...

The simple fact is that the car wasn't fast enough with DRS open and in my view, for a couple of evenly matched cars in straight line pace, the DRS zone was too short.

.... but Austin produced fantastic racing yesterday.

How does this go together?
As mentioned before, I think the issue is cooked tires. There was excellent racing as the track allowed to defend. And once people cooked their tires, the DRS simply was not enough anymore. Lando took 5? laps from getting into DRS until he did his first attempt and was under 0.7sec at the DRS point. But at this time he was 5 times much too close in the fast corners and much too close in the last sector. Same happend to Magnussen und Perez, both also got stuck when failing to execute on the second lap after getting into DRS range.

It's been discussed ad finitum. The subjective nature comes from how the rules allow you to run someone off track deliberately, not by taking any racing line but by simply blocking a driver. It's a grey area of the rules. Some stewards will see common sense, some will apply the letter of the law. And so this subjectivity, or inconsistency, exists.

As for the tyres, we were a second a lap quicker with cooked tyres once released and we could be at times around .5 seconds on the exit of T11 and it still wasn't good enough. The RB wasn't faster than us in a straight line and you could see that even when DRS opened, it is only for the very last fifth of the track that the drag delta really gave us a boost, because until you reach a certain speed DRS isn't helping you that much. A slightly longer DRS zone would have seen us through. Or possibly a little less wing.

[FittingMechanics]

What is the problem for me is that the defending driver can always just defend the inside, ease off on his brakes and run the other guy wide and it's a unbeatable defense.

No, you can brake earlier and switch back. Lando was just not sharp enough.
You could never just hang on the outside of heavy braking corner, in no racing decade, in nearly no racing series.

I think a Hamilton or Alonso would not just try to overtake on the outside...not the first time this season to be honest.

Braking early and switch back can be defended against. Norris tried to do it for 5 laps and couldn't get it done.

A really capable racer like Max will start braking when you start braking (alongside you) and either make the corner to block the apex and the switchback or let off his brakes to force you wide (if you are going deep).

He just needs to be alongside you and brake when you brake.

In an ideal world, DRS wouldn't allow easy overtakes between similar cars but the racing etiquette and rules would allow two drivers to go side by side in the corner.

Well, again, this was never wanted in F1 since Mercedes was fighting themselves. That would have cost time, so they applied rules where one driver needs to yield. The issue is, that their lobby was too strong and this was taken into F1 rules (not FIA!).
[/quote]
I don't know the details. Whoever made it into a rule needs to think about whether that improves the racing/spectacle or makes it less interesting. I would want drivers to be able to stick it on the outside and then we can get more action and maybe for multiple corners.

[mwillems]

There will always be ways to exploit the rules, due to the fact that so many parts of their application are subjective. The rules would work a lot better if, for instance, certain track layouts complemented them. Pointing only to the rules is disingenuous.

The simple fact is that the car wasn't fast enough with DRS open and in my view, for a couple of evenly matched cars in straight line pace, the DRS zone was too short. I also think that gravel, as many have suggested, would be a great idea. I have no issue with changing the rules so that a driver has to afford space in a larger window of opportunity than now, but it'll still be abused.

I'm disappointed with the outcome, but Austin produced fantastic racing yesterday.

Not sure I agree that the DRS was too short. They were two closely matched cars, maybe Norris was 0.5s faster at that time. Giving an easy overtake due to DRS would rob us of close racing.

What is the problem for me is that the defending driver can always just defend the inside, ease off on his brakes and run the other guy wide and it's a unbeatable defense. Piastri did a similar thing in Baku but he wasn't forcing the other driver off or going off to do it.

In an ideal world, DRS wouldn't allow easy overtakes between similar cars but the racing etiquette and rules would allow two drivers to go side by side in the corner. Then we would get an amazing side by side action with leaving enough space. The way the rules are now you only get the side by side action if the defender is not hugging the inside and forcing the other off.

I'm not talking easy overtakes, probably 10-20m longer would have seen plenty of exciting fighting, but if you have two closely matched cars and DRS isn't enough to get your nose into the corner at the same time as the other guy, it might be that it wasn't quite enough.

Piastri may not have done the same thing, but maybe he should have, and maybe we should be exploiting the rules on track, like we exploit them off it.