2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

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Our time was set on sorts at a later time, vs mediums for Max.

I wouldn't make too much of this gap. It can be explained in an instant by a car struggling to get the harder compound heated up.

Norris and Verstappen were both out at the same time, trying to set a (second) lap on Softs. Norris had to abort it due to a mistake towards the end of S2, Verstappen couldn't finish it because of the red flag. Before the mistake, Norris was more than 1s faster, with Red Bull's weakest part of the lap still to come.

Do you have lap numbers? Can't see that anywhere.

just before the red flag:



Only Hamilton still got to finish his lap, so there's no useable data on F1-Tempo, but according to someone on Autosport, Norris' dash showed that he was half a second faster than during his first lap.

Edit: Verstappen went on to to set a 31.723 in S2, by the way. 4 tenths slower than Norris previous attempt. So if the half a second improvement is correct (personally I handstopped 3-4 tenths), the gap is around 1.2s at the end of S2, on the same tire, at the same time.

[mwillems]

Thanks.

I can't tell from that if there's obvious signs of cruising. But I'd say that on past history that this is not unfamiliar territory for Red Bull who have gone on to be competitive. Personally I don't see any reason that they won't be fast in Q, yet. But I also don't see evidence they will be fast, I just won't rule them out because I just can't any evidence of their pace.

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yeah, sure, I agree. Red Bull often is pretty slow on Friday, and able to improve a lot by Qualifying. To me it just felt like that the gap is quite a bit bigger than usual.

[Macklaren]

Thanks.

Personally I don't see any reason that they won't be fast in Q, yet.

you dont think RBR saying they have brought the wrong wing to the race is evidence that something is wrong?

[Joel709]

Thanks.

Personally I don't see any reason that they won't be fast in Q, yet.

you dont think RBR saying they have brought the wrong wing to the race is evidence that something is wrong?

They didn’t bring the wrong wing, they never designed one for ultra low downforce

[mwillems]

Thanks.

Personally I don't see any reason that they won't be fast in Q, yet.

you dont think RBR saying they have brought the wrong wing to the race is evidence that something is wrong?

I'm just saying there's no evidence yet of their pace.

[Ben1980]

The Red Bull ( of Max) will be fine, top 4 in all likelihood. It's happened regularly this year.

[FittingMechanics]

About Max and his FP2 soft lap. It was shown during the broadcast and he seemed to go wide over the track limits on his first lap (at the exit of some corner). Soon after that the commentators were saying that Verstappen was taking another lap to warm up the tires (maybe he aborted because he was over track limits?). Then he started his second lap but it was red flagged.

I do think VER will be fine. The whole story about "they packed the wrong wing" seems so ridiculous it's hard to take it seriously.

But we have to remember that VER finished P6 in Monza with the same wing. What a lost opportunity that Brazil was.

[BMMR61]

The issue of "why Red Bull didn't bring a low df rear wing to Vegas".
https://racingnews365.com/why-red-bull- ... -las-vegas

As mentioned before, they haven't developed one. Why? Plenty of speculation but, between Checo's destructive ways costing millions in rebuilds (and probably new chassis), and the amount of wasted development that didn't address fundamental problems with the RB20, they've run out of cost cap, in my opinion. Nothing strange about that, in fact it's normal for resources to be diverted to next year's car before November. McLaren on the other hand appear to still have some final tricks, and the WCC motivation, for the last three weekends.

Why should we worry about Max and Red Bull anyway? Unless he gets between McLaren and any winning car in red, he's irrelevant unless McLaren really drop the ball.

[BMMR61]

On the issue of whether Red Bull, and particularly Max are genuinely not competitive at Vegas, it's too early to start calling the order of performance, we should know better than that! Red Bull have a pretty decent simulator team back at M-K that get the pleasure of all nighters when the s*#! hits the fan in practice!

Even Marko making these statements of doom don't fool me into thinking they won't look much better on Sunday (Saturday).
https://www.planetf1.com/news/max-verst ... -marko-eye

[billamend]

https://x.com/jennafryer/status/1860114977920811184

[Z-one]

Monza Spec Rearwing confirm

[BMMR61]

Quiet time on the forum given qualifying is only a few hours away, must be the timezone and the demographics......

The track evolution at Vegas is TERRIFYING! There will be high profile casualties in Q1 and Q2 surely. It's really a shame that F1 visits Las Vegas in late November with the single figure temperatures. Last time I walked the strip late at night was in early September and it was around 20C at midnight. Surprising to me is the limited amount of running in FP3, everyone seemed to be waiting for everyone else to clean up the track. I'm nervous even though there are good signs of pace from both our drivers, because the qualifying is held later at night with low track temperature a problem.

[mwillems]

https://x.com/jennafryer/status/1860114977920811184

If you change x.com to twitter.com then the forum software will show the image.

No idea why this hasn't been fixed yet.

[mwillems]

Well the kids did wake me at 5.15 am UK time, so it's a good job we look strong in Q1 so far.

Mercs and Max are close behind but hopefully we can keep this performance up.

As I say that, Ferrari get in the mix too.

Tight at the top, slipstream and track evolution are masking some true levels of performance