This forum contains threads to discuss teams themselves. Anything not technical about the cars, including restructuring, performances etc belongs here.
MCL39 in 2025 is looking every bit like the RB19 in 2023. More than 1s/lap on race pace. Even if others 'add performance' over the season, it's too big a gap to bridge. Congrats on the WDC and WCC.
Australia always suits us. There will be tracks where we aren't fastest, but it looks promising.
The car is already clearly better at the front end and better in wet conditions, so that's two major flaws addressed. Let's see a few more tracks to see if they had to compromise.
Stella said that neither Melbourne nor Bahrain were expected to be strong tracks for the Mcl39, with that in mind, I look forward to see what can be achieved on tracks that do favour it's characteristics
At about mid point of the race Oscar closed in on Lando and was looking like he could challenge for the lead, but was told to hold position. 2 or 3 laps later he was told they were free to race, but he had lost momentum by then. It didn't make sense to me.
Q: (Stefano Mancini – La Stampa) Kimi, will you help Vettel to win his championship this year?
Kimi Raikkonen: I can only drive one car, obviously.
@2018 Singapore Grand Prix drivers press conference.
I thought the floor damage happened when they both went of track.
Regarding the hold position, it was supposed to be due to traffic and drying conditions. I did not see much point in it either, but maybe it was something they talked about in prerace briefing.
Awesome race, great job by Lando to keep it together on a difficult day like today.
I think the hold station was just managing the transition between very worn inters to slicks, especially with back markers.
I noted Oscar had been told he needed his tyres for transition, so think he was burning them a but much in his pushing. I think Lando was managing his, so not sure Oscar would have got past him at that point. Oscar made at least one error after passing the back markers, so think it was likely his tyres going.
Formula one can be a harsh environment, and with changeable weather comes the unknown. McLaren were 100% correct in briefly imposing team orders. They had built a big advantage and to risk throwing that away would be foolish, on a day like today. They needed to keep that tyre advantage, not wear them down needlessly fighting each other, as I'm sure Lando could have gone faster had he had too but was just managing the pace, so I don't think Piastri would have passed anyway
It shows that McLaren have learnt from last year's mistakes, and have an eye on the big picture,. Just like any other team fighting for a championship, the team has to come first
Piastri will benefit from decisions like this in the future, that's what happens in F1. What goes around, comes around/ I have no doubt that had they have been ib the reverse order at the time, Lando would have been told to hold position too
At about mid point of the race Oscar closed in on Lando and was looking like he could challenge for the lead, but was told to hold position. 2 or 3 laps later he was told they were free to race, but he had lost momentum by then. It didn't make sense to me.
They clearly were scared Oscar would have tried a divebomb on a wet track potentially offing both drivers. With backmarkers around it just increases the chance one of the drivers gets a corner wrong and then they get into a scrap.
It just gave me the impression that they want to let the drivers race, but only if it's super safe to do so. They're literally scared of losing points unnecessarily. I am certain they would have told Lando to back off too if he was on the same position. If we had a fully dry race, they would have been free to race for sure
Formula one can be a harsh environment, and with changeable weather comes the unknown. McLaren were 100% correct in briefly imposing team orders. They had built a big advantage and to risk throwing that away would be foolish, on a day like today. They needed to keep that tyre advantage, not wear them down needlessly fighting each other, as I'm sure Lando could have gone faster had he had too but was just managing the pace, so I don't think Piastri would have passed anyway
It shows that McLaren have learnt from last year's mistakes, and have an eye on the big picture,. Just like any other team fighting for a championship, the team has to come first
Piastri will benefit from decisions like this in the future, that's what happens in F1. What goes around, comes around/ I have no doubt that had they have been ib the reverse order at the time, Lando would have been told to hold position too
When Oscar got close to Lando today I immediately thought of Monza and how he burnt up his tires trying to keep Lando behind. It seems to me that Oscar struggles to contain himself to the detriment of his own tires/race when it comes to racing Lando.
I also feel that they might not fully trust him to not pull risky moves against his team mate, hence the call to not race while clearing backmarkers.
MCL39 in 2025 is looking every bit like the RB19 in 2023. More than 1s/lap on race pace. Even if others 'add performance' over the season, it's too big a gap to bridge. Congrats on the WDC and WCC.
Australia always suits us. There will be tracks where we aren't fastest, but it looks promising.
The car is already clearly better at the front end and better in wet conditions, so that's two major flaws addressed. Let's see a few more tracks to see if they had to compromise.
Stella said that neither Melbourne nor Bahrain were expected to be strong tracks for the Mcl39, with that in mind, I look forward to see what can be achieved on tracks that do favour it's characteristics
Interesting, worth watching. Each and every year we come here it's shown off the cars performance. I'm hard pressed to believe this was one of our weaker tracks but hey, who knows. Hopefully it is!
We will look back at this race as the single most important race for McLaren and Norris of the whole year. To withstand Verstappen's pressure in conditions like this with a broken car is massively important for Lando's confidence. From now on, only failed updates by McLaren or a quick Piastri can pose a problem for the title . I expect a total demolition of the other teams in China.
