Mclaren Mercedes MP4-25

[Neno]

I think that the last few years, McLaren have really raised their game in terms of R&D and other teams need to really take note. McLarens ability to catch up mid-season is really good; however I do worry that they should concentrate more on getting a good car out of the box from day 1!

From the firast race you dont need an really fast car, other teams will still tend to make mistake and no team will get the max out of their cars.

What McLaren strength is is development in season, if you decide to bring up a great car but wich canot have that much development you actually shoot yourself in the foot, and you will fall back really quick, a great example is ferrari and mercedes, both are way behind now and will be playing catch up- all year with the 2 best Developpers in f1 these days.

Obviously think on McLaren and Renault! We look at progress through the season and reduce the delay for the fastest car.

[ell66]

I'll put these time gaps here, since it's relevant to the pace of the car. This is for valencia; the first 10 laps. Unfortunately the SC meant Alonso was not able to focus on his race and he was in traffic, so we can only use the first 10 laps to really get an idea of the pace. The cars are heavy so it reflects well on the overall performance of the cars. These are the gaps. The time data are in the race thread.

button Alonso_____hamilton alonso
0.02______________-0.01
0.419______________-0.708
1.146______________-0.187
-0.098_____________-0.59
0.943______________0.04
0.849______________0.364
0.692______________0.221
0.6________________0.33
16.997_____________0.197

Alonso is mostly faster than button here, even though button was racing kubica and webber in the first lap. Looking on the gap to hamilton, Alonso is faster from lap 5 till the accident; Hamilton's wing was broken as well.

The ferrari is not slower than the Mclaren and the new diffuser system may be more developed for the next race.
I think the f10 was the quicker car here, taking into account Button to Alonso's pace. Hamilton was still faster with the broken wing and then he slowed, so his times are not a good base, his driving is also exceptional at low fuel since he gets up to speed quickly.

Mclaren can't be complacent, they need the update at silverstone. Ferrari are yet to stretch the new f10s legs for us to write them off. And i am not even a ferrari fan, but those opening laps seemed convincing to me that mclaren will have a tough race in silverstone if the update does not bring the gains.

Im sorry but you can no make any kind of comparsion between the macs and ferrai's, hamilton had a damaged front wing, and even said afterwards he was understeering all over the place. and button was fighting for postion in the early laps.
IMO they were fairly evenly matched, but i exepct mcalren to have the edge in 2 weeks time, silverstone should suit the 25 and there f-duct well, and who knows what benefit this blown diffuser may or may not bring.

[wesley123]

I think that the last few years, McLaren have really raised their game in terms of R&D and other teams need to really take note. McLarens ability to catch up mid-season is really good; however I do worry that they should concentrate more on getting a good car out of the box from day 1!

From the firast race you dont need an really fast car, other teams will still tend to make mistake and no team will get the max out of their cars.

What McLaren strength is is development in season, if you decide to bring up a great car but wich canot have that much development you actually shoot yourself in the foot, and you will fall back really quick, a great example is ferrari and mercedes, both are way behind now and will be playing catch up- all year with the 2 best Developpers in f1 these days.

Obviously think on McLaren and Renault! We look at progress through the season and reduce the delay for the fastest car.

I actually ment McLaren and Red Bull, havent thought about Renault lol, but now you say this, lets make a wild guess, at the end of the year Renault is the third fastest team, after mclaren and red bull.

[Subi02]

About the new updates from Great Britain GP, someone knows if the team will test this package before the race? (like ferrari did before EuropeGP)

[ell66]

About the new updates from Great Britain GP, someone knows if the team will test this package before the race? (like ferrari did before EuropeGP)

i remember whitmarsh saying there gonna use one of the straighline testing days.

[jason.parker.86]

they are going to use one of their allocated straight line testing days which must mean its a huge upgrade; to see if it cooks the rear suspension arms.

The rear end of that McLaren is very complicated. Suspension arms are very oddly placed, and can see it getting very hot down there.

Although not as hot as the pre-race meeting, when Alonso and Hammy have a scrap.

[ESPImperium]

New Lewis and Jenson video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tQCXE7DDuc[/youtube]

And from that one, looks like i was wrong with the collector thing, but they do gift a few chassis to small mueseums like the one at Donnington.

[ringo]

I'll put these time gaps here, since it's relevant to the pace of the car. This is for valencia; the first 10 laps. Unfortunately the SC meant Alonso was not able to focus on his race and he was in traffic, so we can only use the first 10 laps to really get an idea of the pace. The cars are heavy so it reflects well on the overall performance of the cars. These are the gaps. The time data are in the race thread.

button Alonso_____hamilton alonso
0.02______________-0.01
0.419______________-0.708
1.146______________-0.187
-0.098_____________-0.59
0.943______________0.04
0.849______________0.364
0.692______________0.221
0.6________________0.33
16.997_____________0.197

Alonso is mostly faster than button here, even though button was racing kubica and webber in the first lap. Looking on the gap to hamilton, Alonso is faster from lap 5 till the accident; Hamilton's wing was broken as well.

The ferrari is not slower than the Mclaren and the new diffuser system may be more developed for the next race.
I think the f10 was the quicker car here, taking into account Button to Alonso's pace. Hamilton was still faster with the broken wing and then he slowed, so his times are not a good base, his driving is also exceptional at low fuel since he gets up to speed quickly.

Mclaren can't be complacent, they need the update at silverstone. Ferrari are yet to stretch the new f10s legs for us to write them off. And i am not even a ferrari fan, but those opening laps seemed convincing to me that mclaren will have a tough race in silverstone if the update does not bring the gains.

And the comparison between Button and Massa? Or does that not give the result you want?

Regardless of that comparison you cannot compare the two cars for only the opening 10 laps - field spread and traffic have to be taken into account, and one of the McLarens was damaged making comparison meaningless.

The Ferrari looked good in Q1 and Q2 but was suddenly nowhere in Q3 (relatively) when McLaren and Red Bull really stepped up to the plate. In the race Alonso had good pace in the opening stint behind a damaged McLaren but then made little impression on the hard tyres in the second stint. He admitted that the car didn't work well in the second stint. Let's not forget that he only made it past one car and that he was unable to defend against the Sauber at the end of the race - admittedly Koby had new tyres which provided him with a large advantage, but at that stage of the race the McLaren was setting faster laps than the Sauber so if Alonso really had good pace on the hard tyres he should have been able to defend.

Back on to the subject of the thread, Silverstone is hugely important for McLaren but not make or break. We've seen Mercedes and Ferrari both release their massive updates that were supposed to take both cars back to the front - Ferrari got closer but not close enough and Mercedes seemed to go backwards which was hopefully just an anomalous result .

With this update McLaren must hope to challenge Red Bull at Silverstone. If they can at least run them close then they have a good chance of beating them throughout the rest of the year. However it may take them a couple of races to fine tune their new exhaust system and truly get the most from it - which is why I don't think it's completely make or break for them at this race.

No i would not try to do that. Massa was very slow up to 1/2 a second per lap than Alonso. If he was that slower than his teammate and he was right behind him, i wouldn't use that as a good representation of the F10s performance.
It makes no sense saying the ferrari is a second a lap slower than the mclaren, so massa's times would be a waste of effort posting.
10 laps were not enough, but it's still an indicator. The rest of the race was compromised behind kobayashi for Button and Alonso, so silverstone is a better comparison when it comes.

Speaking about silverstone, it's the best track to see all out performance of all the cars so far, it's very fast and has a lot of run off so SC wont mix the race up. Hopefull the weather is good.

[ringo]

Mclaren may need a new gearbox casing to change the suspension mounting points. This may affect the dynamics of the car, but i guess they have been looking at this for months.

[jason.parker.86]

McLaren should not worry about Red Bull, as they will start the last few races from the rear of the grid because they will have used all their gearbox and engine allowance and some more.!

[spinmastermic]

McLaren should not worry about Red Bull, as they will start the last few races from the rear of the grid because they will have used all their gearbox and engine allowance and some more.!

Good point. To avoid penalties they'll turn the wick down and be racing the HRT's and the Virgins in Japan

[myurr]

No i would not try to do that. Massa was very slow up to 1/2 a second per lap than Alonso. If he was that slower than his teammate and he was right behind him, i wouldn't use that as a good representation of the F10s performance.
It makes no sense saying the ferrari is a second a lap slower than the mclaren, so massa's times would be a waste of effort posting.
10 laps were not enough, but it's still an indicator. The rest of the race was compromised behind kobayashi for Button and Alonso, so silverstone is a better comparison when it comes.

Speaking about silverstone, it's the best track to see all out performance of all the cars so far, it's very fast and has a lot of run off so SC wont mix the race up. Hopefull the weather is good.

So you compare the faster Ferrari with the slower McLaren (Hamilton was quicker in those opening laps despite having a damaged car), yet say it would be unfair to include the slower Ferrari? Basically you are selecting data that fits your hypothesis when in reality we don't have any worthwhile data on who would have been fastest.

Another way to look at it would be to say that at the end of the race both McLarens were running faster than Kobyashi and yet he was able to overtake Alonso and at the same stage of the race Massa was way off the pace. Had the Ferrari been on the same pace as the McLarens then he should have been able to defend despite there being a car in front of him. Strictly speaking he should also have been able to overtake the car in front as the Sauber managed to despite not being as quick as the McLarens.

Alonso himself admitted that the car didn't work very well on the hard tyres in the second stint. So in my view the McLaren was still the faster car and that was before they get their massive upgrade.

[Paul]

I'd have to agree. In qualy Lewis was faster than Ferraris even without his last lap, while Jenson would have been in front without his driving error. I race they were pretty much on par in the first stint, but on harder tyres McLaren were much better. Both Jenson and Fernando were in similar conditions, running in dirty air, but when Kamui pitted Jenson's tyres where like new and he could speed up significantly, while Fernando didn't save his tyres and couldn't defend against Kamui despite being told by Ferrari to chillax beforehand.

[jason.parker.86]

I really think Hammy needs to practice more at one shot laps. He is endlessly locking up one of his front wheels, or going too deep into the corner. Maybe he is pushing too hard in qualifying.

I would not take it away from him, because he has pulled some stunning laps over his career; but feel this year his qualy performance has been very average.

[dannyteasdale]

I really think Hammy needs to practice more at one shot laps. He is endlessly locking up one of his front wheels, or going too deep into the corner. Maybe he is pushing too hard in qualifying.

I would not take it away from him, because he has pulled some stunning laps over his career; but feel this year his qualy performance has been very average.

Your entitlted to your opinion and I respect that, but to me his single qually laps are one of the best in F1.
I think it has something to do with the car not having the pace over a single lap, but it has great race pace.
He locks up more than other drivers because his left leg is a death leg, he so late braking and sometimes the brakes cant handle it.
Its just the way he is, If you try to change the way he runs a single lap under braking you risk him losing the full lap speed as he'll be compensating the speed for earlier braking.

He also, more-or-less, always keeps it on the racing line when he locks up, now thats skill!