Mclaren Mercedes MP4-25

[kalinka]

OK. Maybe I'm annoying, but I have to ask again : Where did McLaren lost it's wet weather advantage that we saw at China and partly in SPA? MP4/25 was superior in wet, but what happened in Korea ? Does it has any relation to EBD, or the flexi-wings working so much better in wet ? Another mistery for me : Why didn't McLaren has changed their setup to wet, during the race stop, like Mercedes ?

[Just_a_fan]

In China, McLaren had the f-duct which meant they could run more downforce with no loss of speed on the long straight. In later wet races the other top teams had neutralised that advantage to some degree.

[i70q7m7ghw]

hes 20 points behind despite lewis having had 4 dnfs, of which only 1 was his fault.
when jenson retired in monaco, he was running 11th for gods sake, hardly missing out was he?
the car is solidly 3rd best sometimes 2nd at circuits like spa.
jenson just isnt fast enough pure and simple. i was impressed by his win in china, but australia was complete luck im afraid.

but back on topic, how substantial are the proposed updates for brazil?

20 points is nothing, this new points system just makes everything look spaced out. In old money that's about 8 points. Situation looks different now eh?

It's clear he's not faster than Heiki, and he is fortunate to have a better car to drive than what heiki had in his 2 years at Mclaren. Heiki may well return and have much improved race craft which he earned in Lotus.
The Mp4 25 is not meant to be trundling around behind saubers and Torro Rosos. Without even attempting an overtake. As bad as heiki was in the first 15 laps of a race, he'd be on the pace and overtaking soon after.
I'm not ignoring Button's season though, he did well to stay in the shadow of the championship, but he's been soundly beaten by his teammate the whole year, in a car that was pretty much neutral and not exactly to Hamilton's liking in some instances.

Wow. Check out the contradiction. Your saying Button isn't allowed to blame the car and it's actually all his fault. Then you defend Kovalainen by saying the car was the reason he was only able to collect half as many points as Lewis in 2 seasons, AND Lewis won the championship in the 2008 McLaren, how was that car not good enough for Kovalainen?... enjoy your bias.

McLaren aren't going to win this championship, it's becoming more of a fact now and I think it's time they look to next year's car if they haven't done so already. With the development of the engine maps for the EBD do you think exhaust blowing directly in to the diffusers is possible next year?

[ell66]

hes 20 points behind despite lewis having had 4 dnfs, of which only 1 was his fault.
when jenson retired in monaco, he was running 11th for gods sake, hardly missing out was he?
the car is solidly 3rd best sometimes 2nd at circuits like spa.
jenson just isnt fast enough pure and simple. i was impressed by his win in china, but australia was complete luck im afraid.

but back on topic, how substantial are the proposed updates for brazil?

20 points is nothing, this new points system just makes everything look spaced out. In old money that's about 8 points. Situation looks different now eh?

considering everything thats happened this year for lewis to be ahead of jenson by 20 points tells you everything you need to know.
he's outpaced him at 90% of venues and by a decent margin as well. i allways knew lewis would be to much, but i thought jenson would have a few weekends were he genuinly had better pace than lewis, rather than having to rely on strategy calls.

[rifrafs2kees]

I'm not drinking the KoolAid, Jenson had the whole year to challenge and he is yet to make his presence felt as the reigning WDC. His 2 wins are basically a lucky Korea race clone. He is yet to challenge for a win.
The best driver pairing this year is Webber and Vettel, or Barichello Hulkenberg.
Jenson is too slow, and has us looking at the car for problems, when in fact he's the one with problems every race.
The suspension part on the car was not killing his brakes. Hamilton had the same braking issue as well. I don't believe the part was a rotor or any part having to do with the actual braking. It may have well been a brake duct or caliper cooling duct; some aero part.
And in Korean race conditions, it may amount to nothing in terms of extra cooling.

He simply is not fast enough to keep up with the top 4. The car is slower than the redbull yes. But it can still get podiums as we can see by Hamilton's performance.
qualified 3rd in Suzuka, podium in Korea, on the way to a podium in Singapore.
It's a good reliable race car that can pick up podiums if things go right.

Jenson could have easily had zero wins this year if the luck shifted ever so slightly. Korea made this pretty clear. You can't gamble on parts and pitstops to try and catalyze a race. Speed is what counts overall. We've seen this with Alonso, Vettel, Webber and Hamilton. When you have raw speed you don't have to depend on luck or strategy. Those things are secondary.

It's clear he's not faster than Heiki, and he is fortunate to have a better car to drive than what heiki had in his 2 years at Mclaren. Heiki may well return and have much improved race craft which he earned in Lotus.
The Mp4 25 is not meant to be trundling around behind saubers and Torro Rosos. Without even attempting an overtake. As bad as heiki was in the first 15 laps of a race, he'd be on the pace and overtaking soon after.
I'm not ignoring Button's season though, he did well to stay in the shadow of the championship, but he's been soundly beaten by his teammate the whole year, in a car that was pretty much neutral and not exactly to Hamilton's liking in some instances.

Your bias againt Button is ridiculous. For all the bad talk about the guy, he's only been clearly beaten by Alonso and Hamilton. You have Webber and Vettel, who are in a car that is sometimes 2 secs faster per lap and has been virtually dominant everywhere, trailing Alonso. And you harp on Button like he's 80 points behind Hamilton. What Button doesn't have in speed, he makes up for in good calls and an ability to avoid trouble. We've all seen what happens when team mates with about the same speed fight for a world championship. While he may not be the best, he's far from the image you paint of him. I'm happy with him because Mclaren could win a constructors championship or 2 with him. It wouldn't be a foolish bet to bet that, had Button been in one of the redbulls, he could be leading the championship by now. Sure, he wouldn't be spectacular, however, he wouldn't have flown in Valencia a la Webber style, crashed into someone the way Vettel has.....Give him a break.

[Richard]

Riffra & Ringo - this is the MP4/25 thread. Its about the car.

[mx_tifoso]

Look guys, I don't want nor like to edit posts/threads so please stop discussing the drivers performance in car development topics such as this one. *For the meantime everything will stay as is but if the it continues we will clean it up.*

If you don't have any car development specific material to add then limit your participation to just reading.

[PlatinumZealot]

I think it is related; Button Blames the car for everything! Of course this can give some insight into the nature of the car. Hamilton doesn't complain he just get's on with it. It could mean that the car is still difficult to drive at the limit.

On the drop in performance in the rain, I think the updates that were brung to the car increased its speed in the dry, but as compromise, its rain performance dropped for whatever reason. We know that it burns out tyres in no time: Button was the first of the top 5 to pitstop in Korea, Hamilton had zero tyres by the end of the race and we know that it's brakes and top speed are no longer the best in the rain, as Hamilton and Button were overtaken by the two Mercedes.

[raymondu999]

Yeap. That's the one thing that I actually prefer Webber over Button for. Webber mans up and say "I cocked it up" or "I was too slow" whereas Button makes it seem as if he's always on the limit and "he had no grip" or the car was "undriveable"

[zgred]

[Shrek]

[quote="zgred"][quote]
is that a screen in front of the radiators?

[wesley123]

back to the normal f-duct it seems...

[forty-two]

back to the normal f-duct it seems...

Or maybe they're planning on blowing both elements?

[raymondu999]

John Legard did say that in Suzuka they had a new f-duct to blow both elements. But it's Legard, so we should take that with a grain of salt.

[i70q7m7ghw]

Apparently Jenson has gone in a different direction to Lewis and is running a different rear wing and a different front wing. I have a feeling Lewis is using the original f-duct and Jenson is using the f-duct that blows the main element.