Is McLaren really off the pace?

[raymondu999]

Seg, bear in mind though that that piece was based off Sam Michael's words. And Sam is on Williams' payroll

[segedunum]

I'm afraid if you read it isn't just Sam Michael's words. There's an observation in there about the McLaren's behaviour that is not unlike some of the other ways we've seen it described.

[Pup]

That observation seems to have been influenced more by hunger pangs than anything else. Lesson for the day: never deprive a sports reporter of a free lunch.

[Richard]

Seg, bear in mind though that that piece was based off Sam Michael's words. And Sam is on Williams' payroll

Who'd have thought an F1 company offering shares to the market would big up their chances of geting 3rd in the WCC?

My hunch is that reality lies somewhere in the middle ground. Even the 24 which was awful in testing managed to get creadblity by the end of the season winning 2 races and finshing 3rd in the WCC ahead of Ferari.

I do agree with seg that it is fascinating seeing the story unfold.

[speedsense]

IMHO- Running on a new set of tires and a light fuel load, setting a fast lap is not something we'll see during a race. With these tires no matter which compound, the second lap is the fastest and everything after is slower. So one can not be sure of fast testing times as a pace of the team/car.

It will be the averages of a) length of a stint on tires b) having a little higher speed average over the course of a tire stint c)plotting out which compounds to use and when. C) fastest pit stops.

Mclaren has been doing "sub-system" testing, where data is collected on individual items performance and Button/Whitmarsh have stated that they are behind in that program to the point where there hasn't been a "package" run yet with the combinations of KERS, ARW, exhaust, etc. run and focused on. The next test will be the "pointer" of the Mclaren and where they sit in the pecking order, as the "package" is run in anger.
Though I wouldn't look to the fast times, but rather how the life of the tires is to everyone else's as this will be key to winning races this year. Horsepower, downforce, handling won't mean much if the tires aren't lasting on the car or at least getting two to three laps longer on a set of tires.

[Florio]

I don't think it is. They are obviously very behind in their testing schedule, as they only went on shorter runs, testing individual compenants. Then there's the two different exhaust layouts, which takes 2 hours to fully change to the different layout, and one of which caused some reliability problems, which explains the constant 1 lap installations and then not seeing them for half an hour.

They also said at the launch that their aero aim was similar to last year, hence the sidepods (already discussed) and that this would translate to them being able to run a softer suspension layout than last year to suit the weaker tyres. Pirelli have been saying constantly now that their tyres perform well in hotter temperatures, to which the highest track temp's we've been having are lower than 20degrees.

They've also got the new FW to suit the sidepods, minor diffuser adjustments, a new ARW/RW. Also, an interesting insight from Johnathan Neale, who stated that their testing had a lot of focus into simulator development.

Personally I don't think we'll find out until Oz to find out the pecking order, same goes out for last year, when Macca and Ferrari were test toppers, until Bahrain....

[raymondu999]

I'm not sure what you can take out of this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsp ... 411112.stm

[Shrieker]

I'm not sure what you can take out of this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsp ... 411112.stm

Uh oh... Doesn't sound good. Especially the "2009 df level" part

[raymondu999]

I don't know whether he means, generally 2011 CARS have 2009 levels of downforce (due to the DDD loss) or whether he means HIS car has the same amount of downforce as HIS 2009 car.

[Tamburello]

How would he know the level of grip of other cars?

[raymondu999]

I don't think he's talking specific figures though. He's talking (probably) in ballpark figures.

[ben_watkins]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsp ... 411112.stm

Both Hamilton and Button fear the car is off the pace and are looking for more from the car.. Hamilton said it's like their '09 car which was a dog.. except it's not bouncing or three wheeling..

[Richard]

Headlines talking of doom, then there is this quote

it handles really nice, better than last year's car, but it just doesn't have as much downforce.

I didn't see any canine references. The reason for the reduced downforce is obvious, no DDD.

Button said "We've not done as much running as we would have liked, which has hurt our set-up."

So, the shock horror story is that a car without a DDD has less downforce, and a team that has missed an entire testing session has had less time adjusting the set up.

Next week on F1techical we'll be investigating if animals of the family Ursidae deposit their excreta in areas heavily dominated by arboriculture.

[Raptor22]

and it also doesn't haveit final aero package or exhaust system and it has not been running KERS consistently = Sandbagging

[i70q7m7ghw]

Even with those things, the car isn't suddenly going to leap infront of Red Bull...