Is McLaren really off the pace?

[myurr]

And why is that exactly? They'll start the race on the soft tyres they set their fastest Q3 laps on and then run the hards in their other stints. Red Bull used 4 sets of softs, although one set only had two installation laps due to yellow flags, and Ferrari used 4 full sets.

McLaren's long run pace has looked good all weekend and Button is predicting that they'll close the gap with Red Bull and may even be able to have a shot at the win.

If you use too many tyres in qualifying to get up the grid, you are going to be penalised in the race," he said. "Because you will then have to use used tyres all the time.

"The guys who find the right balance between what they use in qualifying and what they use in the race will be the strongest. It is not necessarily good to be on pole position if you have used lots of tyres to get there."

He added: "Where it will accumulate is the end of the race. If you come in early you are going to be much faster on new tyres, but how many times can you do that? If you are the one who is coming in early then in the end you will stop three or four laps earlier than people at the end of the race, and unless you make another stop at the end of the race you are going to run out of tyres. So it is a very fine balancing act.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/90159

So you think McLaren are going to have issues even though they used less sets of option tyres in the race and none of the top teams are likely to need another set of options as they'll use the primes throughout the rest of the race? Really not following your logic there...

You posted some info as to why it's important to make good tyre choices in the race and not use too many sets of tyres, but you don't say why McLaren are particularly badly affected by this in comparison to the others....

[Enrage]

Lewis used a set of prime for his first run in Q3 so he should have some options.

I'm convinced he used the softs on both runs in Q3.

You are correct. Lewis left the pits in Q3 at about 9:00 on option tires, went back to the pits around 4:30, and left the pits again at about 2:15 on option tires.

[N12ck]

IMO Maybe this thread should be renamed, as we all know now, mclaren are 'not off the pace' so i think it should be renamed 'McLaren's Relative Pace'

anyways, thats another matter but, Remember when eddie jordan was saying mclaren was really going to struggle,,,, he got some humble pie literally

[copperkipper1]

anyways, thats another matter but, Remember when eddie jordan was saying mclaren was really going to struggle,,,, he got some humble pie literally

Eddie: "Martin is alluded to the fact the car can't handle - they need a new car at this early stage - McLaren have a problem in their WHOLE concept...

Brundle: "Eddie STFU" (pretty much what he was thinking)

[Pup]

IMO Maybe this thread should be renamed, as we all know now, mclaren are 'not off the pace' so i think it should be renamed 'McLaren's Relative Pace'

Or maybe "Is Ferrari really off the pace?"

[Ciro Pabón]

Pup! OOT. Bad doggie!

Thanks for the laughs, btw. I've been chuckling for over a minute.

Anyway, N12ck, the question was if McLaren was out of the pace. It wasn't an assertion, so the title is OK to me. The answer, up to this moment, is no.

Egregious sandbagging.

Now, the second question is: what's going to happen when they make the "really complicated" solution work? I bet this will happen in a few months.

It's easy to become a beautiful swan when you disguise yourself as the ugly duckling.

Of course, they have been the ugly duckling for ages... really ugly.

[N12ck]

Pup! OOT. Bad doggie!

Thanks for the laughs, btw. I've been chuckling for over a minute.

Anyway, N12ck, the question was if McLaren was out of the pace. It wasn't an assertion, so the title is OK to me. The answer, up to this moment, is no.

Egregious sandbagging.

Now, the second question is: what's going to happen when they make the "really complicated" solution work? I bet this will happen in a few months.

It's easy to become a beautiful swan when you disguise yourself as the ugly duckling.

Of course, they have been the ugly duckling for ages... really ugly.

Well, i would love to see that complex solution in place , but the question is how much performance is it worth, and lets hope they dont focus all resources on one gizmo as the pace will suffer in the races up to the big update, but at the same time the complex solution would be interesting to see and may even be worth it if they can impliment it early enough.

[Richard]

OK, so the car can shift a bit in quali.

Has it actually done a race distance yet ????

[Pup]

Details.

[Richard]

Eddie: "Martin is alluded to the fact the car can't handle - they need a new car at this early stage - McLaren have a problem in their WHOLE concept...

That guaratees a front row placing for any car. If only he'd said that about HRT too

[segedunum]

Well let's face it, they're still the thick end of a second off but thank goodness they've done something because God knows what kind of race we'd have to look forward to otherwise.

They've pulled out some stops and fair play to them, but I'd like to see the car away from Melbourne and going through a few important high speed corners that we see at other circuits before I'd eat that pie.

[segedunum]

.....on the other hand, I wouldn't get too excited. The McLaren was still around 20 kph slower than the fastest car through the only real high speed corner on the circuit, and that's.......a lot. Melbourne has had a habit of producing false dawns in the past. Like Mercedes, you don't really solve woes in a couple of weeks.

[myurr]

@segedunum - for a rush job on the car they're in good shape. Look at Buttons performance behind Massa, that car has a lot of grip and downforce so I wouldn't be too worried about it. The noises coming from the team and the drivers are certainly positive, so lets wait and see how they're doing by the time we're back in Europe and all the teams have had a chance to get their next big upgrades on their cars.

What is 100% crystal clear is that the car doesn't have any fundamental flaws, is not unstable, and does not have any problems with yaw.

[Shakeman]

Until McLaren have flexi wings they will find it extremely difficult to match the Red Bull in raw pace. I have no doubt the testing data will be advantageous in developing the car but can a legal car compete with a car with a test passing/rule bending front end? As a layman it looks like a massive advantage.

I thought the McLaren looked very driveable and when Button was behind Massa he was all over him like an ill fitting suit and could follow closely in the corners too.

Roll on Malaysia

[beelsebob]

What was that about until McLaren have flexi wings?

http://www.f1arab.com/2011/03/27/teams- ... ings-2011/

As an aside - I'm sure McLaren have some big gains to come, hamilton was making comments along the lines of "the team know where the pace is, we just have to mop it up"... That, and the diffuser on the back was a crude hack job made out of titanium, they'll have a heat resistant CF one that'll be much more subtly built soon.