Vodafone McLaren Mercedes 2013

[wunderkind]

It's just the body blow I'm used as a mclaren fan

I share your sentiment. It totally sucks seeing them struggle year after year. Getting beaten by Red Bull is one thing. But McLaren was shooting themselves in the foot (poor pitwork) and squandering their chances (mechanical failures) and losing races they should have won. It is painful to watch.

[Pup]

It can go both ways. Last year, McLaren began with the best car but early mistakes and slow development meant that by the end of the season they weren't even contenders.

In contrast, Ferrari didn't make it out of Q2 in Australia last year, but a little luck early on and a steep development curve meant that they were fighting for the championship by mid season.

McLaren will have the steep development curve on their side (if you can believe their internal data) and hopefully the mistakes will remain behind them.

What they'll need is a bit of luck. Drivers like Alonso and Hamilton make their own luck - hopefully Button can do the same.

[CjC]

I'm not writing anything off just yet, it's just the first day out of 57 f1 days of competition and mclaren do have a knack of making a bad car good, but I think vettel will be too far gone to be able to be reeled in, unlike last year when mclaren didn't capitalise on their strong (another tough poll to swallow) so when Ferrari sorted the car performance out, they had a smaller points deficit than there would be if one man/ team had dominated

[Shakeman]

Whitmarsh, http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2013/03/15/w ... s-mclaren/

I wonder if Lowe will be drafted back in to help sort this out?

[Anon123]

Whitmarsh, http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2013/03/15/w ... s-mclaren/

I wonder if Lowe will be drafted back in to help sort this out?

I think that could be a last resort but I can't imagine Ron Dennis giving in to Lowe with him joining Mercedes.

[CjC]

Ha, I thought that before - problematic car and Lowe surely cant be used to fix any of the munerous issues the car has and why would Lowe want to? Imagine the conversation - 'Paddy can you help?', 'Yes I'd love to help you beat the team I'm going to join'.

Like I stated before I'm suffering brusing from the body blow so I may regret saying this but I cant see any light at the tunnel at the moment.

My thoughts before the season was that if Mclaren wish to win the championships this year they'd have to produce a car that is a clear 4ths faster than the rest, it turns out that they are close to 3 seconds off my wishes currently

is it too early to start serious development on the MP4-29?

[rifrafs2kees]

Did you just hear Martin Whitmarsh's interview during FP3? ....the dejection conveyed by his body language is humbling...sounds broken. I hope affairs don't sink to an even lower point.

[bm150]

Ref to the -29.
Development on the 29 has been ongoing for some time now and i do worry about the effort and man power they are losing on the current car due to this.
I only hope that the changes they have made in the way of suspension and what not is to help understand the 29 more for next year.
Lets hope everyone else has engine failures this year. you can dream cant you.

[ringo]

Hamilton is starting to look like a genius with his departure.
What troubles me the most though is the current drivers don't seem to have that glimmer of hope charisma that Hamilton brought to the team during his tenure.
Usually when the car was crap, he did all he could to squeeze performance out and they eventually figured out how to solve problems, or they either mitigated their losses by a reasonable result.
I'm not getting the push and the drive from Button and his engineer as we did with Lewis. It's as if it's all placed at the feet of the engineers and the drivers only want to know when the car will be ready again. They don't seem to want to push through and force the issue.
Well let's see what happens, but i feel it wont take 3 races to improve the car.

[Shakeman]

Apparently they've seen glimmers of the performance but through a very tiny operating window and steps they've taken to dial out understeer have robbed the car of rearward grip.

What I find interesting is that the noises coming from McLaren during the launch period was that they had made a significant step forward or at least that's what the simulator was saying. There's obviously a disparity from the simulation and the real world which must be a real concern given how successful McLaren have been using the simulator for development in previous years.

None of us are under the illusion that the simulator is 1:1 with the real world but it'll be interesting to hopefully find out what the cause of the error between the two is.

[CjC]

Indeed. Also probably didn't or doesn't help having the wind tunnel god knows how many miles away in cologne either

[McMrocks]

just a question:
Is it true that the mp4-27 was build by Goss?

Button "We now have Tim Goss. He has built some fantastic cars. Last year's car was by him and has seven Grands Prix won. We spent the majority of the season pretty quickly. We should celebrate the fact that Tim is not and remember that Paddy goes. "

http://www.formel1.de/de/3260?newsID=1681455

true?

[Emerson.F]

Did you just hear Martin Whitmarsh's interview during FP3? ....the dejection conveyed by his body language is humbling...sounds broken. I hope affairs don't sink to an even lower point.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6iaLusYNrM[/youtube]

[CjC]

just a question:
Is it true that the mp4-27 was build by Goss?

Button "We now have Tim Goss. He has built some fantastic cars. Last year's car was by him and has seven Grands Prix won. We spent the majority of the season pretty quickly. We should celebrate the fact that Tim is not and remember that Paddy goes. "

http://www.formel1.de/de/3260?newsID=1681455

true?

Yea I believe that Tim Goss built the 27, he's a 20 year mclaren man too

[Shakeman]

Did you just hear Martin Whitmarsh's interview during FP3? ....the dejection conveyed by his body language is humbling...sounds broken. I hope affairs don't sink to an even lower point.

Ouch! That was a bit harsh of the Sky boys juxtaposing a Mercedes looking quite racy next to the dejected Whitmarsh.