McLaren have gone through a difficult season, but a proper look at their new MP4-31 suggest they have put in considerable effort to come back from that swiftly.
A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
GoranF1 wrote:Alonso said whole new aero package for next race.
Is it too far a dream to think they could get very close to Ferrari in Hungary then?
A bit optimistic but if they finish the year close enough to Ferrari with the possibility that in 2017 they could be equal or slightly ahead, many will eat their words by criticizing Alo for abandoning Ferrari and going to Mclaren. Because until now he has been right that Ferrari wouldn't have gave him a winner car last two years.
GoranF1 wrote:Alonso said whole new aero package for next race.
Is it too far a dream to think they could get very close to Ferrari in Hungary then?
Ferrari have three tokens left so if Honda can maximise there's they have a small chance but do Honda have enough tokens left to bring something big this year that's the question..
We can rave about the aero work that has been done by McLaren in comparison to RBR, but the reality is that a relatively aero simple car like the FI still was faster because of the PU.
chengzhongyi2013 wrote:We can rave about the aero work that has been done by McLaren in comparison to RBR, but the reality is that a relatively aero simple car like the FI still was faster because of the PU.
cannot wait for 2017, bring it on
Yes and No. With the rain equalising out the power units we saw rbr driving around the outside of Mercedes while Mclaren were struggling to deal with Williams.
No, you saw Max driving around the outside of Nico. That's not the same thing. Especially when Nico is a 1-2 seconds a lap slower than the other Mercedes in the same conditions...
Posted this in the F1 2016 In-Season Test, Silverstone 12-13 July thread too....
Not making any assertions, just an interesting comparison:
Fernando's current time (midday on Tuesday) in testing is 1:31.290 on softs, last year's quali lap by Hamilton was 1:32.248 on new Mediums. Don't have info on how long Fernando's run was on the softs.
Fernando's Q3 lap for the race was a 132.343, a 10th off last year's pole. His deleted (track limits) lap was around 1:31:6 if I recall correctly. He did a 1:31:7 in Q2. So am I right in saying the 2016 McLaren would have had the potential to take pole in the 2015 event? Is the current 2016 Honda half a second quicker than the 2015 Mercedes at the same time last year? I don't recall that conditions were that unfavorable in 2015, though 2014 was mixed running. Could some of the difference be attributed to the difference in the 2015 and 2016 Medium compounds?
The Mercedes pole lap improvement of 3 seconds (32:2 to a 29:2) from 2015 to 2016 is huge, even accounting for different tyres and conditions. I think very few would have predicted such a huge leap in performance for the front runners. Fernando's Q1 lap in 2015 was a 1:34.959, so McLaren saw a 2.6s improvement, it would have been a 3.3s improvement had he not exceeded track limits.
Edit: Hmm, the timing screen I saw said Softs for Alonso in today's test, but I've seen photos of the McLaren out on red SuperSofts...not sure how reliable the tyre info is.
Last edited by bryanbrink on 12 Jul 2016, 17:35, edited 1 time in total.