McLaren MCL34 speculation thread

[rgava]

Well, I don't share that opinion. They were utter crap from day 1 and only scored big points because of the mistakes of others. You could already see it on the comparisons with last year. McLaren should have made the biggest jump of all teams, but on some tracks they were just a couple of tenths quicker, while there were much quicker tires available in quali.

Just take Brasil for example:

McLaren
1:09.593 (2017)
1:09.402 (2018) - 0.191

Mercedes
1:08.322 (2017)
1:07.281 (2018) -1.041

So McLaren did only improve with a tenth, while Mercedes is going around a full second quicker. It shows how terrible this chassis was and how big the problems were.

Or in USA they were actually slower.

McLaren
1:35.007 (2017)
1:35.294 (2018)

That's why it annoys when people claim that the 2017 chassis was crap, because it clearly wasn't. Although it also wasn't as good as the top 3.

Curiously, if we average the year on year laptime improvement on all the tracks (skipping anomalies like rain one year and dry weather the other McLaren improved 1.072 seconds and Mercedes improved 1.117 seconds, so they loosed only 0.045 seconds / lap average on quali times.
If we take best FP lap as a basis, McLaren improved 0.913 seconds and Mercedes 1.003 seconds, so they loosed 0.09 seconds on average to Mercedes year on year.
Only on or two races don't make a clear picture of the comparison.

[RonDennis]

Well, I don't share that opinion. They were utter crap from day 1 and only scored big points because of the mistakes of others. You could already see it on the comparisons with last year. McLaren should have made the biggest jump of all teams, but on some tracks they were just a couple of tenths quicker, while there were much quicker tires available in quali.

Just take Brasil for example:

McLaren
1:09.593 (2017)
1:09.402 (2018) - 0.191

Mercedes
1:08.322 (2017)
1:07.281 (2018) -1.041

So McLaren did only improve with a tenth, while Mercedes is going around a full second quicker. It shows how terrible this chassis was and how big the problems were.

Or in USA they were actually slower.

McLaren
1:35.007 (2017)
1:35.294 (2018)

That's why it annoys when people claim that the 2017 chassis was crap, because it clearly wasn't. Although it also wasn't as good as the top 3.

Curiously, if we average the year on year laptime improvement on all the tracks (skipping anomalies like rain one year and dry weather the other McLaren improved 1.072 seconds and Mercedes improved 1.117 seconds, so they loosed only 0.045 seconds / lap average on quali times.
If we take best FP lap as a basis, McLaren improved 0.913 seconds and Mercedes 1.003 seconds, so they loosed 0.09 seconds on average to Mercedes year on year.
Only on or two races don't make a clear picture of the comparison.

Yeah, but you forgot about the Honda engine, which was a disaster in the first half of the season, so it's completely useless to compare the average times of both seasons. That's the reason why I took two of the last few races. Take the first race for example:

1:23.692 (2018)
1:25.425 (2017)

That's mostly because of the engine and doesn't show a clear picture of how good the chassis is.

[godlameroso]

First exact explanation of the problem, hope he is right as there is hope then, priestly always a pleasure to listen to
Thanks for sharing

What piece of bodywork is between the front wheels and the sidepods, answer, bargeboards, exactly what I've been saying since MARCH of 2018. I even made a thread in the aero section.

hahahaha

Listen, you were as wrong as you were right. Plenty of people, myself included, were arguing since June that this was a chassis problem that was causing the Aero to be so rubbish. So we were also correct. As correct as you in fact.....!

You said Bageboard area (Correct) and aero fix (Wrong, would never work).
We said Chassis problem (Correct) and wherever else (Wrong).

For me I'm not that technical, but it was clear from the information coming from different places within Mclaren that this was not a straight forward aero issue and was related to correlation that was not replicated in the wind tunnel. In fact there is a post somewhere where I state specifically that this issue appears to be due to on track behaviour of the car that caused the aero to degrade in performance, and I said that fairly early. But I guessed this to be suspension, from the information around. Someone suggested pitch and yaw, others said rear suspension (me).

Perhaps a bit more open mindedness from all sides would have merged those two notions together of BB and chassis and worked out the flaw.

Whatever helps you sleep at night, we'll see when the new car comes out what changed.

[rgava]

Well, I don't share that opinion. They were utter crap from day 1 and only scored big points because of the mistakes of others. You could already see it on the comparisons with last year. McLaren should have made the biggest jump of all teams, but on some tracks they were just a couple of tenths quicker, while there were much quicker tires available in quali.

Just take Brasil for example:

McLaren
1:09.593 (2017)
1:09.402 (2018) - 0.191

Mercedes
1:08.322 (2017)
1:07.281 (2018) -1.041

So McLaren did only improve with a tenth, while Mercedes is going around a full second quicker. It shows how terrible this chassis was and how big the problems were.

Or in USA they were actually slower.

McLaren
1:35.007 (2017)
1:35.294 (2018)

That's why it annoys when people claim that the 2017 chassis was crap, because it clearly wasn't. Although it also wasn't as good as the top 3.

Curiously, if we average the year on year laptime improvement on all the tracks (skipping anomalies like rain one year and dry weather the other McLaren improved 1.072 seconds and Mercedes improved 1.117 seconds, so they loosed only 0.045 seconds / lap average on quali times.
If we take best FP lap as a basis, McLaren improved 0.913 seconds and Mercedes 1.003 seconds, so they loosed 0.09 seconds on average to Mercedes year on year.
Only on or two races don't make a clear picture of the comparison.

Yeah, but you forgot about the Honda engine, which was a disaster in the first half of the season, so it's completely useless to compare the average times of both seasons. That's the reason why I took two of the last few races. Take the first race for example:

1:23.692 (2018)
1:25.425 (2017)

That's mostly because of the engine and doesn't show a clear picture of how good the chassis is.

Let's take out first 6 races, due to what you call "disaster engine" and last 6 races due to McLaren not making chassis evolutions (so, from Canada to Singapore):

McLaren improved 1.093 seconds on average while Mercedes improved 1.508, so the difference is 0.415

This IMHO means McLaren did evolved from 2017 to 2018 and not went backwards on chassis side, their 2017 chassis was not as good as they claimed and the Honda engine was not as bad as they said.

"McLaren should have made the biggest jump of all teams"

This shows you still blame of all McL problems to Honda and I think it's clear not.

Back on topic, this is to especulate about the 2019 McL before it's launch. I think the fundamental problems are not only on last year's car but on the full engineering operation at McL.

Hopefully the changes there will have a possitive impact on MCL34.

[Holm86]

https://twitter.com/i/status/1085506580311932934

[charliesmithhd]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DxDpcGBXcAI8C3J.jpg:large

[bucker]

Mercedes thin nose

[lio007]

Massive airbox intake...

[NathanOlder]

Mercedes thin nose

Or just this nose with a few bits missing ?

[charliesmithhd]

Mercedes thin nose

Or just this nose with a few bits missing ?

https://d2d0b2rxqzh1q5.cloudfront.net/s ... c85c09.jpg

They removed some of the bits at the end of the season

[PhillipM]

Camera's moved, merc-like 'whisker' flow conditioner, new sidepods and intakes - wonder how much of that is just sketched in as a mockup and how much is actually on the new car.

[Dipesh1995]

No raised sidepod inlets. Hmm....Was hoping they would have taken the Ferrari/Red Bull route.

[LM10]

I’m sure that none of what’s seen on this picture will be on the car eventually. Why would they show even one piece of the new car at this stage?

[trinidefender]

Deleted

[PhillipM]

I’m sure that none of what’s seen on this picture will be on the car eventually. Why would they show even one piece of the new car at this stage?

Kinda looks like someone took a W09 and blended the McL nose and new rear wing onto it tbh.