[ 2020 ] Mclaren F1 Team - Renault

[Mansell89]

Excellent mileage from the team today and that has to be important given the reduced testing time this year. Initial reports saying the car is correlating so that’s just huge- at least they know what they are working with.

Lap times will mean more next week but Mercedes remain the benchmark we can assume.

[SmallSoldier]

A couple of interesting quotes from Carlos in the Spanish media:

“It is too early to get the maximum out of the car, we are still tuning it. In any case, the car is an small step compared to the previous year, not that much in slow corners, maybe in medium speed corners, but there still a lot of things to bring to the circuit, to the first race, which I’m sure will help with slow speed corner performance and others.”

“The conditions today were very different to last year’s GP. There was a lot of grip and no wind. It was the ideal conditions, so the car felt different than last year. You can tell that the car has different things compared to the 2019, things that we are still learning and that we are starting to draw conclusions from. We still have 5 more days to continue to do it.”

“The sensations are way better, but it’s also due to the track conditions been better than in the GP (2019), but from the beginning I’ve felt that it was a step forward. The car feels awesome. We are way faster than last year at this point in time. Everything looks better, but I’ve seeing the times from the other teams and they are too. The question is where will we be. I’m very happy with the work done during winter and for running so many Km in the first day. We will push little by little.”

“Improving upon last year result, P4 in the WCC and P6 in the WDC will be hard and almost impossible. But to improve the car’s performance and be closer to the top 3, that’s a possibility. Must be our objective.”

“Some of the weaknesses of the previous car have been corrected. I’m happy with some areas of the car. But the main thing is that this car will allow us to continue to develop it better than the previous car, therefore this is a very basic, what we currently have on track, that allows us to put a lot of Km without worrying about performance. We will bring new parts in the future that I believe will improve our weaknesses, but this car is an step on the right direction.”

“Today it still choked up a bit, in the last sector. But in the first two, the car was going really well. I was very comfortable. I was surprised with how well it run in the first two sectors. The good thing is that new parts are coming, that the car of the first test is to get laps in, it isn’t the one from the first race and I expect that our times in the last sector will improve. This week is to make sure we do the laps and we will think about the last sector with more calm next week and looking at Australia.”

Probably of note also:

“We didn’t run more because we run out of tires, so the end of the session was used for Pit Stop practices and launches”


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[Emag]

I am very worried about the threat Racing Point might posses to 4th this year. They literally have a W10 from the nose up to the sidepods. Even if they are (obviously) not as quick as Mercedes was last year, copying the best car of the last season surely must be bring free lap time for them.

[FittingMechanics]

We really don’t know what the run programme for the day could have been... The team may have used one stint to simply work on differential settings, therefore the driver needs to try and be as consistent as possible in order to understand which settings are better or what is their effect on the car.

Beyond lap times, the highlight today has to be the amount of Laps they managed to run on their first day of testing... Not sure about last season, but in the stint between 2015 and 2018, the first day was always really painful for Mclaren


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They seem to be following similar programme as last year. Long run in the afternoon was a race sim with pitstops in between. That's why he was doing consistent laptimes. I'm waiting to see long run data for other teams. Last year couple of teams used to do similar race sims and laptimes were indicative of pecking order in Australia.

[SmallSoldier]

We really don’t know what the run programme for the day could have been... The team may have used one stint to simply work on differential settings, therefore the driver needs to try and be as consistent as possible in order to understand which settings are better or what is their effect on the car.

Beyond lap times, the highlight today has to be the amount of Laps they managed to run on their first day of testing... Not sure about last season, but in the stint between 2015 and 2018, the first day was always really painful for Mclaren


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They seem to be following similar programme as last year. Long run in the afternoon was a race sim with pitstops in between. That's why he was doing consistent laptimes. I'm waiting to see long run data for other teams. Last year couple of teams used to do similar race sims and laptimes were indicative of pecking order in Australia.

Yes, but until the last couple of days, drawing any conclusions on lap times could be silly... Carlos stated today that the conditions were ideal for better lap times, no wind and a grippy surface... Most teams are probably still fine tuning the new setups, trying to understand the effect on changes to it (ride height, dampening, differentials, etc, etc, etc.)... Therefore even lap times on the same day with the same tire compound could be deceiving... Furthermore, according to Carlos this is a very basic version of the MCL35 with more parts arriving next week, as well as before Melbourne.

The most interesting thing might be that even though they still consider their slow speed performance as the car’s weakness, it seems to already be better than previous year without the parts that are supposed to tackle it... A matter of waiting at this point.


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[SmallSoldier]

I am very worried about the threat Racing Point might posses to 4th this year. They literally have a W10 from the nose up to the sidepods. Even if they are (obviously) not as quick as Mercedes was last year, copying the best car of the last season surely must be bring free lap time for them.

Not only them, I believe Alpha Tauri will be up there too with what is a very similar version of the RB15... Haas seems to have brought also a very similar version of the SF90... Could be a very difficult season and we still don’t know much about the Renault and it’s capability.


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[nevill3]

The conditions each day often dictate the days testing. Too cold first thing in the morning so lots of aero and constant speed data logging with launch procedure practice pit stops and general set up tweaks. As the day warms up off come the aero rakes and the teams often try a race sim or two , or do further tuning or set up changes to verify the correlation to the sims. After lunch more long runs or glory runs early on then as the day cools once more back to the nitty gritty of data logging and experimental set up changes.

Having a reliable car allows the teams to complete their schedule of tests which bodes well for the coming season

[Mansell89]

Interesting quote from Andy Green at Racing Point:

OO7 wrote: ↑
Racing Point's Technical Director Andy Green on the Mercedes M11 EQ Power Unit:

'He also expects Racing Point to take a big step forwards in the midfield battle should the engine gains from Mercedes which they are seeing in the data be replicated on the track.
“If we get the data on the line, we will take a giant step forward,” he said.'

- Whilst a hindrance to McLaren this year, what potentially excellent news with regards to the PU switch to Mercedes next year.

[Juzh]

https://twitter.com/f1debrief/status/12 ... 80320?s=19

Hahahah very nice. So it seems this year's McLaren is already as fast as last year's Ferrari during the race, on the first day of testing.

The midfield battle will be once again brutal.

Sainz said conditions and temperatures are much better than they were for race weekend, so you can't just take it at face value.

[Xero]

I am very worried about the threat Racing Point might posses to 4th this year. They literally have a W10 from the nose up to the sidepods. Even if they are (obviously) not as quick as Mercedes was last year, copying the best car of the last season surely must be bring free lap time for them.

All these B teams will start the season well, but will quickly fall behind once the development race kicks in. 1 lap pace also doesn't guarantee race pace, as we saw with Haas last season. You will never beat a Mercedes by copying last seasons Mercedes. Not that this is McLaren's aim this season, but in the long team, focus on ourselves. McLaren have far higher ambitions than Racing Point.

[Marc.W]

I am very worried about the threat Racing Point might posses to 4th this year. They literally have a W10 from the nose up to the sidepods. Even if they are (obviously) not as quick as Mercedes was last year, copying the best car of the last season surely must be bring free lap time for them.

All these B teams will start the season well, but will quickly fall behind once the development race kicks in. 1 lap pace also doesn't guarantee race pace, as we saw with Haas last season. You will never beat a Mercedes by copying last seasons Mercedes. Not that this is McLaren's aim this season, but in the long team, focus on ourselves. McLaren have far higher ambitions than Racing Point.

Mercedes said they reached the development ceiling with the W10, so I don't know what RP are planning to do with it for the rest of the season

[FittingMechanics]

I am very worried about the threat Racing Point might posses to 4th this year. They literally have a W10 from the nose up to the sidepods. Even if they are (obviously) not as quick as Mercedes was last year, copying the best car of the last season surely must be bring free lap time for them.

All these B teams will start the season well, but will quickly fall behind once the development race kicks in. 1 lap pace also doesn't guarantee race pace, as we saw with Haas last season. You will never beat a Mercedes by copying last seasons Mercedes. Not that this is McLaren's aim this season, but in the long team, focus on ourselves. McLaren have far higher ambitions than Racing Point.

Mercedes said they reached the development ceiling with the W10, so I don't know what RP are planning to do with it for the rest of the season

Focus on 2021.

[Ground Effect]

When you copy and paste the best car on the grid from the previous year and you’re a midfield team, chances are you’ll be the strongest in the midfield. It’ll also allow them divert more resources to their 2021 project and do it much sooner. Unfortunately, this is a worry for McLaren, but it shouldn’t be if McLaren was where they’re supposed to be. Hopefully the shareholders will continue to be patient and supportive.

[bauc]

When you copy and paste the best car on the grid from the previous year and you’re a midfield team, chances are you’ll be the strongest in the midfield. It’ll also allow them divert more resources to their 2021 project and do it much sooner. Unfortunately, this is a worry for McLaren, but it shouldn’t be if McLaren was where they’re supposed to be. Hopefully the shareholders will continue to be patient and supportive.

That is not exactly correct & true. The game has changed in 2014 and since then the manufactures of PU dictated the development rate and customer teams were left without a choice but to wait for the mercy of their suppliler, that was the case until few years latter when some rules were put in place (after protest) to make sure manufactures & customers get the same updates the same software ect at the same time.

However, by this time the top 3 have developed such a technical lead, the have accumulated such a wealth (not that they didn't have it before) that left the other teams including Mclaren in the mud (okey Mclaren have themselves to blame as well due to internal problems) plus not to mention the oligopoly politics where each B team votes and supports its own boss daddy team on the green table which on the long term damaged F1 in more than one way and I'm so happy that rules will change regarding that starting next year as well.

So to simply say Mclaren are just not where they should be, while being a correct statement is not the full story.

[Ground Effect]

When you copy and paste the best car on the grid from the previous year and you’re a midfield team, chances are you’ll be the strongest in the midfield. It’ll also allow them divert more resources to their 2021 project and do it much sooner. Unfortunately, this is a worry for McLaren, but it shouldn’t be if McLaren was where they’re supposed to be. Hopefully the shareholders will continue to be patient and supportive.

That is not exactly correct & true. The game has changed in 2014 and since then the manufactures of PU dictated the development rate and customer teams were left without a choice but to wait for the mercy of their suppliler, that was the case until few years latter when some rules were put in place (after protest) to make sure manufactures & customers get the same updates the same software ect at the same time.

However, by this time the top 3 have developed such a technical lead, the have accumulated such a wealth (not that they didn't have it before) that left the other teams including Mclaren in the mud (okey Mclaren have themselves to blame as well due to internal problems) plus not to mention the oligopoly politics where each B team votes and supports its own boss daddy team on the green table which on the long term damaged F1 in more than one way and I'm so happy that rules will change regarding that starting next year as well.

So to simply say Mclaren are just not where they should be, while being a correct statement is not the full story.

My comment on McLaren is more to the fact that on paper, they’re one of the big teams, who shouldn’t be troubled by the B teams or clone teams, based on infrastructure, talent etc. But obviously, those bad years where FIA rules worked against them, plus not too good decisions by they themselves and lack of proper accountability has set them back quite a bit. I strongly believe if there’s a level playing field, or something close to that, the budget cap properly monitored, McLaren has what it takes to be successful again.