[ 2020 ] Mclaren F1 Team - Renault

[FittingMechanics]

I'm also quite optimistic. This was a preseason test where McLaren suffered no reliability problem, had no real spins that I remember and the drivers did a bunch of laps each day. They weren't bothered pushing for qualy runs and focused on understanding the car, race pace and tires. All in all perfect preseason test for McLaren. This will pay off during the season with better understanding of the car and better in season development.

Pace wise I believe we are still in 4th place, Racing Point while they were showoffs don't seem to have a huge race pace advantage and even in single lap pace haven't set the world on fire when others tried for a fast lap as well. Sure, they may start the season a bit ahead but with further development they will fall back behind. There is a lot more in having a fast car than copying design of one. I do believe Mercedes made a big step forward, and will dominate the season. Bottas casually doing a 15.7 is proof of that. McLaren may have closed the gap to top 3 teams, but may end up further behind Mercedes than before. This could open up opportunities for McLaren, if Red Bull and Ferrari are lagging behind Mercedes they will be forced to adopt more risky strategies and engine modes. This could lead to more reliability issues for them so hopefully McLaren can be comfortably 4th to pick up the pieces.

Can't wait for Melbourne.

PS: McLaren is 3rd in number of laps, Mercedes 903, Ferrari 844, McLaren 802, Racing Point 782, Red Bull 780, Alpha Tauri 769,...

[Chicane]

My impressions of preseason testing.

1] Clearly 4th fastest in terms of long run pace. Qualifying pace is really close to call.

2] The car is easier to setup and responsive to changes.

3] The drivers find it relatively easier to drive the car near the limit and hence more consistent lap times are possible.

4] Last season Mclaren struggled on harder compounds. Mclaren have made a big step in terms of their performance and consistency on harder compounds.

5] MCL35 takes car of it's tyres nicely and there is a consistent degradation pattern across all compounds.

[Darth-Piekus]

So we will meet again in Melbourne to see where the car stands.

[Carlen]

Hello everyone. How good is the balance and speed in general? What are the chances to compete with the top 3? I think Carlos showed good speed in the morning

[Emag]

Hello everyone. How good is the balance and speed in general? What are the chances to compete with the top 3? I think Carlos showed good speed in the morning

The chances to compete with the top 3 are quite slim. Unless they keep developing that car throughout the season, and the updates bring a lot compared to the others, the main contention will remain in the midfield.

The car looks good, it's definitely a big improvement over last year's car in pretty much everything. The correlation is good, so that bodes well for future upgrades. The car at this point generates a lot more downforce than last year's car, and they are already at least half a second quicker than they were in Spain last year.

Generally speaking, the car is handling pretty good, especially in medium speed corners and high speed corners, however the weakness in low speed corners remains. However, the team has recognized the issue and it is definitely a target of improvement over the season.

[SmallSoldier]

Hello everyone. How good is the balance and speed in general? What are the chances to compete with the top 3? I think Carlos showed good speed in the morning

Both questions are really hard to answer with the data in hand, nevertheless the consensus seems to be that the car is better balanced than last year, the changes made this year seem to have improved the balance through the whole lap and avoid having peaks and valleys (the MCL34 seemed to be very capable in high speed corners and suffer in the slow speed corners... the MCL35 seems to be more stable through both types).

The speed seems to be on par with the rest of the midfield, very hard if not impossible to really tell where they stack against the rest of the cars, but they have showed there is some speed in the car, Carlos doing a 1:16.8 in the C3 tires is a very decent lap and if the delta’s between compounds are to be believed, they should have been able to do low 1:16’s on C5 tires.

I’m afraid that top 3 are still far from reach, the team would have succeed if they cut the gap this season, but let’s not forget that the gap was in excess of 1 second last season, if they are in between half a second a 0,8 of a second this year, it would mean that they did a good job with the MCL35... But that 0.5second from the top3 is still a considerable gap that will be magnified in race pace during the weekends.


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[FittingMechanics]

Both questions are really hard to answer with the data in hand, nevertheless the consensus seems to be that the car is better balanced than last year, the changes made this year seem to have improved the balance through the whole lap and avoid having peaks and valleys (the MCL34 seemed to be very capable in high speed corners and suffer in the slow speed corners... the MCL35 seems to be more stable through both types).

The speed seems to be on par with the rest of the midfield, very hard if not impossible to really tell where they stack against the rest of the cars, but they have showed there is some speed in the car, Carlos doing a 1:16.8 in the C3 tires is a very decent lap and if the delta’s between compounds are to be believed, they should have been able to do low 1:16’s on C5 tires.

I’m afraid that top 3 are still far from reach, the team would have succeed if they cut the gap this season, but let’s not forget that the gap was in excess of 1 second last season, if they are in between half a second a 0,8 of a second this year, it would mean that they did a good job with the MCL35... But that 0.5second from the top3 is still a considerable gap that will be magnified in race pace during the weekends.


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Sainz said the goal is to maintain or close down the gap to Mercedes.

"My expectation or my reference is not Racing Point, but Mercedes. The goal is to qualify to less than 1.2 or 1.5 seconds, which was the difference that we got the last season of average."

From his statements, they are slightly worried about Racing Point but can't be sure of the fuels loads. This to me means that McLaren didn't run in low low fuel mode, as if they did they would know that Racing Point can't be running any lighter than them.

[Carlen]

Hello everyone. How good is the balance and speed in general? What are the chances to compete with the top 3? I think Carlos showed good speed in the morning

Both questions are really hard to answer with the data in hand, nevertheless the consensus seems to be that the car is better balanced than last year, the changes made this year seem to have improved the balance through the whole lap and avoid having peaks and valleys (the MCL34 seemed to be very capable in high speed corners and suffer in the slow speed corners... the MCL35 seems to be more stable through both types).

The speed seems to be on par with the rest of the midfield, very hard if not impossible to really tell where they stack against the rest of the cars, but they have showed there is some speed in the car, Carlos doing a 1:16.8 in the C3 tires is a very decent lap and if the delta’s between compounds are to be believed, they should have been able to do low 1:16’s on C5 tires.

I’m afraid that top 3 are still far from reach, the team would have succeed if they cut the gap this season, but let’s not forget that the gap was in excess of 1 second last season, if they are in between half a second a 0,8 of a second this year, it would mean that they did a good job with the MCL35... But that 0.5second from the top3 is still a considerable gap that will be magnified in race pace during the weekends.


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It should be noted that the car holds the working temperature range of the tires well. If we start the season with a gap of 0.5 seconds, as Seidl said, then it will be very good. I also have doubts about the real speed of the Xerox point, it seems to me that their abilities are a little exaggerated.

[kfrantzios]

The feeling I have from this preseason test is that Mclaren dealt with it as a frontrunning team. No mistakes, excellent reliability, ticked all the boxes.

[mwillems]

The feeling I have from this preseason test is that Mclaren dealt with it as a frontrunning team. No mistakes, excellent reliability, ticked all the boxes.

I agree, but that means nothing if they don't have the pace of a front running team.

Right now I feel like this is going to be a very very tight fight in midfield, for a large part of the season.

[SmallSoldier]

The feeling I have from this preseason test is that Mclaren dealt with it as a frontrunning team. No mistakes, excellent reliability, ticked all the boxes.

I agree, that has to be highlight of testing for sure... No issues, no reliability problems, the drivers didn’t bin it at all (I’m not sure, but I believe they never had an spin on track?)... In that regard, it was the best testing the team has had in a very long time.

And just from anecdotal stand point, last year the best time of testing with the MCL34 was a 1:16.9 in the C5 compound... This year, their best performance (not lap time) was a 1:16.8 in the C3 compound... That’s a very decent improvement year on year.


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[FittingMechanics]

The feeling I have from this preseason test is that Mclaren dealt with it as a frontrunning team. No mistakes, excellent reliability, ticked all the boxes.

I agree, that has to be highlight of testing for sure... No issues, no reliability problems, the drivers didn’t bin it at all (I’m not sure, but I believe they never had an spin on track?)... In that regard, it was the best testing the team has had in a very long time.

And just from anecdotal stand point, last year the best time of testing with the MCL34 was a 1:16.9 in the C5 compound... This year, their best performance (not lap time) was a 1:16.8 in the C3 compound... That’s a very decent improvement year on year.


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Yeah, 16.8 on a C3 is a fast laptime. IIRC other day had the same thing happen as well, they did a quick lap on a harder tire and then put on a softer tire which improved the laptime by a few milliseconds. So yesterday in official timing it looks like McLaren did 1:16.8 on a C4.

There are no "tire adjusted" graphs this year? Chandhook got burned last year?

[FittingMechanics]

Gary Anderson makes a big article talking about testing results, does tire and fuel adjusting and doesn't realize not everyone had their performance on the fastest lap. McLaren barely improved on C4 but he used those instead of C3.

Not to mention his "fuel adjusting" which is probably just tuning the lineup so that it fits with his expectation. On a more positive note, if he is even remotely accurate then McLaren closed the gap to top 3.

https://the-race.com/formula-1/gary-and ... r-testing/

[Ground Effect]

It’s hard to tell if our C4 time was deliberate, or maybe we had issues getting performance out of that particular tyre? But I don’t recall Carlos attempting another quick lap on the C4, or even try the C5.

[FittingMechanics]

It’s hard to tell if our C4 time was deliberate, or maybe we had issues getting performance out of that particular tyre? But I don’t recall Carlos attempting another quick lap on the C4, or even try the C5.

True, but remember that at Barcelona C3 is the soft. So any C4 or C5 runs were effectively running tires that won't be used at Spannish GP. Norris mentioned that C5 usually masks issues so I take more stock in C3 running than C4 or C5.