2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[Ben1980]

Back to Bahrain feeling...what a nightmare.

It's no way near Bahrain.

[mwillems]

Teamstream saying FP3 was not representative.

[Darth-Piekus]

I think they botched it. They should be able to be in Q2 at least.

[CjC]

Open goal for Aston then

[FittingMechanics]

They were quick in S1, but lost out elsewhere.

I think the pace was OK until the last run on the same set. For some reason they couldn't replicate pace from before.

With a new set it would be easy Q2, maybe even Q3.

[mwillems]

They botched it. I dont understand what the hell they were doing. Lando literally driving circles for the last 8 minutes.

At least pit and put fresh tires on if you aren't gonna set a lap.

Shocking from the strategy team. Not representative of the car's pace at all.

Real amateur hour.

From Teamstream talking of FP3:

"What we can say is that Oscar’s time came on his second push lap after a double-cool down, whereas Lando’s was his first push-lap but with a warm-up lap. There were drivers who got their time straight out of the pits on a first push – but not many, which suggests the mini-sessions – and particularly Q1 – might be messy, with drivers finding time on second or even third laps, with multiple cool-down laps between."

[organic]

Teamstream saying FP3 was not representative.

Merc powered teams were high on engine modes compared to others in Fp3.. hence russell/sargeant/oscar all overperforming

[Darth-Piekus]

Its obvious the car has improved in all types of corners but the slow corners still are our weakness despite improving in them also. Its also obvious we are gonna struggle in straights as we dont have a proper low df set up like the rest. Hopefully everything will change next year.

[mwillems]

Teamstream saying FP3 was not representative.

Merc powered teams were high on engine modes compared to others in Fp3.. hence russell/sargeant/oscar all overperforming

Makes sense. Still, it wasn't the straights that let us down was it. I know everyone gets hung up on that top speed number but when the data comes out for Q I'm certain the majority of the loss is not on the straights.

It's disappointing but I was expecting us to fall a bit further back than we were in FP2 because it look pretty horrendous with almost no redeeming trait on the track.

I do think that part of it is the tyres, I don't think we could get them into the optimum window.

[mwillems]

Was the car bouncing in Q1? Looked to me like they'd gone back to the old spec Beam Wing, but I might be wrong. Seemed to be a double element on Oscars car when I saw the rear. Obviously if they did, it didn't help the overall speed.

[Ben1980]

They should have run a second set of softs. But, maybe they didn't really see it making much difference.

It's just one of those tracks.

[mwillems]

Its obvious the car has improved in all types of corners but the slow corners still are our weakness despite improving in them also. Its also obvious we are gonna struggle in straights as we dont have a proper low df set up like the rest. Hopefully everything will change next year.

It's not that obvious. We've been very good in slow corners recently. What we got here was a track where we couldn't dial the issues out of the car. A set of circumstances that we could not get around and couldn't move the issue to a more favourible place.

[FittingMechanics]

I do like that they are aggressive in strategy - staying on one set. It is just unfortunate it cost them this time.

[mwillems]

Yeah, both drivers saying another set of softs would have been better.

Tough call, getting the tyres fire up was hard, multiple laps needed on a new set to get them to speed but we were good for Q2 otherwise, but we were still not going to go fast here.

[Ben1980]

It seems they over expected tge track to improve. But a second set shoukd gave been on it seems.