2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

[FW17]

It would make sense for Mercedes to part ways with Toto Wolf and return to Mclaren as shareholders.

This time they could buy into the automotive too.

[venkyhere]

I would like to give my honest opinion. Hear me out before passing judgement. I might play devil's advocate and some may be hurt if I say it but I have to say it. Do you know that the line between success and failure is very thin? People these last two days tend to ignore many factors that lead to that result and tend to overexaggerate the result. Sure I agree that Lando screwed yet another start and I agree that Max drove a masterful race but let's see.
1)He started 17th. 4 places were vacant as they started from the pitlane so 13th. Two cars were the B-Team who got orders to let him pass against the rules of the competition so 11th. After that he passed 4 cars and none of them even made an attempt to defend and I was dissapointed in Piastri not even trying to defend.
2)The first car that defended was Charles Leclerc and Max never managed to pass him. He was stuck for 26 laps.
3)The VSC ended the moment both George and Lando entered the entrance of the pit lane. Nobody could predict that and that damaged their safe pit stop window.
4)Then there was a normal SC that bunched up all the cars. Norris passed Rusell and he was at that point faster than Max and the two Alpines by 4 seconds per lap. Still the SC bunched up the field and it's safe to say that the first three had to enter or risk getting passed. In any case you would expect that Max and both Alpines would have been at the end of the pack until Colapinto somehow lost the car on Safety Car speeds. The Red Flag was a total lucky event noone could predict giving them a free pit stop.
5)Under normal circumstances Max would have been dead last without the Red Flag and then nothing suggests he would be able to pass everyone considering he couldn't pass Leclerc not to mention he would be stuck in the dirty air. I will agree that he would have been on the top 10 but not in the podium places.

Good job for his masterful race but let's not overexxagerate.

Didn't want to talk about a non Mclaren driver here, but there are some factual errors above -
To go from P17 to P6 and get to the tail of LeClerc, Max overtook 9 cars (there were just 2 vacant spots on the grid, not 4). Then he got lucky that he didn't have to overtake LeClerc, Tsunoda, Norris, Russel, because they all pitted. The only other overtake he did was Ocon after the second safety car. So overall 10 overtakes in total (2 did not start, 3 started behind ; to account for a total of 19 cars other than himself).

However, the matter of high praise for him is not really about the 'number of overtakes' anyway.

All the mainstream/social media hype about this 'verstappen masterclass' is 90% by people who don't understand racing , but from those 10% who actually understand, it is not about the P17 or the number of overtakes etc.. It's about the cleverness and skill involved in how different the lines he chose to drive were (for example the outside T3 passing of 3-4 cars in first lap was reminiscent of the same thing from brazil 2016 ; another example was how much kerb he was taking on T12 to straighten before applying full throttle for sector3) , about how he was braking into T1 and yet not locking up his fronts, and how smooth the inputs were for all the sector2 turns. The car wasn't eccentrically loaded at any point where he had to saw at the steering wheel to wrestle back the car (of course, don't know what he was doing with his feet because we can't see it on the onboard footage). As a result his tyres were in much better shape than anyone.
Yes he got lucky with red flag ; yes, many of the laptimes (until the 2nd safety car) were very similar to Russel/Norris. But it was the way in which those laptimes were achieved without punishing the car/tyres.
All the praise across the paddock from 'people in the know' is really about how differently he was driving to everyone else. It's not about the 'how much gap' or 'how many places' or any such measurable numbers.

[Szabi1112]

Weekend was painful.. really really painful, however as somebody said we could increase the gap between us and Ferrari and we can win the WCC which would be a fantastic result.
I was born in 1994 I’m fan of McLaren for as long as I remember. I never experienced winning a constructor championship.

So hope the best!

[AMG.Tzan]

Norris’s championship was pretty much lost after the first 5 races of the season! He lost around 30-40 points to Max there alone, even though Max had a DNF there…

If McLaren had the form it has had after Miami (finishing close to Max or ahead of him) in these first 5 races he would have been much closer now and probably would have taken the championship to the final round!

But in any case both Max and Red Bull have been the better combination throughout the year…experience of winning championships probably helps this too! Plus Norris isn’t still ready for a championship…maybe next year he’ll be a more rounded driver!

[Darth-Piekus]

Do you think that Lando Norris dipped in form this year in race starts, racecraft and strategical thinking compared to 2021, 2022 and 2023?

[Ben1980]

I would like to give my honest opinion. Hear me out before passing judgement. I might play devil's advocate and some may be hurt if I say it but I have to say it. Do you know that the line between success and failure is very thin? People these last two days tend to ignore many factors that lead to that result and tend to overexaggerate the result. Sure I agree that Lando screwed yet another start and I agree that Max drove a masterful race but let's see.
1)He started 17th. 4 places were vacant as they started from the pitlane so 13th. Two cars were the B-Team who got orders to let him pass against the rules of the competition so 11th. After that he passed 4 cars and none of them even made an attempt to defend and I was dissapointed in Piastri not even trying to defend.
2)The first car that defended was Charles Leclerc and Max never managed to pass him. He was stuck for 26 laps.
3)The VSC ended the moment both George and Lando entered the entrance of the pit lane. Nobody could predict that and that damaged their safe pit stop window.
4)Then there was a normal SC that bunched up all the cars. Norris passed Rusell and he was at that point faster than Max and the two Alpines by 4 seconds per lap. Still the SC bunched up the field and it's safe to say that the first three had to enter or risk getting passed. In any case you would expect that Max and both Alpines would have been at the end of the pack until Colapinto somehow lost the car on Safety Car speeds. The Red Flag was a total lucky event noone could predict giving them a free pit stop.
5)Under normal circumstances Max would have been dead last without the Red Flag and then nothing suggests he would be able to pass everyone considering he couldn't pass Leclerc not to mention he would be stuck in the dirty air. I will agree that he would have been on the top 10 but not in the podium places.

Good job for his masterful race but let's not overexxagerate.

Didn't want to talk about a non Mclaren driver here, but there are some factual errors above -
To go from P17 to P6 and get to the tail of LeClerc, Max overtook 9 cars (there were just 2 vacant spots on the grid, not 4). Then he got lucky that he didn't have to overtake LeClerc, Tsunoda, Norris, Russel, because they all pitted. The only other overtake he did was Ocon after the second safety car. So overall 10 overtakes in total (2 did not start, 3 started behind ; to account for a total of 19 cars other than himself).

However, the matter of high praise for him is not really about the 'number of overtakes' anyway.

All the mainstream/social media hype about this 'verstappen masterclass' is 90% by people who don't understand racing , but from those 10% who actually understand, it is not about the P17 or the number of overtakes etc.. It's about the cleverness and skill involved in how different the lines he chose to drive were (for example the outside T3 passing of 3-4 cars in first lap was reminiscent of the same thing from brazil 2016 ; another example was how much kerb he was taking on T12 to straighten before applying full throttle for sector3) , about how he was braking into T1 and yet not locking up his fronts, and how smooth the inputs were for all the sector2 turns. The car wasn't eccentrically loaded at any point where he had to saw at the steering wheel to wrestle back the car (of course, don't know what he was doing with his feet because we can't see it on the onboard footage). As a result his tyres were in much better shape than anyone.
Yes he got lucky with red flag ; yes, many of the laptimes (until the 2nd safety car) were very similar to Russel/Norris. But it was the way in which those laptimes were achieved without punishing the car/tyres.
All the praise across the paddock from 'people in the know' is really about how differently he was driving to everyone else. It's not about the 'how much gap' or 'how many places' or any such measurable numbers.

Max was great, but Pierre Gasly got from 15th to 3rd in an Alpine! An Alpine! Phenomenal, probably drive of the day, due to the total comparative nature of what they were driving.

[Ben1980]

Drivers rarely jump into front running cars, and when they do it's about learning.

I have never seen a driver jump into a front running or whatever car and bottling the starts with this consistency. Did you see Leclerc or Russel doing regularly bad starts?
I mean....even if you are not the best starter, getting more starts well than bad should be a possibility for a F1 driver. I really feel sorry, but this is a running gag, not something "about learning".

Same for strategy. They had two wet races this season and bottled the strategy in both. How do you want to learn this? There is no learning, you have one or two races per year. That is a topic of awareness and being a midfield team is nothing one would accept as a reason for being unaware. I do not believe Zak is happy with the explanation on "we were in the midfield" for bottling the strategy...

The problem with your arguments is you keep saying bottled. And I don't think anyone really bottling anything, and that generally makes most of your points just pointless.

I just think saying bottled is just being lazy. But, each to their own.

[Ben1980]

I have never seen a driver jump into a front running or whatever car and bottling the starts with this consistency. Did you see Leclerc or Russel doing regularly bad starts?
I mean....even if you are not the best starter, getting more starts well than bad should be a possibility for a F1 driver. I really feel sorry, but this is a running gag, not something "about learning".

Same for strategy. They had two wet races this season and bottled the strategy in both. How do you want to learn this? There is no learning, you have one or two races per year. That is a topic of awareness and being a midfield team is nothing one would accept as a reason for being unaware. I do not believe Zak is happy with the explanation on "we were in the midfield" for bottling the strategy...

To be fair to Norris... despite Russell's excellence in this past race, he isn't actually a very good starter on average. His net positions on start is in the negatives. Sainz is also in the negatives. It's not like Norris is the only driver semi-consistently losing positions on starts.

No, he is the worst. By far, outliers removed, he is the worst current driver on the first lap:
https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comme ... /#lightbox

On the initial start, do we know yet if it was actually Lando's fault?

Come on...

Do you think Magnussen is the best starter in F1?

[BMMR61]

Do you think that Lando Norris dipped in form this year in race starts, racecraft and strategical thinking compared to 2021, 2022 and 2023?

No.

Lando's limitations have been exposed by being at or near the front frequently, AND especially against a battle-hardened competitor and his tough-as-nails team. The team said what their goals for 2024 were and many scoffed - a few wins, frequent podiums? Yeah! Tick that off. The learning of what it takes to challenge for a title is under way (in the fire) and it should be in no doubt what tough guys the Red Bull team are. That we are leading the WCC is mainly down to Sergio Perez who is clearly on the downslope. Can we have realistic expectations about Lando and the team? No, I suppose that isn't a realistic expectation, , given the inexperience of many of the forum people. How many have competed in motorsport either on track or behind the scenes? Very few I would guess. There were so many points raised in the post disappointment stage of the week that was, too many to try to answer right now. However, it's surely fair to say, reality has just dawned on people - McLaren and Lando aren't good enough to take on Max. That we have almost now defeated Red Bull is extraordinary. This is a great team in the making.

[Ben1980]

When did Mclaren ladt beat Red Bull in the WCC?

[Emag]

When did Mclaren ladt beat Red Bull in the WCC?

2008

[avantman]

Lando is great of a driver, not so much of a racer if you understand what that means. He lacks a lot on multiple components that can ultimately be combined by the term the 'racecraft'. Starts and performances on the first lap is just one of those, far from the most important ones. And no, this isn't what costed him title this year. It goes far deeper. I think it is in the head.

[mwillems]

Martin Brundle giving a balanced opinion on Lando. Suggests like many that championship experience is lacking, but also suggest that he lacks the required killer instinct. This is what I mean by being a bit more savvy and robust on track. If he has a car that's clearly faster then he can do the job, but like I said before, he's not a warrior. He had to be this year to get the WDC.

https://www.planetf1.com/news/martin-br ... aws-brutal

[Ben1980]

I like Lando, and I like that he has been nurtured through the team to where he is. If he wins a title through that route, it seems more special, than a signing coming through.

My favourite driver, is probably Kimi, and I see Lando as similar. Someone who can win and can win a title but not soneone I would expect to win, or even be surprised if he didn't.

The one driver, I think who should win a title, and would be a shame if he doesn't is Charles Leclerc. I think he can go toe to toe.

I really hope that the team is competitive straight away next year, as for all the ups and downs, the car at the start was ultimately the reason we couldn't get close enough for a real wdc challenge.

[taperoo2k]

Norris’s championship was pretty much lost after the first 5 races of the season! He lost around 30-40 points to Max there alone, even though Max had a DNF there…

The RB20 looked like it was even more of a rocketship than the RB19. Then the team and form imploded. If McLaren had the car to fight with Redbull at the start of the season? I think Oscar would have been in the mix for wins as much as Lando.

If McLaren had the form it has had after Miami (finishing close to Max or ahead of him) in these first 5 races he would have been much closer now and probably would have taken the championship to the final round!

That's why it's imperative they hit the ground running in 2025. You need to be at the front from the start, then you'd not be chasing either championship if you are winning consistently.

But in any case both Max and Red Bull have been the better combination throughout the year…experience of winning championships probably helps this too! Plus Norris isn’t still ready for a championship…maybe next year he’ll be a more rounded driver!

Without Max, I doubt Redbull would have scored as many points as they have. He's dragged performances out of a car that is a step backwards from the RB19. My only complaint against McLaren is in the indecision on the pit wall when it comes to making critical choices that can swing the result of a race. Hopefully the signing of somebody as experienced as Will Courtenay will help. But I don't think he starts until 2026 (usual gardening leave).

On the upside, as the regulations are staying stable McLaren should hit the ground running and it'll be the first car that Rob Marshall and others will have had a hand in designing. 2026 will be an interesting test for the McLaren technical structure, new chassis and engine regulations will be a tough challenge to get right.