2022 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[McLarenMor]

No, because it still looks like they could be 4th fastest tomorrow. And I don't know what you expected, but that was always going to be the target, realistically.

Why would that be the target?
You had a better car than Ferrari the last 2 seasons on avarage.
Now they look like the team to beat, why McLaren couldn't?

Ferrari has been the better team for a couple of years now. They had a setback in 2020 because of the power unit debacle.

In 2019, McLaren was nowhere near Ferrari.

Last year as well, Ferrari had both the better team and the better car. They were consistent the entire season, and they reacted incredibly quickly to whatever issues they had.

So why 4th is still the target? Because, I hate to admit this, McLaren is just not good enough to battle beyond that. At least not yet.

Would be nice to have them closer to the top 3 this year though.

McLaren had a 3 possible victory streak on raw pace from spa to Russia.
Norris was by far the best car on track at spa qualy before the crash and winning pace at Russia without the late shower.
Don't think Ferrari had that the entire season.

In this kind of huge regulation overhual nothing is given, and McLaren had/has every chance of coming out on top.

We will agree to disagree.

[Emag]

Why would that be the target?
You had a better car than Ferrari the last 2 seasons on avarage.
Now they look like the team to beat, why McLaren couldn't?

Ferrari has been the better team for a couple of years now. They had a setback in 2020 because of the power unit debacle.

In 2019, McLaren was nowhere near Ferrari.

Last year as well, Ferrari had both the better team and the better car. They were consistent the entire season, and they reacted incredibly quickly to whatever issues they had.

So why 4th is still the target? Because, I hate to admit this, McLaren is just not good enough to battle beyond that. At least not yet.

Would be nice to have them closer to the top 3 this year though.

McLaren had a 3 possible victory streak on raw pace from spa to Russia.
Norris was by far the best car on track at spa qualy before the crash and winning pace at Russia without the late shower.
Don't think Ferrari had that the entire season.

In this kind of huge regulation overhual nothing is given, and McLaren had/has every chance of coming out on top.

We will agree to disagree.

They didn't have the raw pace to win any race last season. You are fooling yourself if you think McLaren was faster than Merc/RedBull in Monza. It was just difficult to overtake there and McLaren had decent straight line speed.

In Spa, Lando was quicker because of the unusual conditions. Highly unlikely it would have been that way if it was dry.

And in Russia, they took advantage of penalties on Lewis and Verstappen. On a dry track though, Lando couldn't match Lewis' pace, eveb though he was able to hold on because of the difficulty to overtake and great straight line speed.

But yeah, those 3 races were clear outliers (along with Austria) last year where McLaren outperformed every other midfield team, and quite significantly actually.

But there were other cases where McLaren was outperformed heavily by the midfield.

And that's not a good thing, because it means you are not consistent. And consistency is very important. Ferrari might have not had as frequent of flashes of performance as McLaren last year, but they could maintain a very competitive level much more consistently from track to track.

And as for your last point. These cars have been in development for about 2 years. In those two years, McLaren has improved a lot. But the competition on top has not gotten worse. You were just assuming one or more of them was going to drop the ball this year.

The thing is, for McLaren to get back at the top, they don't just have to do a good job. Because you have to expect everyone will do a good job from one year to the next.

McLaren needs to heavily outperform the three*(possibly more this year) teams in front just to get on the same level with them.

To actually beat them, you need monumental effort.

[McLarenMor]

Ferrari has been the better team for a couple of years now. They had a setback in 2020 because of the power unit debacle.

In 2019, McLaren was nowhere near Ferrari.

Last year as well, Ferrari had both the better team and the better car. They were consistent the entire season, and they reacted incredibly quickly to whatever issues they had.

So why 4th is still the target? Because, I hate to admit this, McLaren is just not good enough to battle beyond that. At least not yet.

Would be nice to have them closer to the top 3 this year though.

McLaren had a 3 possible victory streak on raw pace from spa to Russia.
Norris was by far the best car on track at spa qualy before the crash and winning pace at Russia without the late shower.
Don't think Ferrari had that the entire season.

In this kind of huge regulation overhual nothing is given, and McLaren had/has every chance of coming out on top.

We will agree to disagree.

They didn't have the raw pace to win any race last season. You are fooling yourself if you think McLaren was faster than Merc/RedBull in Monza. It was just difficult to overtake there and McLaren had decent straight line speed.

In Spa, Lando was quicker because of the unusual conditions. Highly unlikely it would have been that way if it was dry.

And in Russia, they took advantage of penalties on Lewis and Verstappen. On a dry track though, Lando couldn't match Lewis' pace, eveb though he was able to hold on because of the difficulty to overtake and great straight line speed.

But yeah, those 3 races were clear outliers (along with Austria) last year where McLaren outperformed every other midfield team, and quite significantly actually.

But there were other cases where McLaren was outperformed heavily by the midfield.

And that's not a good thing, because it means you are not consistent. And consistency is very important. Ferrari might have not had as frequent of flashes of performance as McLaren last year, but they could maintain a very competitive level much more consistently from track to track.

And as for your last point. These cars have been in development for about 2 years. In those two years, McLaren has improved a lot. But the competition on top has not gotten worse. You were just assuming one or more of them was going to drop the ball this year.

The thing is, for McLaren to get back at the top, they don't just have to do a good job. Because you have to expect everyone will do a good job from one year to the next.

McLaren needs to heavily outperform the three*(possibly more this year) teams in front just to get on the same level with them.

To actually beat them, you need monumental effort.

We are comparing to Ferrari, not RB/Merc.

Let's not forget Imola and some other races.

Also, hence the word on avarage.

[Darth-Piekus]

Monumental Effort you say. Like when Honda who finished 9th out of 11 teams in 2008 leapfrogged everyone and made a championship winning car in 2009 destroying the competition.

[diffuser]

To actually beat them, you need monumental effort.

You know the 2021 season ended 4 months ago right ? not sure why any of that is relevant to this year....

Everything is brand new, what they did last year counts as ZERO. I think McLaren can win the constructors if they can build a reliable fast car. They have the personnel to do it.


Forget the past, it's all up in the air this year and nobody has a budget advantage. just because you're fastest in race 1 doesn't mean you'll still be there in race 6 or at the end. Bahrain is a rear limited track not very representative of all tracks. So is Australia.

[Emag]

Monumental Effort you say. Like when Honda who finished 9th out of 11 teams in 2008 leapfrogged everyone and made a championship winning car in 2009 destroying the competition.

Do you have any idea how much money Honda threw at their team? It was comical how sh!t they were considering their expenses.

They were bound to get something right at some point. Too bad for them, they only managed to do that right before pulling the plug.

[JPower]

We are comparing to Ferrari, not RB/Merc.

Let's not forget Imola and some other races.

Also, hence the word on avarage.

In 2021, the Ferrari was the slightly quicker car on average in qualifying.

The SF1000/SF21 were anomalies rather than the norm, just like emag was saying.

[Emag]

I have said this before. I try to be as realistic as possible. You have to look at their previous performances and disadvantages to assert probable results for this year.

Man, if they go out there and win the championship this year, then I would be the first to celebrate it.

It's just that I couldn't realistically have had that sort of expectation going into this season, testing performance aside.

[Darth-Piekus]

Do you have any idea how much money Honda threw at their team? It was comical how sh!t they were considering their expenses.
They were bound to get something right at some point. Too bad for them, they only managed to do that right before pulling the plug.

Money means ---. Toyota was one of the most richest teams in F1 when they were competing and yet they managed 4th best. That is not the point though. Honda went from 9th to championship winners in a year not due to monumental work but due to the mass rule overhaul.

That is what Mclaren has to exploit. All the loopholes that others might not have found yet to make championship winning car. If Honda did it then Mclaren who is a bigger and more historical name can do it.

[McLarenMor]

Taking some more positive outlook, some comparison to last year's Bahrain GP.

VER's pole lap was 0.93 faster than RIC's best lap (which was 1 spot above Norris).

Out of this 0.93s, ~0.6s were lost in the middle sector. Meaning 2/3 of the deficit was in the middle sector.

Looking at today's sector times we see that ~1.1s out of a defecit of 1.35s are from the first and last sector, which are mainly power dependent.

Meaning only 1/6 was lost in the middle sector.

So either Merc made the worst engine it ever made in the turbo era with the fule regulation changes (not very likely), or McLaren ( as well as Mercedes) ran the engines in lower modes.

Let's hope for the latter!

Expecting, and hoping, for a much better tomorrow, given this deltas.

[Emag]

We are comparing to Ferrari, not RB/Merc.

Let's not forget Imola and some other races.

Also, hence the word on avarage.

In 2021, the Ferrari was the slightly quicker car on average in qualifying.

The SF1000/SF21 were anomalies rather than the norm, just like emag was saying.

Yeah, for some reason people forget what happened in 2019. Ferrari were caught on whatever trick they were using on their PUs. That set them back in 2020. Before that, they were championship contenders...

[mwillems]

Everyone is a bit testy today aren't they !

Everything will be fine I'm sure. In terms of predictions, the worst case estimates put Macca at the pointy end of the midfield. The car looks like it has some pace but as the team said, they looked better at Barcelona so it is quite possible that at this track we may not be as far forward as we like. It's interesting that we seemed better at a more front limited track for a change....

[Emag]

Everyone is a bit testy today aren't they !

Everything will be fine I'm sure. In terms of predictions, the worst case estimates put Macca at the pointy end of the midfield. The car looks like it has some pace but as the team said, they looked better at Barcelona so it is quite possible that at this track we may not be as far forward as we like. It's interesting that we seemed better at a more front limited track for a change....

It does look like it is still suffering low speed though. That's a bummer.

[Darth-Piekus]

I would say let's wait for tomorrow's Qualification where both Mclaren and Mercedes open up their engines to full and see where we really stand. We will see then if what we saw all this time was our real speed limits.

[mwillems]

Everyone is a bit testy today aren't they !

Everything will be fine I'm sure. In terms of predictions, the worst case estimates put Macca at the pointy end of the midfield. The car looks like it has some pace but as the team said, they looked better at Barcelona so it is quite possible that at this track we may not be as far forward as we like. It's interesting that we seemed better at a more front limited track for a change....

It does look like it is still suffering low speed though. That's a bummer.

We're mclaren, it's what we do! lol

It's odd isn't it, entirely different suspension layout but the same old problem.