2018 McLaren F1 Team - Renault

[GoranF1]

McLaren sacrifices straight light speed to get more downforce. AMuS top speed analysis:

https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... isch%29%29

[baybars]

Weren't all Renault powered cars down in speed traps though? I recall Renault and RedBull having similar speed trap figures to mclaren

No, they were ~ 10km/h faster on traps

Just an idea:
Mc know that right now beating RB everywhere is not quite possible (first year with Renault, etc)
But they need some good news - and not consistent fight for 7-8 place, but podiums here and there
So they don't build a car that is fast everywhere, but a car which is excellent on tracks like Barcelona and Monaco.
I think that could be a smart strategy, what do you think?

I recall all Renault powered teams and Toro Rosso at the bottom of the speed traps on the last day of testing

Edit here we go, speed traps day 4

https://mobile.twitter.com/F1/status/972182733295423489

https://twitter.com/autosport/status/972417310425219072

[F1NAC]

No, they were ~ 10km/h faster on traps

Just an idea:
Mc know that right now beating RB everywhere is not quite possible (first year with Renault, etc)
But they need some good news - and not consistent fight for 7-8 place, but podiums here and there
So they don't build a car that is fast everywhere, but a car which is excellent on tracks like Barcelona and Monaco.
I think that could be a smart strategy, what do you think?

I recall all Renault powered teams and Toro Rosso at the bottom of the speed traps on the last day of testing

Edit here we go, speed traps day 4

https://mobile.twitter.com/F1/status/972182733295423489

https://twitter.com/autosport/status/972417310425219072

but F1 twitter acc posted different speed traps with HAAS having the highest top speed

[adrianjordan]

for me the renault engine has a bigger gap than last year in power, or Mclaren has a lot of drag! a lot really!!!

How else are they going to make Renault look bad so they can blame them for everything

(Obviously joking!!)

[Macklaren]

Good detail from Alonso on the car's characteristics while giving feedback to his engineers - in the Sky Sports Mclaren 360* video on YouTube

[BrunoH]

yeah i had suspected that from last year, the car just does not go forward, and it looks like its not engine, its aero drag that is very high, i belive its called ´´dirty downforce´´ right?

[diffuser]

All other days Mclaren had ~ 310km/h with Renault&RB near 320
Maybe they were running lower power mode and pushed to the limit only for last laps of Alonso?

Push, yes, but I doubt it was to the limit, Fernando confirmed they were holding back, just like everyone else.

I wouldn't worry about top speed. Hamilton was on poll in Spain with a 1:19.149 last year at 122. The 122 was 9th fastest at the speed trap.

What's a better sign in Spain is speed at the finish line. It's telling about the amount of downforce/traction coming out of the corner and acceleration of the PU. In a short straight like Spain, you can easily get to the end of the straight with a 10 KPH faster speed but taking 2 tenth longer to get there.

Mistake is people take the speed @ the speed trap to equate to how long it took to get there.

[Andres125sx]

yeah i had suspected that from last year, the car just does not go forward, and it looks like its not engine, its aero drag that is very high, i belive its called ´´dirty downforce´´ right?

No, it may, as it may not.

People have short memories, but on RBR era when Vettel won his four titles, RBR speed trap figures were pretty poor constantly, but that never meant RBR car was producing dirty downforce, nor his PU was poor and underpowered

Problem comes when you´re 3 seconds off the pace, AND your speed trap figures are poor, like past seasons. But they did 1:17, more than 3 seconds faster to their qualifying lap in 2017, while still hidding some perfomance

[rscsr]

yeah i had suspected that from last year, the car just does not go forward, and it looks like its not engine, its aero drag that is very high, i belive its called ´´dirty downforce´´ right?

No, it may, as it may not.

People have short memories, but on RBR era when Vettel won his four titles, RBR speed trap figures were pretty poor constantly, but that never meant RBR car was producing dirty downforce, nor his PU was poor and underpowered

Problem comes when you´re 3 seconds off the pace, AND your speed trap figures are poor, like past seasons. But they did 1:17, more than 3 seconds faster to their qualifying lap in 2017, while still hidding some perfomance

They were engine speed limited back then. That is not the case anymore. Especially since they have to use the same gearing on every track.

[godlameroso]

Is it that hard for a driver to push until the finish line, then turn the engine down the rest of the straight? Hamilton was even slower than Alonso on Friday with a 308kmh top speed, surely you don't think the Mercedes is too draggy?

[GoranF1]

Andrew Benson told me Alonso was 2km/h faster on start/finish line than Ricciardo but then 0.9 slower on speed trap

[Soichiro]

McLaren sacrifices straight light speed to get more downforce. AMuS top speed analysis:

https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... isch%29%29

I doubt that is the smart thing to do with an underpowered engine.

[GoranF1]

[media]https://twitter.com/tgruener/status/973 ... 24768?s=19[/media]

[Bisonas]

As others have said, i am not really worried about the top speed. On tracks like Monza or Spa yea, it would have worried me a lot, but not in Barcelona.
Barcelona is all about finding the sweet spot and the balance on a lot of things in order to extract the best lap time. Not the best top speed. And with the variety of corner types Barcelona has best time don't always go hand to hand with best top speed.
I don't believe its a drag problem.I guess they found their sweet spot with a little more downforce on the car, setup wise.
I would be amazed if Mclaren has drag problems.The last 2 years pioneered and developed a rear wing that is supposedly designed to reduce drag, and they didn't run with an S-duct at Barcelona. (meaning no added drag from s-duct).

[RonDennis]

This is the new hype? Complaining about McLaren's top speed?