Is McLaren really off the pace?

[CHT]

So Brundles take on the McLaren after today is " a mess" . Pretty tough words. Without seeing footage it's hard to Gage what Brundle is basing this on. Jordan's point is that the McLaren design concept of two designers rotating each year is not in step with the new regulations of limited testing etc. Anyone? Bueller?

I think that was Brundle's opinion after the last test. Do you have a link to the article you got this from? I for one would like to read it.

...

[CHT]

So Brundles take on the McLaren after today is " a mess" . Pretty tough words. Without seeing footage it's hard to Gage what Brundle is basing this on. Jordan's point is that the McLaren design concept of two designers rotating each year is not in step with the new regulations of limited testing etc. Anyone? Bueller?

what worries me most is when he say "Clearly they have a fundamental issue.”

When a car has fundamental issue, they will definitely struggle to catch up and match up their rivals as the season progress.

[Pierce89]

[continued from "McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes"]...so even though it's unlikely that they'll catch up with Red Bull, Ferrari is certainly in their sites, but what I found really interesting...[continued in "McLaren 2011"]

'a perfect e example of how crazy tho off topic police are getting, but so I'm not deleted, the Macca lacks rear DF in my opinion. The sidepods aren't giving them the air to the back they hoped, I belive.

[wunderkind]

what worries me most is when he say "Clearly they have a fundamental issue.”
When a car has fundamental issue, they will definitely struggle to catch up and match up their rivals as the season progress.

Let's hope all the new furnitures McLaren brings to Melbourne will yield them the much needed 1 second they need to get close to Red Bull and Ferrari. How much are these new additions going to solve the fundamental (aerodynamic, most probably) issues of the MP4-26, I have no idea. The L-sidepods and cowling are all shrinkwrapped to the internals and to make any changes now will probably necessitate a MP4-26B. I don't think McLaren has ever won a Championship with a B-spec car before. Last time they did it was with the MP4-17B when the MP4-18 turned out to be a flop. But unlike the MP4-26, the MP4-17 was a very good base to build on but McLaren exhausted its development potential 3/4 of the way through the 2003 season. I think we saw some of Raikkonen's best driving that season but he lost the title to Schumacher by a small margin.

I am not sure if we have seen the final iteration of the McLaren ARW. Lewis Hamilton did say on his twitter few weeks ago that the McLaren ARW is "trick". The one we have seen so far is nothing out of the ordinary. But this will not matter if McLaren does not solve their downforce and instability problems very soon. They will be in serious troubles as the Pirelli's will be worn out quicker than Red Bull and ferrari.

[NoDivergence]

What Brundle was talking about it relative to two weeks ago or so at the previous test. No relevance to the car now unless McLaren has made no progress. This can be heard from his mouth here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsp ... 418556.stm

[wunderkind]

What Brundle was talking about it relative to two weeks ago or so at the previous test. No relevance to the car now unless McLaren has made no progress. This can be heard from his mouth here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsp ... 418556.stm

Let's hope so. But if the MP4-26 is suffering from fundamental design issues, then McLaren has problems. A car doesn't suddenly come good in the space of two weeks and without some significant modifications. From the pictures I can find, I can't see there being any big changes to the MP4-26 being tested in Barcelona right now compared to the one in the previous test.

[Richard]

[continued from "McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes"]...so even though it's unlikely that they'll catch up with Red Bull, Ferrari is certainly in their sites, but what I found really interesting...[continued in "McLaren 2011"]

'a perfect e example of how crazy tho off topic police are getting, .

err... I think you'll find that Pup deliberately wrote it that way to be provocative. A post looks quite different when the mods make a change, have a look on the previous page

[Pierce89]

[continued from "McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes"]...so even though it's unlikely that they'll catch up with Red Bull, Ferrari is certainly in their sites, but what I found really interesting...[continued in "McLaren 2011"]

'a perfect e example of how crazy tho off topic police are getting, .

err... I think you'll find that Pup deliberately wrote it that way to be provocative. A post looks quite different when the mods make a change, have a look on the previous page

no... surely he didn't write it to be a provocative commentary on the current state of affairs on purpose. Must;ve been an accident. Why would you even waste your time to state something so freaking completely and totally obvious?

[CHT]

What Brundle was talking about it relative to two weeks ago or so at the previous test. No relevance to the car now unless McLaren has made no progress. This can be heard from his mouth here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsp ... 418556.stm

Let's hope so. But if the MP4-26 is suffering from fundamental design issues, then McLaren has problems. A car doesn't suddenly come good in the space of two weeks and without some significant modifications. From the pictures I can find, I can't see there being any big changes to the MP4-26 being tested in Barcelona right now compared to the one in the previous test.

You are absolutely right. fundamental design issues cant be solve unless you come out with a fundamentally different B spec.

I reckon Mclaren can probably kiss their 2011 championship goodbye and run damage control strategy from now on. It will be interesting to see what Lewis has to say after today's test.

[segedunum]

Wow. I knew the car was a bit unstable but I heard Martin Brundle on the BBC yesterday describe it, after having seen it at a test, as a 'mess' and Lewis Hamilton looked 'all at sea'.

Eddie Jordan thinks they need a new car. I'm not one to pay complete attention to Eddie, but he does at least know what it's like to run his own team. He also alluded to the lack of testing that teams have, and how top teams now can't just throw thousands of miles of testing at a problem, as I've been saying.

[Richard]

I don;t think Jordon can cont as an objective assessor. What was his famous rant about KERS 2 years ago? Oh yes, "no car with KERS will win a race this season".

[gridwalker]

Ah yes, Eddie Jordan : the man who's diagnosis for McLaren's 2009 problems was that "they should just slap a diffuser on the thing" ... His job seems to be to throw out as many ludicrous statements as possible so that he can claim to have some magical insight when one of his outlandish statements hold true.

Brundle, on the other hand, holds my interest. I'd like to see some footage of what he has observed thus far.

[vall]

it seems that their reliability issues continue today.

[horse]

Pod cast of the BBC pre-season show:

bbcrecording.mp3 - 7.99MB

[raymondu999]

EJ's words should never be heeded. He's just a troll, difference is he's run a team before, and he gets millions of TV viewers. BUT when he gets a single snippet right he looks like a genius. Wasn't he the first one who called the Schumacher-Mercedes 2010 tieup?