2018 McLaren F1 Team - Renault

[RedNEO]

Well done !!

Really glad now we dropped Honda !!

Same! It couldn’t have gone any better today. This is justice on the decision!

[604gtir]

The point is, they've had more problems than anyone else. It's not like they are the only team to have to fit a new engine in their car this year. OK, so anybody can end up with a defective part, but McLaren has had (as far as we can tell) more problems than anyone else. Whose responsibility is that?
And Boullier's career: Some success when he first got into racing, then later a couple of years with Lotus when they had that bizarre exhaust system. Any other successes?
Something is wrong with this team. You just can't keep saying "next race, "next year", over and over.
Maybe there is such a thing as a curse and Alonso can't escape it. But if you don't believe that, then what do you fix?

testing aside,
mclaren in melbourne had the one exhaust issue which took a long time to fix, but then ran problem free till end of fp2.

what made them have more problems than anyone else in melbourne?
toro rosso sat in the garage for most of fp1 with an exhaust issue too
one of the hass sat in the garage with plenty of issues
williams broke down in fp2

i think people are just over reacting, exhaust issue fixed.. what other problems did mclaren have ?

"Testing aside."
So maybe next year they could just skip the testing since it apparently isn't important.
Don't get me wrong: I am a McLaren fan, and an Alonso fan. I want them to be better.

hows that testing and million mclaren problems situation coming along for you

[McL-H]

Alonso stating McLaren will leave the midfield behind in upcoming races, to challenge the top 3. That’s a confident man speaking.

[radosav]

http://en.mclarenf-1.com/index.php?page ... 0Ricciardo
In this link you can see gap between alonso and ricciardo. After safety car average is about 0.9 sec per lap, but for there is strange pattern, few laps alo is slower 1.3 sec then few laps only 0.6 sec.
Is it maybe problem with charging batteries or overheating of some components. Alonso was in free air, ricciardo was behind raikkonen.

[radosav]

Or is it normal race pace , nothing special?

[Postmoe]

http://en.mclarenf-1.com/index.php?page ... 0Ricciardo
In this link you can see gap between alonso and ricciardo. After safety car average is about 0.9 sec per lap, but for there is strange pattern, few laps alo is slower 1.3 sec then few laps only 0.6 sec.
Is it maybe problem with charging batteries or overheating of some components. Alonso was in free air, ricciardo was behind raikkonen.

Fernando playing around. He tried to bring Hulkenberg onto Verstappen but even with this overtaking was so complicated that the strategy didn’t bother Verstappen anyway. He has been pretty consistently describing this tactic in the las years.

[Andres125sx]

Boullier mentioned in his post race comments that they knew they had more "potential" to unlock in the car for Sunday. I wonder if there were still thermal issues which meant they could not use full beans from the Renault? Not sure what they could have done in parc ferme though. It is still puzzling that we haven't seen the upgrade PP was speaking about. Boullier also mentions about getting parts in the pipeline to the track; so I assume they have had some manufacturing issues which wouldn't be surprising considering the complexity of some of the parts.

Alonso said the upgrades were not in time for Melbourne so they will come in next races.

And about race potential, probaly that is related to the different strategies they can use now on sundays, compared to past seasons with Honda, when they were forced to save fuel extensively so even if they were more or less competitive in qualifying, then on sundays they were doomed.

Now with Renault qualifying pace is a bit faster, but race pace is dramatically faster

[diffuser]

Race 1 mission accomplished...
Split the RBRs, 4th overall in points haul.

I'D Rather be lucky than good... We'll take lucky today and look forward to being good.

[willmesquita]

I am so pleased to see McLaren smile after Australia GP. Those guys deserved it.

People still saying that Haas speed is amazing, but if you look to gains between 2017x2018 quali, Haas gained 1s and McLaren, 2s.

We'll see McLaren fight this year!

[Bisonas]

http://en.mclarenf-1.com/index.php?page ... 0Ricciardo
In this link you can see gap between alonso and ricciardo. After safety car average is about 0.9 sec per lap, but for there is strange pattern, few laps alo is slower 1.3 sec then few laps only 0.6 sec.
Is it maybe problem with charging batteries or overheating of some components. Alonso was in free air, ricciardo was behind raikkonen.

You said it your self. Alonso was in free air, Ricciardo was behind Raikkonen. Alonso was managing tyres and focused to be fast in the sections that really mattered. Daniel was stuck behind Kimi and some times he was relaxing a bit for one lap and and then boom, fastest lap of the race to give another tray for a pass. RB was 0.8 to 1.2 faster if you ask me. Alonso also did his fastest laps on the end, meaning he had control of what was happening.
Dosn't really matter the gap to RB atm. What was important was the cars to finish, verify their good balance and their performance level, take as much points as possible and keep the moral on the team high.
After 3 years of pain, it was important to give the team just that. And that goal was 100% archived.
IMO The gap to RB will go down to around 0.5 - 0.6s by by Barcelona race. And Mclaren will be de facto best of the rest by then (If they aren't already). Now the last 0.5 to RB that's another story. That will take a very long time, and its debatable if they cover it this year.

[the EDGE]

I’ve only just read Pirelli’s race report and found out that McLaren were the only team who didn’t use the yellow marked soft tyre today, switching to the super soft on both cars after the pit stop

There were some teams out there that were struggling towards the end of the race despite going US, S. If their car turns out to be good on tyres that could be a huge advantage at some races

https://www.pitpass.com/61291/Australia ... es-Pirelli

[Chicane]

Made a fastest lap comparison between 2017 and 2018.

Haas retired immediately after pit stops so their lap times are not representative.



Mclaren have made the biggest improvement of 2.482 seconds.

[zoroastar]

I’ve only just read Pirelli’s race report and found out that McLaren were the only team who didn’t use the yellow marked soft tyre today, switching to the super soft on both cars after the pit stop

There were some teams out there that were struggling towards the end of the race despite going US, S. If their car turns out to be good on tyres that could be a huge advantage at some races

https://www.pitpass.com/61291/Australia ... es-Pirelli

alonso was on the yellows after his pitstop until the end of the race. must be a clerical error. it didnt seem like there was much between the soft and supersofts

[Bisonas]

Some work need to be done here. With how close middle field is, pit stops will play a crucial part.

[carisi2k]

Made a fastest lap comparison between 2017 and 2018.

Haas retired immediately after pit stops so their lap times are not representative.

https://i.imgur.com/Fvoof0W.jpg

Mclaren have made the biggest improvement of 2.482 seconds.

You also forgot to mention that Gasly retired early in the race from overheating due to a plastic bag or possibly damaging the car over a kerb. Gasly is clearly the faster of the two TR drivers and therefore the TR time is not fully representative either.

With only a half second loss over the 2017 car that had better drivers is it really that clear to say Mclaren made the right decision yet. All that you can say is that Mclaren had a lucky race and Toro Rosso has some work to do and hope for some better luck.

Alonso is fooling himself if he thinks Mclaren can bridge that one second gap to Red Bull and he was lucky with Bottas shunting in Q3 and the VSC or else he would have been eighth or ninth in the race. After the Safety car he was immediately losing one second a lap to everybody ahead of him and it was clear he was holding up verstappen, hulkenberg and bottas.