2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

[Tomsky]

Details about the windtunnel

[ScottR267]

https://x.com/mclarenf1/status/17544152 ... qGtvf6jqBQ

Another new sponsor

[De Wet]

I happen to watch F1 for a long time and Newey has screwed up a few times. The 1994 Williams comes to mind, the first Layton House of 1988, the MP4-16 of 2001, the MP4-17 of 2002, the MP4-18 as his biggest screwing and the 2006 Mclaren also. In his career he did screw up some times.

You are taking events in isolation. Mclaren was part of the reason that Newey didn't excel at Mclaren. He and Ron didn't click in many ways. This was why Newey left Mclaren.

IIRC, Newey also wanted to buy into Mclaren but Ron blocked it...

[CjC]

Not to drag this back up but Ron certainly was one of the best and worst things to happen to McLaren.
Imagine all that success he had in the 80s and 90s then he could have passed the leadership over to Newey & co who could have then created all the recent Red Bull success in McLarens history book, but no, pride had to show Newey the exit instead.

[Venturiation]

Details about the windtunnel

[mwillems]

Good find, thanks for posting.

Plenty to give optimism there.

[BMMR61]

Details about the windtunnel

The achievements of McLaren over the last 12 months, when considering the restrictive force of the cost cap is quite extraordinary. The misstep of the original design/build of the MCL60 necessitated some very major upgrades which naturally carried a large financial cost, but upgrades they were made, and they were effective. It always seemed that the aero was the main weakness in not just the MCL60, but it's predecessor which, not unlike Mercedes, completely missed the dartboard of the new "ground effect" rules. Yet the underlying chassis, those parts not able to be changed for the "B spec" car, wasn't far off the mark. The (qualifying) gap to Red Bull came down from over a second to less than half a second, achieved with a mishmash composite of a failed car brought alive by fresh thinking (team restructure) and a belief realised in the correlation between wind tunnel, simulations and actual performance.

Addressing the prediction made about early and continual upgrades to challenge Red Bull, the ability to make such upgrades under a cost cap is made possible by evolutionary "headroom" which Stella seems to still believe is there. This is why I believe the shorter term prospects for McLaren are greater than Ferrari and Mercedes - they have to address the confusing signals coming from their simulations which showed with the extreme inconsistency (especially Merc) of performance. Somehow a McLaren misstep a year ago looks like the progenitor of a great revival that revealed itself from mid 2023 and (we think and hope) flows into 2024 and 2025.

All the drama surrounding Ferrari and Mercedes at present for McLaren fans is amusing, especially silly talk like "Lando could have been at Mercedes". Who'd want to swap a McLaren seat for Mercedes at the moment, two really good, young drivers at a team that narrowed the gap across a year by about 0.8 seconds and has an inner harmony?

[mwillems]

You can't predict what Ferrari and Mercedes might do. The time that is there for us to find is there for everyone to find and Merc were on a par with us at the end of last season. I'm confident that the team will make good time and put on a good show, but I think 2/3/4 will be very tight, which will likely initially play into the hands of RB as they won't have a clear single team gathering points to rival them until one of them is able to pull out a gap to 3rd and start to close down RB.

In any case, the drama at Merc and Ferrari is not really drama, it is driver moves and I doubt there will be an impact on them, apart from perhaps some overdriving from Sainz as he is in the shop window and fighting for a drive.

Red Bull on the other hand could just fritter out and be nothing or explode like a warzone, depending on what is discovered, particularly as Newey may have a "get out clause" if Horner leaves the team.

[Farnborough]

The situation I find harder to judge, prior to the running of new car, is that last season the step change was just that and not "development" as such.

This should be seen in that context that obviously brought significant gain by that fundamental change in aero from naive to contemporary. I dont feel its indication of in year development performance though.
Development now, in truest sense, is looking like intense head-to-head this year, and not just against RB.

The absolute lap times last year had very low spread in pure pace of the whole field, looks like its going to be closer still this year with most understanding their direction of technical in more thorough form. I like seasons like this, but it takes huge focus to not let opportunities slip past ungrabbed.

Think it's going to be intense.

[haza]

Love the teams livery but jeez the white like the Indy team would have made it

https://x.com/mclarenf1/status/17548878 ... CA5OmEDv0w

[SmallSoldier]

Love the teams livery but jeez the white like the Indy team would have made it

https://x.com/mclarenf1/status/17548878 ... CA5OmEDv0w

The cars at Indy are not struggling for weight savings as the F1 Teams do, that allows them use liveries like that… I’m sure that if weight wouldn’t be such a constrain, we would see a livery from the team with less black in it… There is a reason why the Gulf livery was run at Monaco, that’s the one race where some additional weight is not as detrimental

[mwillems]

The situation I find harder to judge, prior to the running of new car, is that last season the step change was just that and not "development" as such.

This should be seen in that context that obviously brought significant gain by that fundamental change in aero from naive to contemporary. I dont feel its indication of in year development performance though.
Development now, in truest sense, is looking like intense head-to-head this year, and not just against RB.

The absolute lap times last year had very low spread in pure pace of the whole field, looks like its going to be closer still this year with most understanding their direction of technical in more thorough form. I like seasons like this, but it takes huge focus to not let opportunities slip past ungrabbed.

Think it's going to be intense.

I think this is true in part. But the rate of development went beyond just shedding of Naivety. It was monstrous gains to propel Mclaren to second fastest or joint second fastest on Merit and becoming the challengers of Red Bull.

I'm sure Mclaren got a boost from getting their act together, but the idea that any of the other teams can yet match McLaren's development rate from last year is totally unproven, whereas Mclaren have done it and stated that they continue to find the same gains in their development cycle through to the start of the year and they think also in the first upgrade package too. This goes well beyond an overdue piece of development, for me it was the unlocking of the knowledge of what makes this Formula tick.

Time will tell but I think RB and Mclaren will be the standard bearers in development this year. But for sure I think the seasons start will be very hard fought.

[Ground Effect]

So the possibility of a Newey "get out clause" was mentioned a few comments above, I don't mean this to be an off topic subject that could get out of control, but does anyone think McLaren's current technical structure allows such a hire?

[Emag]

So the possibility of a Newey "get out clause" was mentioned a few comments above, I don't mean this to be an off topic subject that could get out of control, but does anyone think McLaren's current technical structure allows such a hire?

It would only make sense to hire him as a replacement to Peter Prodromou. Which, although I regret to say this because Peter was one of the key figures in McLaren's turnaround last year, I believe the team would go for it if they had the chance.

[organic]

Newey would not take such a one dimensional role anymore. He's said that he's not even at the factory most days.

I think he'd fit in the team outside the technical structure altogether if McLaren could provide enough opportunities to keep him interested