2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

[FittingMechanics]

Anyone care to share their opinion as to how much Andreas Seidl is responsible for the current car? I believe that there is lead time necessary for any success at any team. Is the current form the reasonable outcome of an amazing plan/system? And if so, should I put $500 on Audi winning the WCC for 2026?

Seidl (and Zak) improved the team. From my understanding, Seidl pushed hard to improve the facilities, building their new tunnel and simulator. All of this is very important and I think we are starting to see the benefits of it.

Would another team principal do similar things? Probably.

Btw I think that big names are not the most important. They lead but the majority of work is done by unnamed employees. This applies to Newey as well. He wasn't winning as soon as he joined Red Bull, he needed a lot of time to build that team up and get to where they are now.

[mwillems]

EJ is massively teasing it

Yeah but why. Newey can have a blank cheque and write his own contract. So if not for business,then for pleasure...?

It's F1 business is often mixed with pleasure. Newey loves a challenge so that's probably was being discussed (could be Lemans or a new McLaren F1 supercar, designed with no restrictions), while Jordan will be doing the wheeling and dealing over a contract in terms of cash.

I tend to think McLaren might well appeal to Newey, especially as it's much changed since Ron Dennis got the boot.

Anyone care to share their opinion as to how much Andreas Seidl is responsible for the current car? I believe that there is lead time necessary for any success at any team. Is the current form the reasonable outcome of an amazing plan/system? And if so, should I put $500 on Audi winning the WCC for 2026?

Seeing as McLaren changed the technical structure, James Key left etc McLaren have been on an upwards trajectory. If anyone is responsible for McLaren's success? It's Zak Brown. If you want to take a punt on Audi winning WCC in 2026, maybe put $10 on rather than $500.

I mean the pleasure of rubbing it in to the Ex partner's face

EJ isn't beyond a little bit of fun pettiness that Newey himself won't want to be involved in, but perhaps isn't unhappy about.

[mwillems]

Anyone care to share their opinion as to how much Andreas Seidl is responsible for the current car? I believe that there is lead time necessary for any success at any team. Is the current form the reasonable outcome of an amazing plan/system? And if so, should I put $500 on Audi winning the WCC for 2026?

I suspect it was little. The team have gone to lengths to suggest there was a lot of change after Seidl and Key left that allowed them to develop quickly and effectively that wasn't possible previously.

Names were obviously not mentioned, but it is very clear that Key and Seidl were viewed as holding back the team, as the multiple compliments shouted from the rooftops about Stella were also backhanded remarks about where the team were before he took over. In fact, Zak Brown has quite specifically said that he wanted the changes because the culture before was one of accepting failure and a lack of progress in some people at the upper levels of Mclaren and he agreed the required change with Stella. This is why they both left.

So certainly in the view of the team and I suspect many of the fans, the answer is that they had little to do with the renaissance of Mclaren, other than their departures creating the opportunity for success.

However, this doesn't mean that they won't go on to do great things, it just didn't work here. But I won't be putting even a fiver on them to be contenders for 2026

[BMMR61]

Speaking about fundamentals of the McLaren and have they shifted. Oscar as reported on Pit Debrief:
https://pitdebrief.com/post/piastri-say ... -imola-gp/
The drivers’ performance is a testament to the effort of the wider McLaren team, who have been fine-tuning the MCL38 during the upgrade process, making the car “nicer to drive.”

Bodes well for the ongoing development of setup, as opposed to bolting on incredible updates - which we all obsess over!

The more experienced an F1 driver is, the more he is able to make changes around the difficult parts of a car's performance. At Austria 2023 Oscar was nowhere and Lando with updates was 4th. Here at Imola with upgrades Oscar came alive and was able to drive the car with greater confidence - where the comment "nice to drive" comes in.

It's not unrealistic to imagine the team grabbing Monaco by the scruff of the neck as the car seems less troublesome of late than it's direct competitors. Still, as I've said "two weekends is a small sample size" we should expect weekends where we may be third fastest car, so as not to be too disappointed. At the other end of the scale it's not unreasonable to hope for a continuing upward graph. Here's why;

The balance of the car seems to be improved
The downforce appears to be generated by the underbody more allowing lower drag - "efficiency"
Top speed is right up there
Tyre deg in races is vastly improved
The drivers are more confident and less accepting of deltas from crew
The team is energised
Red Bull are challenged and it shows as they are making setup errors
And most importantly - the correlation appears to be the best of all teams, proven by putting the updated car in winner's circle on it's debut, and untroubled by it being a Sprint weekend.

At the very beginning you mentioned that Lando was 4 in Austria 2023, and Oscar was nowhere to be found. Then you immediately jumped to 2024. Well, I’ll just remind you that after Austria there was the British Grand Prix, and there Oscar received a full package of updates, like Lando, and performed excellently in qualifying and the race. If it weren't for Haas's retirement, Oscar would have made it to the podium. Oscar knows how to squeeze speed out of a car, that's a fact. He's a fast racer.

Oscar knows how to adapt to any car, and this is an important quality. When a car suits your preferences, it's easier to get the most out of the car. It always works like that. The team is confidently moving forward step by step, bringing major updates at once. Amen, let it continue to be so.

My point was in the previous sentence, which I highlight here. Exactly, at Silverstone when Oscar gets the MCL60B (minute the new front wing which Lando gets) the car is transformed and isn't the awkward beast of James Key. Oscar's drive air Silverstone confirmed what us Oscar fans already knew - given a decent car and this rookie is QUICK! Lando has had 5 whole seasons to learn to adapt around difficult cars, and there's been a few of them if you consider compromised setups.
Oscar is a freak of nature and can get in a decent car and be instantly quick. Even the MCL38/evo 0.5 he drove at Miami was decent and he was quick and we knew then that Lando would have his work cut out at Imola with his teammate, even though he'd never raced there. That's how Oscar is. He worked his way through his rookie sessions at Monaco until he was 18/1000 off Lando's Q2 time.

Experience gives the ability to work around issues as well as report and diagnose them. I think Oscar is quite likely to outqualify Lando at Monaco and a podium is likely if the car setup is good. I really rate Lando so to be pushing him this hard this early in his career underlines Oscar's talent. Were are so lucky to have two such guys at this point in time when McLaren are bringing back the glory days. When they are both GP winners and regularly spraying the champagne is when driver management is going to be a real challenge. They both want much, much more than they have achieved this far and Lando will feel entitled to number one status in the team.

[BMMR61]

Interestingly when Oscar was testing the High DF rear-wing in fp3, he was given a reminder to take a alternative line they had planned for T7 hairpin... much tighter, don't know if they were trying to replicate a tighter lower kph they will see in Monaco.

Well noted. I also noticed this. True, he drove 1 or 2 laps with this rear wing. They were definitely able to collect some data on the eve of Monaco.

If this is what they were doing then this is the sort of strategizing McLaren need to do to become World Champions. Certainly as they were almost immediately into a good window in FP - as reported by Oscar - then using the time and laps to do some data collection on aero for future reference is a sign of great confidence and thinking beyond the immediate.

[BMMR61]

Anyone care to share their opinion as to how much Andreas Seidl is responsible for the current car? I believe that there is lead time necessary for any success at any team. Is the current form the reasonable outcome of an amazing plan/system? And if so, should I put $500 on Audi winning the WCC for 2026?

I suspect it was little. The team have gone to lengths to suggest there was a lot of change after Seidl and Key left that allowed them to develop quickly and effectively that wasn't possible previously.

Names were obviously not mentioned, but it is very clear that Key and Seidl were viewed as holding back the team, as the multiple compliments shouted from the rooftops about Stella were also backhanded remarks about where the team were before he took over. In fact, Zak Brown has quite specifically said that he wanted the changes because the culture before was one of accepting failure and a lack of progress in some people at the upper levels of Mclaren and he agreed the required change with Stella. This is why they both left.

So certainly in the view of the team and I suspect many of the fans, the answer is that they had little to do with the renaissance of Mclaren, other than their departures creating the opportunity for success.

However, this doesn't mean that they won't go on to do great things, it just didn't work here. But I won't be putting even a fiver on them to be contenders for 2026

In true "modern McLaren F1" era style, the "we thank them for their service" is the operative, where leading personnel are "let go". We can think what we like. Skill levels, success etc are all relative. I think Seidl was a relatively astute and popular and persuasive leader who oversaw a growth through to achieving a few podiums and regular points and a single win. He set the platform for future success. Possibly his biggest weakness was in failing to recognise the limiting nature of James Key, not so much for any poor design, but for a lack of collaboration with some very good senior design staff. Easy for us to see it now as the Austria upgrade era is plain to see, but ultimately the design team weren't working together as well as they clearly do now. Stella was entrusted to head this up and he is the architect of what we are now enjoying. I say all of thus by educated guesswork, not any inside knowledge. We are continually having to adapt our opinions as facts become clearer. We could get brought down to earth this weekend at a track that provides very different challenges.

[the EDGE]

It's possible that the next upgrade might be the one to make us a dominant car. Certainly there is good reason to be optimistic. But of course it is all relative to performance others bring and we still need to look at the car over the next few races.

The problem is, finding performance from now on is going to get harder & harder

McLaren need to focus on improving their weaknesses, the difficult task will be doing that without affecting their strengths

It surely will be a a good development race for the next 18 months, and they have shown they are well placed for that fight. Without doubt, over the previous 12 months they have added more performance to their car than any other team

Yeah I think you are right we will hit the downwards trend soon but are we there yet? I'm not sure we are to be honest, time just keeps coming.

It is difficult to understand how much we gained at this track as we didn't race here in 2023. Monaco might not be the best example of relative performance but Canada and Spain will be nice tests for this car.

I'm sure hopeful there may still be some low-hanging fruit to find, but looking at the RB & Ferrari, both have brought recent upgrades, and neither has managed to find big gains. That to me indicates ceilings are being reached and only minor changes to bring small gains are possible

Perhaps both will start to look for inspiration from McLaren, for future development

[Emag]

Well, McLaren still hasn't explored the option of an S-Duct, which both Ferrari and RedBull already have on their car. That's a rather big change though, so unless they have been looking at it for a while, it perhaps wont be part of this year's car. But other than that, in terms of surface aero, it's difficult to see a clear development path going from here. The Miami upgrade package really wasn't that huge when it comes to physical bodywork changes. Of course there were differences, but it's more of an optimization rather than radical shifts, which was the case with Austria last year. It seems to me they are now converging towards a "happy place" when it comes to sidepod design and the rest of the surface bodywork.

[mwillems]

I think it is synergies that find the most time in this formula, with a big emphasis on pressure balances all over the car so physical differences don't have to be huge for the gain to be big.

But to add what Emag said around the S-Duct, there is also the optimisation of DRS efficiency and there is still a lot of work to happen around the conditioning of flow at the front of the car, and Stella had said a few months back there is a lot they are aware they can do here, but hadn't been able to focus on this one area and I'm certain they haven't even gone to town yet on this area.

In terms of work for next year, there will be the continued effort on weight reduction.
You can see how weight is even still affecting Red Bull on entry into corners like it did at the first third of the Imola GP and there are still big gains here for everyone probably.

But that said, I'm sure that on certain developments we will see the reward starting to lessen, even if on others we are not quite close enough to see the development curve start to shallow, so it can't be far away from being a material impact but my own gut is that we are one update away from seeing it in the numbers.

I also have a feeling that projects that were running from the very start of this year or even winter of last year have not yet all been delivered.

[mwillems]

There is a part of me that is optimistic that if we can swing the results our way, being ahead of Ferrari, whilst performance is close between us and RB right now, and we can stop Max or Red Bull from extending their lead, or perhaps even shorten it a little, then in the second half of the year we can start to chase them down.

It could well be an Imola style result in the championship, a Noble race to finish 2nd, but I feel like we can really make them rethink their plans for this and next year and that can only benefit our own future chances.

But when do we want to stop development and do we want to focus almost exclusively on 2026, or do we go for a title and sacrifice the future if we think it is possible.

I think this puts everyone into a position where they have to balance some difficult decisions.

[LionsHeart]

Speaking about fundamentals of the McLaren and have they shifted. Oscar as reported on Pit Debrief:
https://pitdebrief.com/post/piastri-say ... -imola-gp/
The drivers’ performance is a testament to the effort of the wider McLaren team, who have been fine-tuning the MCL38 during the upgrade process, making the car “nicer to drive.”

Bodes well for the ongoing development of setup, as opposed to bolting on incredible updates - which we all obsess over!

The more experienced an F1 driver is, the more he is able to make changes around the difficult parts of a car's performance. At Austria 2023 Oscar was nowhere and Lando with updates was 4th. Here at Imola with upgrades Oscar came alive and was able to drive the car with greater confidence - where the comment "nice to drive" comes in.

It's not unrealistic to imagine the team grabbing Monaco by the scruff of the neck as the car seems less troublesome of late than it's direct competitors. Still, as I've said "two weekends is a small sample size" we should expect weekends where we may be third fastest car, so as not to be too disappointed. At the other end of the scale it's not unreasonable to hope for a continuing upward graph. Here's why;

The balance of the car seems to be improved
The downforce appears to be generated by the underbody more allowing lower drag - "efficiency"
Top speed is right up there
Tyre deg in races is vastly improved
The drivers are more confident and less accepting of deltas from crew
The team is energised
Red Bull are challenged and it shows as they are making setup errors
And most importantly - the correlation appears to be the best of all teams, proven by putting the updated car in winner's circle on it's debut, and untroubled by it being a Sprint weekend.

At the very beginning you mentioned that Lando was 4 in Austria 2023, and Oscar was nowhere to be found. Then you immediately jumped to 2024. Well, I’ll just remind you that after Austria there was the British Grand Prix, and there Oscar received a full package of updates, like Lando, and performed excellently in qualifying and the race. If it weren't for Haas's retirement, Oscar would have made it to the podium. Oscar knows how to squeeze speed out of a car, that's a fact. He's a fast racer.

Oscar knows how to adapt to any car, and this is an important quality. When a car suits your preferences, it's easier to get the most out of the car. It always works like that. The team is confidently moving forward step by step, bringing major updates at once. Amen, let it continue to be so.

My point was in the previous sentence, which I highlight here. Exactly, at Silverstone when Oscar gets the MCL60B (minute the new front wing which Lando gets) the car is transformed and isn't the awkward beast of James Key. Oscar's drive air Silverstone confirmed what us Oscar fans already knew - given a decent car and this rookie is QUICK! Lando has had 5 whole seasons to learn to adapt around difficult cars, and there's been a few of them if you consider compromised setups.
Oscar is a freak of nature and can get in a decent car and be instantly quick. Even the MCL38/evo 0.5 he drove at Miami was decent and he was quick and we knew then that Lando would have his work cut out at Imola with his teammate, even though he'd never raced there. That's how Oscar is. He worked his way through his rookie sessions at Monaco until he was 18/1000 off Lando's Q2 time.

Experience gives the ability to work around issues as well as report and diagnose them. I think Oscar is quite likely to outqualify Lando at Monaco and a podium is likely if the car setup is good. I really rate Lando so to be pushing him this hard this early in his career underlines Oscar's talent. Were are so lucky to have two such guys at this point in time when McLaren are bringing back the glory days. When they are both GP winners and regularly spraying the champagne is when driver management is going to be a real challenge. They both want much, much more than they have achieved this far and Lando will feel entitled to number one status in the team.

Did Oscar drive with the old front wing at Silverstone? As far as I remember, both cars had a full set of updates. To be honest, I don’t remember well, but I don’t remember that their specifications differed.
Edit: I checked. Yes, the front wing specifications are different. Only Lando has an updated version.

I never look at the drivers' abilities for individual races or individual qualifications. The best way is to check all qualifying sessions for 2024. Both sprint qualifying and Saturday full qualifying. Check each set time in each Q1, Q2 and Q3. Compare all times with your partner and average the lag.

Even now, without this analysis, I understand that Oscar will be very close but behind Lando. In the race he still lacks efficiency in terms of tire consumption. But this will come to him with experience. So I'm not worried about it.

[mclaren111]

I believe that Oscar is faster driver than Norris with the new upgrades. You can refute the same but he outqualified him in Imola and even in Miami he had bad luck with Sainz collision.

Nobody cares about this as long as Mclaren is on the front.

Agreed...

[Tomsky]

The livery in Monaco will be in honor of Senna's helmet.

[Tomsky]

[BMMR61]

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/mcla ... r-verdict/
The Race has shots of this Brazilian tribute to run at Monaco. You red and white fans will be disappointed as I am.
Oh well, if this is the worst thing to come out of McLaren F1 in 2024 then we are doing OK.