2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

[Emag]

From a personal standpoint, it's hard for me to claim McLaren has the outright best car, when they fall off at certain conditions. As I mentioned before, in Imola the first stint was not good. Canada as well, the dry stint was not good on pure pace, with Mercedes and Max being the obvious faster car. And here, I was quite happy after qualifying, but then Lando said the car was nervous on the high speed and we has leaving time on the table all weekend playing it safe. It took him going all out to barely pip Max. It could have gone wrong, and the vibe here would be quite a bit different, with people probably blaming Lando for fumbling it again on Q3.

Then on the other side, you look at Max and he is comfortable pushing the limits all the way through. It just makes me think that he will perhaps be able to get laptime easier and more consistently tomorrow in the race. But also, as I said, I would love it to be wrong.

[Seanspeed]

Red Bull probably did sacrifice a bit of pace with an eye to the race - but making that statement implies Mclaren didnt - which I think they certainly did

Everybody does this. Race pace has been king for a good while now. Some teams simply have cars with a stronger inherent proclivity for this. Red Bull has been the strongest example so far, but Mclaren seem to be on their level now.

[CjC]

Red Bull probably did sacrifice a bit of pace with an eye to the race - but making that statement implies Mclaren didnt - which I think they certainly did

Aren’t McLaren running more wing?
Surely that’s a nod to tyre management?

[mwillems]

Red Bull probably did sacrifice a bit of pace with an eye to the race - but making that statement implies Mclaren didnt - which I think they certainly did

Mclaren on face value appear to be carrying more wing unless the Bulls brought upgrades to improve straight line speed.

[SmallSoldier]

Lando also getting a tow on his pole lap, so the gap between 1st and 2nd is close.

Even with Norris' tow Verstappen gained a tenth in run to T1, when usually he lost time to Norris in this area

When you consider this, the real gap is 1.5 tenths or more

https://i.postimg.cc/tgFrCv4F/image.png

Red Bull still a monster in regards to Downforce… not lifting for the last corner.

[organic]

Lando also getting a tow on his pole lap, so the gap between 1st and 2nd is close.

Even with Norris' tow Verstappen gained a tenth in run to T1, when usually he lost time to Norris in this area

When you consider this, the real gap is 1.5 tenths or more

https://i.postimg.cc/tgFrCv4F/image.png

Red Bull still a monster in regards to Downforce… not lifting for the last corner.

Rb are running more wing than others. They're slower in terms of top speed and without the tow RB would've been struggling to beat Ferrari and Mercedes.

RB are running full Monaco spec whilst McLaren are running Singapore '23 RW and Ferrari brought a medium-high load. Norris got to 92% throttle on final Q3 run

[Mcl_G10]

Any confirmation or idea on the rumoured under the body upgrades?

To still be where we are despite ferrari upgrading is a testament to the team.

[CjC]

Red Bull probably did sacrifice a bit of pace with an eye to the race - but making that statement implies Mclaren didnt - which I think they certainly did

Mclaren on face value appear to be carrying more wing unless the Bulls brought upgrades to improve straight line speed.

According to Mark Hughes Red Bull are running more wing.
https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/land ... explained/

[SmallSoldier]

Even with Norris' tow Verstappen gained a tenth in run to T1, when usually he lost time to Norris in this area

When you consider this, the real gap is 1.5 tenths or more

https://i.postimg.cc/tgFrCv4F/image.png

Red Bull still a monster in regards to Downforce… not lifting for the last corner.

Rb are running more wing than others. They're slower in terms of top speed and without the tow RB would've been struggling to beat Ferrari and Mercedes.

RB are running full Monaco spec whilst McLaren are running Singapore '23 RW and Ferrari brought a medium-high load. Norris got to 92% throttle on final Q3 run

It will be interesting to see how that pans out in the race, it should help them a lot in terms of tire deg… Tire delta will play a huge role with the cars so even in terms of raw pace, that will be the differentiator.

Glad that we have a fight at the front once again and interesting to watch someone like Lando in a car that can put up a fight, should be a fun race tomorrow.

[mwillems]

Even with Norris' tow Verstappen gained a tenth in run to T1, when usually he lost time to Norris in this area

When you consider this, the real gap is 1.5 tenths or more

https://i.postimg.cc/tgFrCv4F/image.png

Red Bull still a monster in regards to Downforce… not lifting for the last corner.

Rb are running more wing than others. They're slower in terms of top speed and without the tow RB would've been struggling to beat Ferrari and Mercedes.

RB are running full Monaco spec whilst McLaren are running Singapore '23 RW and Ferrari brought a medium-high load. Norris got to 92% throttle on final Q3 run

Norris appearing to lose time to RB in turn 1 is an artifact of the data. You can see he loses time in braking but gains it all back and mor once he hits the apex of turn one.

This is simply down to their approach to turn 1. Lando was faster in turn 1 and by the exit of turn one he's ahead of where he was at the entry of turn 1 in the delta to Max. When Lando is back to 100% on the throttle on the exit of turn 1 the gap is .027 reduced from .69 on entry.

[FittingMechanics]

If you put the line to the point where Lando brakes he is only .066 behind not a tenth, you can also see the Red Bull is faster on all the straights and slower min speeds in all the corners. This suggest we are running more wing which will also be a part of that .066.

So personally I don't think that Max tow gave him much more than than .05

Lando does lose some time in turn 1, but not because of the tow, hence you can't include losses after they hit the brakes.

But we can conclude, Lando would probably be P2 if there was no Alpine. Margins are so small, they need to start thinking about it.

Maybe, maybe not. Lando had a poor exit at the final corner and I don't know how much time Lando gained from the tow, I can only approximate the difference between the tows. To be clear though, Lando had the pace for a pole without a tow and it wasn't a "godly" lap, but it was very good with a little bit of time still left on the table.

You can watch comparison on Youtube of their laps, it looks like Norris is able to match VER on the straight until the later part where he loses out. Probably because the tow started to help a lot (or maybe just a longer gear).

And at the end of the lap NOR is losing time on the straight - sure looks like Alpine saved us from another VER pole by tow.

[LionsHeart]

From a personal standpoint, it's hard for me to claim McLaren has the outright best car, when they fall off at certain conditions. As I mentioned before, in Imola the first stint was not good. Canada as well, the dry stint was not good on pure pace, with Mercedes and Max being the obvious faster car. And here, I was quite happy after qualifying, but then Lando said the car was nervous on the high speed and we has leaving time on the table all weekend playing it safe. It took him going all out to barely pip Max. It could have gone wrong, and the vibe here would be quite a bit different, with people probably blaming Lando for fumbling it again on Q3.

Then on the other side, you look at Max and he is comfortable pushing the limits all the way through. It just makes me think that he will perhaps be able to get laptime easier and more consistently tomorrow in the race. But also, as I said, I would love it to be wrong.

Your position is somewhat one-sided. In that case, I would say that Max's pace in the second stint was worse than Lando's in Imola. In Montreal, in the rain, Lando was faster, but he saved his tires, and then in the drying conditions he drove faster.

Unless you look at it from that perspective, you can say that Red Bull is faster and McLaren is slower. You have to look at the whole picture, not just pick out individual things.

[mwillems]

Red Bull is slower in the 1st corner and definitely not a monster in downforce. It was significantly slower in all but 2 corners, where it was a hair from being able to match the Mclaren, but still behind. The Red Bull is faster on most straights suggesting they aren't as draggy as is being suggested.

[Emag]

From a personal standpoint, it's hard for me to claim McLaren has the outright best car, when they fall off at certain conditions. As I mentioned before, in Imola the first stint was not good. Canada as well, the dry stint was not good on pure pace, with Mercedes and Max being the obvious faster car. And here, I was quite happy after qualifying, but then Lando said the car was nervous on the high speed and we has leaving time on the table all weekend playing it safe. It took him going all out to barely pip Max. It could have gone wrong, and the vibe here would be quite a bit different, with people probably blaming Lando for fumbling it again on Q3.

Then on the other side, you look at Max and he is comfortable pushing the limits all the way through. It just makes me think that he will perhaps be able to get laptime easier and more consistently tomorrow in the race. But also, as I said, I would love it to be wrong.

Your position is somewhat one-sided. In that case, I would say that Max's pace in the second stint was worse than Lando's in Imola. In Montreal, in the rain, Lando was faster, but he saved his tires, and then in the drying conditions he drove faster.

Unless you look at it from that perspective, you can say that Red Bull is faster and McLaren is slower. You have to look at the whole picture, not just pick out individual things.

But I can't pick out those, because they were not relevant for the whole race result. Max was slow on the second stint, but only towards the end. And how much can you attribute that to McLaren being better on the hard tires and how much was it RedBull not optimizing their car?

In Canada, Lando was quickest in the most quirkiest and unrepresentative of true pace track conditions. He simply took care of the intermediates better than the others and he could push it more at the end when track was drying. And also, people forget to mention McLaren actually started the race with more front wing downforce, something the others were able to fix only after the first round of pitstops (which could explain why the pace advantage disappeared on the second intermediate stint).

I would absolutely take those points into consideration, if they were the deciding factor on giving a race win to McLaren. But they weren't. The weak moments were more relevant for the final race results.

[LionsHeart]

https://postimg.cc/zyvbZ6GX

If Red Bulls have bigger wings, why do they lose more at the apex of corners? Or is their chassis not the best in slow corners? Somehow I missed that point.