2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

[mwillems]

What's odd is that, as a previous poster pointed out, Lando's starts were much better last year, in fact both drivers regularly made up places at the starts.

I wonder if they've changed something in the clutch that has changed the feel.

To what extent would they be able to work on this during the summer break? Are they allowed to do practice starts somewhere?

A few have been possibly to do with the clutch. But others are to do with his own racing and getaway, I think. He's fighting much closer though with Merc, Ferrari, Verstappen and of course Oscar. So there is a lot more to deal with at the starts. I just think he's always had a tendency to overthink thinks and sometimes overdrive. Hopefully he calms down a bit and just focusses on getting solid starts for a while, and not trying to win the race at turn 1.

[Ben1980]

I always seem to recall Lando being careful at the start. Rarely caught up in incidents. It seems though that getaway is generally fine, as it was today.

Today, just seemed that deg wasn't as high as expected and overtaking was harder than expected.

It's not just the getaway, but his racecraft over those initial 1 or 2 turns, in which more often than not, he will lose out when fighting at the front.

That's sort of ny point, he's generally careful. And maybe being in some instances isn't assertive.

[Tvetovnato]

WTF is with Lando and his race starts? Come on! Another lost chance for a good results today, even though it seesm the team was not 100% sure which direction to take, and in a race like this it is understandable but still come on Lando get your act in place for lap1. Kudos to PIA for P2, if it was not for the slow pitstop, he might have been P1 today.

I think the summer brake has arrived at the right moment, I'm tired to see us loosing chances to win races so easily.

I don’t think Piastri’s pit box mistake cost him the win though. He would have been on Hamilton’s back a bit sooner, but with the dirty air and to pass not only Hamilton but also Russell would be a really tall order…

[Slahinki]

WTF is with Lando and his race starts? Come on! Another lost chance for a good results today, even though it seesm the team was not 100% sure which direction to take, and in a race like this it is understandable but still come on Lando get your act in place for lap1. Kudos to PIA for P2, if it was not for the slow pitstop, he might have been P1 today.

I think the summer brake has arrived at the right moment, I'm tired to see us loosing chances to win races so easily.

I don’t think Piastri’s pit box mistake cost him the win though. He would have been on Hamilton’s back a bit sooner, but with the dirty air and to pass not only Hamilton but also Russell would be a really tall order…

But he wouldn't even have needed to pass Russell...

[mwillems]

I always seem to recall Lando being careful at the start. Rarely caught up in incidents. It seems though that getaway is generally fine, as it was today.

Today, just seemed that deg wasn't as high as expected and overtaking was harder than expected.

It's not just the getaway, but his racecraft over those initial 1 or 2 turns, in which more often than not, he will lose out when fighting at the front.

That's sort of ny point, he's generally careful. And maybe being in some instances isn't assertive.

I think there's a few occassions where he has either made a silly mistake or he's gone to hard for a position, with too high a risk of losing places. Trying to go round the outside of Hamilton was daft, a few races back. Going all in on Max and giving the tow to Russell, and still losing the place to Max are examples. Today was a silly mistake when defending against Piastri who had a slightly better start, but still, his start put him in the position to defend.

I'm sure there are more, I'd need to go over it. It's not coincidence though.

[BMMR61]

Max was furious about getting undercutted last race twice and blasted the strategists even after the race.

Red Bull could not let it happen again so they pitted him early. I think that all teams underestimated the effect of the reduced DRS zone. It was hard to overtake with DRS.

They did not really pit Max early though.
Pit order was Lec 26 (H), Ham 27 (H), Ver 29 (M), Nor 30 (H)
All while Lando was basically 1s behind Max in undercut position. Not sure why they waited.

Quite strange frankly. They did have tire offset as Lando went to pits later than Verstappen but they also had hards to put on and Verstappen had to go medium. Undercutting him would work as Verstappen can't respond early due to mediums.

Seems like the McLaren pit wall have an obsession with running longer stints to gain tyre delta. Sure it works sometimes but what's wrong with the classic undercut when overtaking on track is really difficult - like here? Just seems there is a one dimensional inflexible nature to their strategy.

[mwillems]

Yeah. We could have undercut, the team knew the tyres would last. Specifically told Lando to push from the very first lap of the last stint as they were "Robust".

You look at the times in the stints and there just isn't a drop off on the tyres. You could see it was hard to overtake. Perhaps the team underestimated Max's pace. Not as fast as us, but not far behind either. Overtaking was not happening.

But hey, you live and learn.

Again.

[Balalu]

Lando needs a high caliber sports psycologist.

To me it has been very abvoius that his weekest point since day 1 has been his mental strength. If he can work around this, he will be up there with the greats.

Oscar and Verstappen are IMO two of the strongest mentally. Usually, the difference between a great athlete and the greatest is mental strength.

[JPower]

Lando needs a high caliber sports psycologist.

To me it has been very abvoius that his weekest point since day 1 has been his mental strength. If he can work around this, he will be up there with the greats.

Oscar and Verstappen are IMO two of the strongest mentally. Usually, the difference between a great athlete and the greatest is mental strength.

I really don't know how you can put Oscar in that category when he hasn't faced any type of championship-level pressure thus far. Hamilton and Verstappen sure. Piastri is composed but let's slow down putting him up there just yet.

[Balalu]

Lando needs a high caliber sports psycologist.

To me it has been very abvoius that his weekest point since day 1 has been his mental strength. If he can work around this, he will be up there with the greats.

Oscar and Verstappen are IMO two of the strongest mentally. Usually, the difference between a great athlete and the greatest is mental strength.

I really don't know how you can put Oscar in that category when he hasn't faced any type of championship-level pressure thus far. Hamilton and Verstappen sure. Piastri is composed but let's slow down putting him up there just yet.

Just character observation.

[Dunlay]

Was Lando still sulking for Hungary? He didn't appear to be mentally in Belgium, the whole weekend. Oscar seems to have picked up some understanding of race pace. He was definitely the better driver of the two this past weekend.

[SmallSoldier]

They did not really pit Max early though.
Pit order was Lec 26 (H), Ham 27 (H), Ver 29 (M), Nor 30 (H)
All while Lando was basically 1s behind Max in undercut position. Not sure why they waited.

Quite strange frankly. They did have tire offset as Lando went to pits later than Verstappen but they also had hards to put on and Verstappen had to go medium. Undercutting him would work as Verstappen can't respond early due to mediums.

Seems like the McLaren pit wall have an obsession with running longer stints to gain tyre delta. Sure it works sometimes but what's wrong with the classic undercut when overtaking on track is really difficult - like here? Just seems there is a one dimensional inflexible nature to their strategy.

Spa is considered one of the easiest tracks to overtake in the calendar… if there is a race where a tire delta is useful is this one… It didn’t work out and it was mainly due to still struggling with T1, Lando would lose 0.3 on average on T1 alone, keeping him too far from Max to make use of the DRS (or in other words, Max was really good at T1 and didn’t made one mistake taking that corner for as long as Lando was following).

It simply wasn’t a great weekend for Lando and the Team… But the MCL38 even when fast and capable of fighting at the front, isn’t a car with a huge delta to the rest of the field… Specially not Red Bull (when driven by Max)

[BMMR61]

Lando needs a high caliber sports psycologist.

To me it has been very abvoius that his weekest point since day 1 has been his mental strength. If he can work around this, he will be up there with the greats.

Oscar and Verstappen are IMO two of the strongest mentally. Usually, the difference between a great athlete and the greatest is mental strength.

I really don't know how you can put Oscar in that category when he hasn't faced any type of championship-level pressure thus far. Hamilton and Verstappen sure. Piastri is composed but let's slow down putting him up there just yet.

He is just a fast learner with that strength. Most casual F1 watchers don't get how difficult the process of learning the current spec of Pirellis with the Venturi designs actually is. The key thing to see in Oscar's evolution from this race was how he worked hard to get around Leclerc, distanced him, then spent a couple of laps getting his tyres back in order. Then came the charge - woulda coulda shoulda but - he came home with a flourish and a speed to win if the race had been 2 laps longer. Lando had a scruffy race, Oscar was sublime, equal best drive with Lewis I'd say. Mentally bulletproof kid.

[Tommy.G]

So now McLaren is within a 1-2 finish behind Red Bull in the WCC!

I think they can do it if they continue like that! Norris is way off Verstappen's WDC…he isn’t making any inroads and his psychology after every single race is so low that he can’t go on like that in a championship battle!

[Ben1980]

Was Lando still sulking for Hungary? He didn't appear to be mentally in Belgium, the whole weekend. Oscar seems to have picked up some understanding of race pace. He was definitely the better driver of the two this past weekend.

Hasn't he had a death in the family?