2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[LionsHeart]

Good quali and race pace. Good practice for us.

[MrGapes]

pace looks quite good, Lando set that quali sim. with more fuel he did consecutive laps straight after.. and the high fuel pace looked very good, he spent most of it overtaking, but it was a new medium..

[MCLvamos]

Max's tyre didn't look that much older than ours though. Hope we can be close even if he is for sure favourite, but realistically best of the rest would be an outstanding return on a circuit like this, and the long runs in FP2 were promising for that.

[mwillems]

The RB is consistently getting higher speeds than the Mclaren under DRS and by a substantial amount . Actual corner exits are very tight and you can't say the RB has much more by way of traction out of the corners at this point. The Mclaren is carrying a higher minimum speed through the corners but the RB is able to be quite a lot more aggressive on the entry to most corners.

The Mclaren is a match for the RB everywhere expect the straights where the ultimate top speed is so much bigger (6kph on the home straight) that it puts us at a disadvantage. In the final 3 corners we are faster than the Red Bull, but the exit from the last corner is poor for us. Norris also looks like he has a struggles in the entry for turn 7 too.

It's interesting, I don't see the RB having a traction advantage anywhere except for the exit to the main straight, and that difference did not exist at the start of the lap.

Norris looks brilliant in S2 and S3, but loses most time in S1, generally gaining time back after S1. Again, this was largely down to the straight. We don't even lose much time in the entry of T1.

I get the impression that this is not that representative. We may yet still be very fast, but it feels like that are still a lot of variables at play.

[AR3-GP]

The RB is consistently getting higher speeds than the Mclaren under DRS and by a substantial amount . Actual corner exits are very tight and you can't say the RB has much more by way of traction out of the corners at this point. The Mclaren is carrying a higher minimum speed through the corners but the RB is able to be quite a lot more aggressive on the entry to most corners.

The Mclaren is a match for the RB everywhere expect the straights where the ultimate top speed is so much bigger (6kph on the home straight) that it puts us at a disadvantage. In the final 3 corners we are faster than the Red Bull, but the exit from the last corner is poor for us. Norris also looks like he has a struggles in the entry for turn 7 too.

It's interesting, I don't see the RB having a traction advantage anywhere except for the exit to the main straight, and that difference did not exist at the start of the lap.

Norris looks brilliant in S2 and S3, but loses most time in S1, generally gaining time back after S1.

Mclaren always said the weakness was slow corners.

[mwillems]

The RB is consistently getting higher speeds than the Mclaren under DRS and by a substantial amount . Actual corner exits are very tight and you can't say the RB has much more by way of traction out of the corners at this point. The Mclaren is carrying a higher minimum speed through the corners but the RB is able to be quite a lot more aggressive on the entry to most corners.

The Mclaren is a match for the RB everywhere expect the straights where the ultimate top speed is so much bigger (6kph on the home straight) that it puts us at a disadvantage. In the final 3 corners we are faster than the Red Bull, but the exit from the last corner is poor for us. Norris also looks like he has a struggles in the entry for turn 7 too.

It's interesting, I don't see the RB having a traction advantage anywhere except for the exit to the main straight, and that difference did not exist at the start of the lap.

Norris looks brilliant in S2 and S3, but loses most time in S1, generally gaining time back after S1.

Mclaren always said the weakness was slow corners.

Between the two fast laps, Mclaren looks better through the corners, but it isn't because RB have great traction, at least not on this fast lap. The time we lose on entry to the corners is more than made up by a higher apex speed.

Edit: Laps were run on Softs, Max fast lap on Lap 4, Landos on Lap 5.

[mwillems]

[FittingMechanics]

I doubt team suddenly decided to ru. glory laps in FP. With usual improvement they show over night, I expect an exciting weekend.

Once again it looks like it is time to throw away previous misconceptions about the car, this car is so upgraded that previous beliefs no longer are true.

Max is probably still faster, but lets keep him honest.

[MrGapes]

I doubt team suddenly decided to ru. glory laps in FP. With usual improvement they show over night, I expect an exciting weekend.

Once again it looks like it is time to throw away previous misconceptions about the car, this car is so upgraded that previous beliefs no longer are true.

Max is probably still faster, but lets keep him honest.

I think the misconceptions are still true... the window has just opened up due to added aero load, but in the race the slow speed weakness to the other top teams is still prevalent.

[Mostlyeels]

If we didn't need a reminder that this is a practise session, there was just a graphic up showing "track dominance", between Norris and Verstappen. It suggested we were faster through most the the corners, including several of the slow corners, which I expect not to be the case when we are running at full pace and the setups are dialled in.

It was the same in Fp1 - I suspect it's not a false reality. RB are running quite softly like in COTA, I think to help themselves deal with the kerbs, and consequently are gaining on traction

I thought in FP2 as well, in the long runs on the Mediums, Verstappen was a fair bit slower than Lando. So must be running pretty easy.

From memory, the Astons have PUs nearly as old as Lando's too? Alpine as well, but obviously not a 1:1 point of comparison.

[Harisudhan]

As Lando always says, the soft tire masks a lot of weakness because of extra grip. But the during the race and on the harder tires, the slow speed issues are exposed.

[organic]

If we didn't need a reminder that this is a practise session, there was just a graphic up showing "track dominance", between Norris and Verstappen. It suggested we were faster through most the the corners, including several of the slow corners, which I expect not to be the case when we are running at full pace and the setups are dialled in.

It was the same in Fp1 - I suspect it's not a false reality. RB are running quite softly like in COTA, I think to help themselves deal with the kerbs, and consequently are gaining on traction

I thought in FP2 as well, in the long runs on the Mediums, Verstappen was a fair bit slower than Lando. So must be running pretty easy.

From memory, the Astons have PUs nearly as old as Lando's too? Alpine as well, but obviously not a 1:1 point of comparison.

Norris did his long run starting with a new medium whereas Max had laps on his. Lewis had 11 lap old mediums at beginning of his long run also Max's stint shows he was easing into the tyres and began lapping consistently below 1.23.0

[Mostlyeels]

Norris did his long run starting with a new medium whereas Max had laps on his. Lewis had 11 lap old mediums at beginning of his long run also Max's stint shows he was easing into the tyres and began lapping consistently below 1.23.0

Thanks, I thought the delta was pretty big (0.6-0.7s from memory).

E: and Piatri going out for a long run on the Softs at the end, about 3-4 laps old?

[BMMR61]

McLaren look good in sector 3, which has the tight stadium section. This seems to contradict the long-held belief that long slow corners are the weakness, in fact I suspect it's mainly entry issues when the downforce is low in these corners. Earlier in the season the team were saying it was where traction limitations caused the tyres to start sliding about and the performance of the tyre rapidly dropped off from this degrading.

Maybe we have reached an "inflection point" where the group of three behind Max have reached such a parity that it really is nip and tuck from circuit to circuit. Obviously early to say but again it looks like on a predicted "worst" track (like Turkey!), turns out that the MCL60 is now decent on almost any track, the differences are mainly between Max's RB and the chasers whether he finds a real sweet spot. I suspect he will again do just that tomorrow. Lando had a pretty impressive long run in FP2 in the 1:22s and 23s with top speeds regularly in the 320s and up to 349kph! Actually faster for longer than Max, though I'd expect that to change tomorrow. No word that they may do a PU change yet.

[SilviuAgo]

As Lando always says, the soft tire masks a lot of weakness because of extra grip. But the during the race and on the harder tires, the slow speed issues are exposed.

Seems not...hard tyre maybe a problem but Medium stint was better than Red Bulls

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