2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

[Mansell89]

At what point would you guys start to think a Norris WDC charge stops being a pipe dream?

For me it's probably if Red Bull are 3rd or 4th fastest in both Baku and Singapore, meaning Norris manages to reel him in by at least 25-30 points between those 2 weekends. If not I feel like Max will have enough of a points buffer to make it, becuase I highly doubt Norris will be able to keep shaving off an average of 8 points per weekend otherwise.

Does anyone consider it likely already?

I think we need to consistently see Mercedes and Ferrari giving Max problems as well as us. Whilst improving Ferrari and Merc are double edged swords, if we continue to have the pace we showed in Zandvoort and Monza- two polar opposite tracks too- then we could keep denting Max’s lead if he’s stuck behind a Ferrari and Merc too.

Max is an awesome driver and will get everything out of that Red Bull, so it is a tall order but there are massively promising signs for McLaren.

Monza has been a real problem for us in these regs- to now have the downforce/drag trade off we demonstrated today and be so quick is a seriously good sign.

Here’s hoping

[MrGapes]

I thought it was still possible after Hungary, but I don’t blame Oscar going for it… and continuing to go for it, he had very little to lose in terms of the championship and no one has told him otherwise.

And for that reason I no longer think it’s possible to win. It was already a remote chance, and he would have needed everything from the team, but the team clearly don’t feel the same way so.

I guess just aim to get the points for the constructors for the rest of the season.

[Hoffman900]

I think one that thing that has always made me a Mclaren fan is they are the OG “we have no number 1 driver” team.

While there is criticism to go all around, Lando deserves a brunt of it. At the end of the day, the team isn’t the one driving the car.

He’s had 7 poles if you include Sprints, with a 0% pole start to leading at the end of lap 1 conversion.

Furthermore, he’s only converted one Sunday pole to a win. Lewis has converted 58% poles to wins in 17 seasons, Max has converted 80% of his poles to wins. Lando, of 5 Sunday poles, has only converted 1, so 20%.

If anyone remembers, his first win at Miami was all from safety car luck as he had qualified 5th, running in 3rd, and Oscar was leading the race before being on the wrong side of the safety car draw. The drama at Hungary was all because Mclaren pitted Lando and undercut Oscar who was ahead. Without that snafu, Lando is beaten there fair and square as well.

You don’t win championships this way. This also ignores that Mclaren has had the fastest or a winning caliber car since Miami and the drivers fail to take advantage of in qualifying or the race, for a number of reasons. The points seperation since Miami vs Max has only grown, that’s not how a championship battle works.

As a Mclaren fan this is frustrating, but I’m as much as frustrated at Lando who after 6 seasons should be ready for this moment, and he consistently lets himself get mugged by Oscar and others. If it wasn’t Oscar today, it could have just as easily been George doing the mugging.

As for Oscar, I don’t blame him one bit and until ordered otherwise, should be in it for himself, as all racing car drivers should and are. It’s a fickle business and you don’t get to where they are by being nice.

Again, Lando at this point is showing he’s another very fast driver who just can’t win races if it doesn’t fall into his favor. I’d even rate peak Danny Ric over Lando right now (who should be at his peak). All these driver’s all think “if I had the car, I’d be champion” and that again, shows that it’s not that simple. To be the Max’s, Lewis’s, Senna’s, Prost’s, Schumacher’s, Alonso’s of the world is more than just the car and being fast.

[BMMR61]

Honestly after watching the replay on Motorsport Monday down under having escaped all the media to watch without any bias.....

I come here to try (unsuccessfully) to wade through 15 pages of (mostly) moaning. Perspective please! I realise most of the ridiculous posts are from strangers to this site and I suspect too new to F1 to have seen Mika v DC and other McLaren glory days.

Only a few people here have participated in serious motorsport - that much is clear. People have been calling for Oscar to wave Lando through since the halfway mark of the 2024 season. We have two potential WDCs who are doing a (mostly) brilliant job. Oscar is a VERY accurate overtaker as can be seen by his recent very adventurous overtakes, today was on the line but fair. Clearly he had the pace and tyre management sorted today. There will be other days when Lando is the quicker McLaren driver.

Lando has reduced the gap to Max by another 8 to be -62, game still on. "Oh but today was a chance to get take another 3 points off the gap" I hear some of you saying. GET OVER IT! "Oh but McLaren could have been leading Red Bull in the WCC today" - NO! Charles won on a risky strategy. I will debate our strategy elsewhere.

Get off Oscar's back, if he is relegated to B Grade he will find a good home at another top team, I believe there's going to be openings in 9 months or so! This guy is the Gold Standard - those who can't see it, I'm sorry for you. To Lando, yes it's always galling to have a younger teammate coming up challenging your place but he needs to grow a set - I believe you are making progress in this department Lando and I am still cheering for you to win a DESERVED WDC this year.

Finally, McLaren are now 8 points off Red Bull, reason to feel pleased. Red Bull waved the white flag today when they pitted Max for another set of hard tyres ensuring a 2 stop before half way. Monza was a track we expected to get a little reined in, we're still challenging at every track. No other team can claim that anymore.

[Dunlay]

Honestly after watching the replay on Motorsport Monday down under having escaped all the media to watch without any bias.....

I come here to try (unsuccessfully) to wade through 15 pages of (mostly) moaning. Perspective please! I realise most of the ridiculous posts are from strangers to this site and I suspect too new to F1 to have seen Mika v DC and other McLaren glory days.

Only a few people here have participated in serious motorsport - that much is clear. People have been calling for Oscar to wave Lando through since the halfway mark of the 2024 season. We have two potential WDCs who are doing a (mostly) brilliant job. Oscar is a VERY accurate overtaker as can be seen by his recent very adventurous overtakes, today was on the line but fair. Clearly he had the pace and tyre management sorted today. There will be other days when Lando is the quicker McLaren driver.

Lando has reduced the gap to Max by another 8 to be -62, game still on. "Oh but today was a chance to get take another 3 points off the gap" I hear some of you saying. GET OVER IT! "Oh but McLaren could have been leading Red Bull in the WCC today" - NO! Charles won on a risky strategy. I will debate our strategy elsewhere.

Get off Oscar's back, if he is relegated to B Grade he will find a good home at another top team, I believe there's going to be openings in 9 months or so! This guy is the Gold Standard - those who can't see it, I'm sorry for you. To Lando, yes it's always galling to have a younger teammate coming up challenging your place but he needs to grow a set - I believe you are making progress in this department Lando and I am still cheering for you to win a DESERVED WDC this year.

Finally, McLaren are now 8 points off Red Bull, reason to feel pleased. Red Bull waved the white flag today when they pitted Max for another set of hard tyres ensuring a 2 stop before half way. Monza was a track we expected to get a little reined in, we're still challenging at every track. No other team can claim that anymore.

None of this changes the fact that Oscar's stupid move on Lando created opportunity for Ferrari to nick a win. Extremely poor management by McLaren in not managing Oscar. Even a high school kid could have spoken to Oscar before the race to hold position at the start. But not McLaren. It just proves how difficult it is to have Ross Brawn's mastery over team management. That's the kind of stupidity that drove Lewis away in 2012.

[Hoffman900]

onestly after watching the replay on Motorsport Monday down under having escaped all the media to watch without any bias.....

This. Let’s not forget Lando is a British driver, on a British team, in a British sport, with a dad who is one of the richest people (read connected) in Britain.

[Hoffman900]

Honestly after watching the replay on Motorsport Monday down under having escaped all the media to watch without any bias.....

I come here to try (unsuccessfully) to wade through 15 pages of (mostly) moaning. Perspective please! I realise most of the ridiculous posts are from strangers to this site and I suspect too new to F1 to have seen Mika v DC and other McLaren glory days.

Only a few people here have participated in serious motorsport - that much is clear. People have been calling for Oscar to wave Lando through since the halfway mark of the 2024 season. We have two potential WDCs who are doing a (mostly) brilliant job. Oscar is a VERY accurate overtaker as can be seen by his recent very adventurous overtakes, today was on the line but fair. Clearly he had the pace and tyre management sorted today. There will be other days when Lando is the quicker McLaren driver.

Lando has reduced the gap to Max by another 8 to be -62, game still on. "Oh but today was a chance to get take another 3 points off the gap" I hear some of you saying. GET OVER IT! "Oh but McLaren could have been leading Red Bull in the WCC today" - NO! Charles won on a risky strategy. I will debate our strategy elsewhere.

Get off Oscar's back, if he is relegated to B Grade he will find a good home at another top team, I believe there's going to be openings in 9 months or so! This guy is the Gold Standard - those who can't see it, I'm sorry for you. To Lando, yes it's always galling to have a younger teammate coming up challenging your place but he needs to grow a set - I believe you are making progress in this department Lando and I am still cheering for you to win a DESERVED WDC this year.

Finally, McLaren are now 8 points off Red Bull, reason to feel pleased. Red Bull waved the white flag today when they pitted Max for another set of hard tyres ensuring a 2 stop before half way. Monza was a track we expected to get a little reined in, we're still challenging at every track. No other team can claim that anymore.

None of this changes the fact that Oscar's stupid move on Lando created opportunity for Ferrari to nick a win. Extremely poor management by McLaren in not managing Oscar. Even a high school kid could have spoken to Oscar before the race to hold position at the start. But not McLaren. It just proves how difficult it is to have Ross Brawn's mastery over team management. That's the kind of stupidity that drove Lewis away in 2012.

Lando needs to learn to finish a lap 1 and not get mugged; he’s been mugged by Oscar twice, Hamilton, Russell, Sainz, Verstappen. He has a zero percent pole start to end of lap 1 lead. He’s only converted one pole to a win, and his other win was from a safety car that came out before he pitted and after his teammate who was leading the race had pitted. So he has one win on merit of speed alone. Despite having the fastest car since then, he’s done nothing with it and the points gap has until the Dutch Grand Prix, has only grown.

Having your team intervene because you can’t finish a lap is not championship driving.

[Dunlay]

Honestly after watching the replay on Motorsport Monday down under having escaped all the media to watch without any bias.....

I come here to try (unsuccessfully) to wade through 15 pages of (mostly) moaning. Perspective please! I realise most of the ridiculous posts are from strangers to this site and I suspect too new to F1 to have seen Mika v DC and other McLaren glory days.

Only a few people here have participated in serious motorsport - that much is clear. People have been calling for Oscar to wave Lando through since the halfway mark of the 2024 season. We have two potential WDCs who are doing a (mostly) brilliant job. Oscar is a VERY accurate overtaker as can be seen by his recent very adventurous overtakes, today was on the line but fair. Clearly he had the pace and tyre management sorted today. There will be other days when Lando is the quicker McLaren driver.

Lando has reduced the gap to Max by another 8 to be -62, game still on. "Oh but today was a chance to get take another 3 points off the gap" I hear some of you saying. GET OVER IT! "Oh but McLaren could have been leading Red Bull in the WCC today" - NO! Charles won on a risky strategy. I will debate our strategy elsewhere.

Get off Oscar's back, if he is relegated to B Grade he will find a good home at another top team, I believe there's going to be openings in 9 months or so! This guy is the Gold Standard - those who can't see it, I'm sorry for you. To Lando, yes it's always galling to have a younger teammate coming up challenging your place but he needs to grow a set - I believe you are making progress in this department Lando and I am still cheering for you to win a DESERVED WDC this year.

Finally, McLaren are now 8 points off Red Bull, reason to feel pleased. Red Bull waved the white flag today when they pitted Max for another set of hard tyres ensuring a 2 stop before half way. Monza was a track we expected to get a little reined in, we're still challenging at every track. No other team can claim that anymore.

None of this changes the fact that Oscar's stupid move on Lando created opportunity for Ferrari to nick a win. Extremely poor management by McLaren in not managing Oscar. Even a high school kid could have spoken to Oscar before the race to hold position at the start. But not McLaren. It just proves how difficult it is to have Ross Brawn's mastery over team management. That's the kind of stupidity that drove Lewis away in 2012.

Lando needs to learn to finish a lap 1 and not get mugged; he’s been mugged by Oscar twice, Hamilton, Russell, Sainz, Verstappen. He has a zero percent pole start to end of lap 1 lead.

Other people can do it. Why can’t he?

Having your team intervene because you can’t finish a lap is not championship driving.

It's a team game. Isn't that the BS they told Lando in Hungary?

[BMMR61]

At what point would you guys start to think a Norris WDC charge stops being a pipe dream?

For me it's probably if Red Bull are 3rd or 4th fastest in both Baku and Singapore, meaning Norris manages to reel him in by at least 25-30 points between those 2 weekends. If not I feel like Max will have enough of a points buffer to make it, becuase I highly doubt Norris will be able to keep shaving off an average of 8 points per weekend otherwise.

Does anyone consider it likely already?

Likely? State what odds you want, I'd say a realistic chance. For example if Lando had grabbed the race by the scruff and the Ferrari gamble come up short (it was close today) then today's bleed out of Max's lead would have been 18 points, or 20 if Russell hadn't broken his FW and beaten Max. The scenario is wide open in the drivers championship, the constructors looks like going our way but take nothing for granted. People on forums jump to conclusions and suffer from a newish term "recency bias". I don't like the look of Baku but the way McLaren are going they may prove very competitive again. I'd like to hear what some of our more tech savvy people here have to say on this one.

I'll go out on a limb in answer to the question and say - YES. Put aside everything bar the maths. 8 points at each of the last two rounds, 8 rounds to go and 62 points the gap. Then, there's three sprint races. Even though it's maths, it relies on recency bias.

[Hoffman900]

None of this changes the fact that Oscar's stupid move on Lando created opportunity for Ferrari to nick a win. Extremely poor management by McLaren in not managing Oscar. Even a high school kid could have spoken to Oscar before the race to hold position at the start. But not McLaren. It just proves how difficult it is to have Ross Brawn's mastery over team management. That's the kind of stupidity that drove Lewis away in 2012.

Lando needs to learn to finish a lap 1 and not get mugged; he’s been mugged by Oscar twice, Hamilton, Russell, Sainz, Verstappen. He has a zero percent pole start to end of lap 1 lead.

Other people can do it. Why can’t he?

Having your team intervene because you can’t finish a lap is not championship driving.

It's a team game. Isn't that the BS they told Lando in Hungary?

Remember Lando was only in that spot because they screwed over Oscar who was winning that race, by pitting Lando first. He was losing there to OP too. Take out the safety car and OP wins Miami, take out the team screw up and OP wins at Hungary without the drama.

Other than the gimme at Miami, and the win at the Dutch GP, Lando has made barely a dent in Max and if anything has slipped even further.

The media is only hyping this “battle” up because they need to get views. That’s how this works. These announcers and media have pre meetings on talking points and how to hype up the event and any inkling of a battle for viewership.

[Dunlay]

Lando needs to learn to finish a lap 1 and not get mugged; he’s been mugged by Oscar twice, Hamilton, Russell, Sainz, Verstappen. He has a zero percent pole start to end of lap 1 lead.

Other people can do it. Why can’t he?

Having your team intervene because you can’t finish a lap is not championship driving.

It's a team game. Isn't that the BS they told Lando in Hungary?

Remember Lando was only in that spot because they screwed over Oscar who was winning that race, by pitting Lando first. He was losing there to OP too.

But the fact remains, he heeded to team's interest. Not Oscar here.

[Hoffman900]

It's a team game. Isn't that the BS they told Lando in Hungary?

Remember Lando was only in that spot because they screwed over Oscar who was winning that race, by pitting Lando first. He was losing there to OP too.

But the fact remains, he heeded to team's interest. Not Oscar here.

You don’t win championships by only converting 20% of your poles to wins, and only getting 1 of your 2 wins on speed merit. Danny Ric and Carlos Sainz have better pole to win conversions and never had a car as fast as Lando:

https://www.statsf1.com/en/statistiques ... toire.aspx

That’s plain and simple.

Does anyone think with the Mclaren that they’ve had since Miami, that peak Hamilton, Alonso, Senna, Prost, Schumacher, current Verstappen, etc would have numbers like that? Absolutely not.

[AR3-GP]

Does anyone know what Piastri was referring to here?

After the race, Piastri did not hide his bitterness, also because he believes he was disadvantaged by the behaviour of some colleagues: "I thought it would be tough, but that it would be possible. With the pace I had at the beginning, I think I was catching it at a pace of two seconds per lap gain. There was someone who didn't help me much, Stroll for example was driving as if he was at his first go-kart race, and that cost me a couple of seconds."

https://www.formulapassion.it/f1/f1-new ... di-go-kart

[BMMR61]

I'm not opposed to team orders per se. I am angry at the bias of people saying the team driver who is (rather luckily) leading his teammate at the halfway point of a 24 round championship should have the full weight of the team behind him. I say let them race at this very early stage, just my opinion after 50 years of following McLaren F1. I'm not even of the belief that it should be left until the other driver has zero mathematical chance, that would be too democratic. If Lando drops a race with Oscar winning with fastest lap they would be 18 pits apart - not totally unlikely, both drivers must be allowed free reign with 8 (+3 sprints) to go. If you ASS U ME that fully backing one driver over the other will be the most profitable tactic then you may make an ASS over U and ME! It's still game on.

Turning attention to McLaren strategy I understand the way they went. Conservative. With 18 laps to go and Oscar maintaining a 5 second lead over Charles it should have been a case of "who blinks first". McLaren blinked and lost. Charles tyres were much older than Oscar's and the times as far as I can see were still quite strong. The gaps to Lewis and Carlos were such that even if the tyres went off the cliff the damage would be insignificant in results. Yes, when you make the choice to pit again while still aiming to win you need to do it early enough to be in with a chance of catching the leader. The magnitude of the tactical error was, in retrospect fairly low/medium and not in the range of Silverstone's howler.

[Dunlay]

Remember Lando was only in that spot because they screwed over Oscar who was winning that race, by pitting Lando first. He was losing there to OP too.

But the fact remains, he heeded to team's interest. Not Oscar here.

You don’t win championships by only converting 20% of your poles to wins, and only getting 1 of your 2 wins on speed merit. Danny Ric and Carlos Sainz have better pole to win conversions and never had a car as fast as Lando:

https://www.statsf1.com/en/statistiques ... toire.aspx

That’s plain and simple.

Does anyone think with the Mclaren that they’ve had since Miami, that peak Hamilton, Alonso, Senna, Prost, Schumacher, current Verstappen, etc would have numbers like that? Absolutely not.

You can't justify the lack of judgement on Oscar's part and team's inability to manage this particular situation by quoting various theories and trying to downplay Lando's performance.