Lewis Hamiton and the MP4-24

[PlatinumZealot]

YES.. WE NEED TO CREATE THIS POST!!

WHAT IS GOING ON RIGHT NOW?!!

IS IT THE CAR??!!! ARRRGGGHH!! Races are painful to watch now!!!


That Stupid MP4-24 is embarrassing the champ!! I agree that it should be on a scrap heap!! IT just a big fat silver Lemon!!

Damn! All these regular drivers are starting to look good..

The Mclaren people have a bad concept design.. They seem to be incapable of going back to the basics.. the car is a slump of botched up concepts and equations..

It seemed that the UP-GRADES are just BAND-AIDS!..

Look on the BRAWN and RED BULL FLY!! (hmm taurine in the fuel?)

Those two cars are Clean Clear Concepts so upgrading is easy and straight forward.

McLaren need to steal some Ferrari designs again, because the momentum from the stolen designs in 07 seems to have crashed into a brick wall because of the new rules.. Mclaren is dead in the water..

I mean A FORCE INDIA out qualified the CHAMP!! What the hell?!!.. The car was sliding around like some One footed penguin..

I am buying a Plane ticket to England so I can Sabotage the molds for the MP4-24.. The champ must not be seen like this anymore!

[hulmerist]

you're gonna get a lot of stick for posting this

i will say though, it'll do hamilton a world of good in his own mind and in the eyes of the public

if he and the team get back to the front he'll prove people wrong who say he can't develop a car, and shut the people up who moan he walked into a winning car

it's his team now, heikki is clearly the second driver, and it's hamiltons chance to lead the team onto victories and back to the front, which if it happens will gain him far more respect as a champion than he would've got if mclaren had stayed at the front

[PlatinumZealot]

hehe.. no dis-respect to other drivers but (even my other favourite driver; Alonso is looking bad.. )...man the media is bashing The champ every chance they get. Planet F1 is taking full advantage of the situation and making it look like LH is just a poor driver.. sometimes i just laugh when i read those articles.

[hulmerist]

planetf1 is a pretty scruffy and unproffesional site it seems

spelling errors in articles are unforgivable plus it's a bit trashy in general, not much different from crash.net or something with all the terrible commenters

[ISLAMATRON]

cant allow the ignorant press to dictate your rating of the drivers, they always fail to realize the importance of the car.

I think that they got the set up all wrong with the car this weekend... Heikki said something that hinted that they were running low fuel in practice, which could account for the glipces of good form.

The new car changes(updates to the car) may react differently to set up changes than they have been used to with the MP4/24.

[timd]

I dont normally comment on these sort of storys as all sportsmen, particularly british ones seem to take a hammering.

He's either slagging off the team or not speaking his mind and just a coperate mouth piece.

Ive been getting into Tennis recently and its the same story there with Andy Murrey. Less soo but its nothing new, Beckham ect. They all take a hammering.

I think the way he's been recently is actually a step forward in that he seems to be relaxing a bit more with the press. People always forget how fast things change in F1. For all we know in 6 races time everyone can be singing his praises. Im not saying they will fix the car, because they probably wont but things are always swinging one way to the other. Look at all the gossip surrounding Kimi.

90% of the drivers out there are top notch and the likes of Alonso and Hamilton seem to have that little bit extra at times when they need it. Saying that each driver might need things in their own special way to perform optimally. For all we know put NelsonP in last years Mclaren and he could fly. The only problem with that is he seems to lack consistency

The car is still the limiting factor. PlanetF1 just like most of the media likes to stir things up.

Lewis was right that they shouldnt rush anything out. You have to treat these cars like the Science experiment that they are. Change 1 thing at a time and try to find root causes. Work around the clock yes, rush no.

[hulmerist]

it is nice to see him speaking his mind, just like alonso does and just like kimi does

it'd be nice to see them a bit more like motogp riders with a bit more personality and a bit more relaxed...in jerez rossi went in the portaloo to celebrate for example....a genuinely funny moment you wouldn't get in formula 1 since it's so uptight, i know they can't get out of the car or anything but it'd be nice to see them having a bit more fun on the grid and after the races

which is why it was so great when jenson parked his car in the wrong place and had to run up to the podium

edit - also reminds me of kimi's excuse in brazil for not watching something, more of that please

[ESPImperium]

I aggree, the car is more a dog than his woman in my opinion.

McLaren, i feel lost technial department when Newey left, as he had such comand over the department. He is doing the same with Geoff Willis at Red Bull, and what Brawn GP have with Jorg Zanger and Logic Boigos as well.

I feel that its the technial departments fault, they dont have a homogonous car, nothing flows internally or externally.

Im feeling that they are gonna have to take a look at the cars design, maybes take the MP4/23 and do a intrim version of it to the 2009 regs, without KERS onboard. It may be their only way back to the sharp end, but even that car would require a majore redesign in 2 or 3 key areas, like the rear end to incorperate the DDD, front end to make shure the front wing works, and most of all, it passes the crash tests.

If i were McLaren, id think about doing what DC said today in comentry, bring out a new chassis mid season, they have been renouned for it in the past. Altho, its difficult with the current in-season testin ban.

Id say they, and BMW Sauber to a lesser extent now should look towards taking their cars from 08, and doing the design work required to make them leagal for the 09 season, with the new 09 bits, taking off the T Wings and flips ups of the 08 cars as well, ditching KERS and get back up to the front of the grid. I could also add Renault in there as well, but they seem to be making head-way with the R29.

Im not a Hamilton or McLaren fan by any strech, but things would be better for the sport if he was racing toward the front again. Make Quali intresting for shure. Im gonna say its the car if the upgrades dont work in Germanay, when they are expected to come allong, if not at Silverstone if Whitmarsh gets his way and brings them in earlier.

Whitch brings me to the point about McLaren and them lacking a clear direction from the top down, like what Ron Dennis had when he was principle, but thats another point entirely.

Theres too much to talk about on McLaren-Hamilton-Kovvy-MP/24.

One things for shure, the Mercedes-Benz FO108W and MercedesBenzHighPerformanceEngines KERS system isnt the weak point, in fact its the saving grace.

[hulmerist]

that's just ridiculous, the 2009 regulations meant they basically started with a clean sheet of paper, they can't modify the 2008 car

what they're doing now is trying to make a fundamentally slow car go faster which is hard, the obvious design flaws are going to hamper anything they put on it

it might've been better to just design a whole new car...but hindsight is wonderful

[PlatinumZealot]

Yes.. that is the thing..this car is a "brand new" Mclaren because of the rules. This year revealed the teams that were riding of previous designers coat tails and got too relaxed. Now they got a totally new design and the ball in is in their court and don't know how to play it.

McLaren have left me thinking that they use that "Brute force method" throwing on parts and money all about. Patching (bitching ) up the car.

A contrast is Ferrari who said "OK, something is FUNDAMENTALLY wrong here. Lets look at things using a certain Philosophy." They changed the chassis (made it 15kg lighter) and just generally corrected everything in a systematic way. It produced great results.

I am not exactly sure what are the major problems that they are trying to fix. I don't know if it is a case of the stiffness of the chassis? the weight of it? the geometry of the suspension? the aerodynamics? What is it that eludes them?

Whatever it is, they need a new design philosophy. Sometimes I pretend that I can help them and I try to look on the car and try to see what is wrong with it. Those exhaust surrounds are what I don't like seeing.. everybody elses' are FLAT why do theirs have to protrude from the body? Why did they choose that style of diffuser? what is that peg in the middle of it? Why did they cut off two huge chunks of the floor plate? Why did they not do the floor plate like the RedBull? These things I am thinking about.

When I do take on a design that is complex and I can't understand it in the given time, I just COPY the concepts of one that works. Yes.. I've copied before..My philosophy is "Don't burst your brain"
The team at woking is bursting their brains over this car and getting no where..

Start over and Make it basic OR COPY like a Hyundai

[Miguel]

I think it was Pedro Mtz de la Rosa who put it down brilliantly last race. All these guys are like the swimmers in the 50m freestyle olympic final. All are exceptionally talented swimmers, and one or two of them may be legendary swimmers. Because you don't put yourself into an olympic final without a ton of talent and hard work. But then F1 makes it so that the one with the best car has to "swim" 45m while other guy may have 55m in front of him. There is no way the guy swimming 55m will beat the other one swimming 45.

I know it's easy for some to call Button and Barrichello mediocre. Alright, I don't think they are on Senna's level either, but they have had some amazing performancees and you don't stay 10 years in F1 if you don't know how to drive fast. The thing is, if you are .2 seconds faster than Button but then he has .7s of advantage thanks to the car... Or if you are as good as Button but he has half a second advantage... And it goes both ways.

For example, our favourite laughing stock Mr Piquet Jr has won many races on equal machinery in the lower formulae. And everybody critizises him. I doubt there is anyone in this forum able to drive any car less than 1s slower than Piquet round a circuit, and I doubt I've met anyone in my life able to do it. Just think how hard it must be losing and losing against another talented driver after being the king of the hill for so many years (note the same may apply to Kovalainen).

@n_sminkle:

It's the aero. The McLaren was probably amongs the Top 3 cars in Monaco. And no, the engineers at McLaren aren't idiots. There are many brilliant engineers with I suspect quite a few PhD's thinking how to improve the aero of the car. It just happens that the other teams don't employ your local garage mechanics to do CFD.

[PlatinumZealot]

So your are saying that more than likely the CFD technicians are messing it up?

[ESPImperium]

If you take a look at poor cars of recent times, taking the Renault R27 and Honda RA107 and RA108 as case studys, what was wrong with them is that they teams relyed too much on data from the wind tunnel and CFD, and in the case of the Hondas, it was a poorly at best calibrated wind tunnel that was to blame. The Renault R27 was very much designed arround the CFD facility that renault have, and failed spectacularly, exept the integration of the zero-keel suspension to the car, whitch Hekki has largely credited with the evolution of that part of the car.

I feel that what Hekki lernt at Renault in 2007 has given him the best results in the MP4/24 over hamilton, as he has been in a usless car once and can adapt to suit the car, where Hamilton has to have the car to suit his style.

Thats what i feel that Jenson and Rubens are much better drivers, as they have the experience of poor cars, that once in a good one can hone it quicker and evolve it quicker, getting it to suit their style of driving. Thats where i feel Hamilton will learn more this year than any other in his career.

I feel that the wind tunnel guys and CFD guys at McLaren are not working together, and need to check their equiptment, then deal with that before they can tackle the problems with the car, as the recent case studys above have shown, the car may be a dog because of poorly calibrated equiptment. Thats just my hunch.

[axle]

Didn't McLaren admit at the start of the season that the CFD numbers weren't matching reality...hence there is a huge effort internally to re-do the CFD system (which will set them back months).

Once the CFD is done they can restart the 2010 car (assuming they will be there to race....)

[ESPImperium]

Thats what Ross Brawn did last year, nothing but getting the wind tunnel properly calibrated and getting the CFD and tunnel numbers to match reality. Its what Pat Symonds did mud way thru 07 to end first quater 08 at Renault.

Could be the whole problem, CFD and Tunnel are not properly calibrated and dont match reality.