Mclaren Mercedes MP4-25

[Vasco]

I think this car was not fundementally as quick as RBR or Ferrari. What kept them competitive was initially the F-Duct and also their ability to develop the car quite quickly. They seemed to have reached the full potential of the car these last few races.

[marcush.]

It's why with the (TV) telemetry you never see any graduation like you do with the throttle, with braking. It's just on/off. Abit of a bummer really, it would be great to see how these guys manipulate the brakes, there's so much to it, arguably more than throttle manipulation.

No, I don't think that's the case. Teams do have detailed info on throttle pedal displacement.
Somebody argued it is because you can't calibrate brake pedal as accurately as throttle, because there's no "full-on" brake pedal technically.
Anyway, it can be done — look here from 0:52
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TAA0FDQ ... re=related

you would show brake pedal force instead of a pedal movement...

[ell66]

I think this car was not fundementally as quick as RBR or Ferrari. What kept them competitive was initially the F-Duct and also their ability to develop the car quite quickly. They seemed to have reached the full potential of the car these last few races.

i agree, the f-duct was a massive help early on, but they needed to capatalise on it...races like malaysia didnt help.
the car just looks allmost to big and clumsy through slow/mid speed corners and half decent through high speed.

[autogyro]

Suspension is to hard.

[segedunum]

I hate to say I told you so, but, well I did.

The car is still bouncing up and down under braking because of the strange suspension they have, they've struggled terribly to get a front end on the car that will stay balanced with the changes they've made at the rear and they focused too much on that F-duct at the start of the season that has compromised them. Once the exhaust driven diffuser development came into play and they had to respond to that they really were playing major catchup.

The logic of using the F-duct is that you'll have at least as much downforce as your rivals with a far lower penalty on drag, but McLaren have never had the downforce and raw cornering speed in the car all season. As soon as their rivals stuck a F-duct on their cars any overall advantage was lost. It was something they should have left provision for on the car, concentrated on making themselves competitive without it and then introduced it once they were confident in the car leaving their rivals less time to respond.

They've got a ton of work to do for next year because everyone is going to lose downforce once the single diffuser goes on.

[rifrafs2kees]

I hate to say I told you so, but, well I did.

The car is still bouncing up and down under braking because of the strange suspension they have, they've struggled terribly to get a front end on the car that will stay balanced with the changes they've made at the rear and they focused too much on that F-duct at the start of the season that has compromised them. Once the exhaust driven diffuser development came into play and they had to respond to that they really were playing major catchup.

The logic of using the F-duct is that you'll have at least as much downforce as your rivals with a far lower penalty on drag, but McLaren have never had the downforce and raw cornering speed in the car all season. As soon as their rivals stuck a F-duct on their cars any overall advantage was lost. It was something they should have left provision for on the car, concentrated on making themselves competitive without it and then introduced it once they were confident in the car leaving their rivals less time to respond.

They've got a ton of work to do for next year because everyone is going to lose downforce once the single diffuser goes on.

I am not sure if criticism of "Mclaren Culture" fits in here. It never fails to surprise me that a team as well established and financially sound as them come out with so many cars that are good but hardly have the advantage that RBR and Ferrari seam to display sometimes. I saw a promo not too long ago in which they stated that they scrape of the paint and repaint the cars before just about every race. The very next week, I saw an F10 panel with little flicks on road grime before first practice. Is Mclaren allocating too much resources for show and not enough for substance? Even their drivers are PR machines like non other.

I also hate to admit you were right. Though, I might still argue with you as to how much of a deficit they had to RBR and Ferrari. I do, however, totally agree with you that they should have improved the car as much as they could and stuck the f-duct on mid season, to create confusion in the other teams. The f-duct seams to have been a fundamentally simple development compared with the blown diffuser, and coupled with its early introduction, was a relatively simple mechanism to graft on. Come to think of it, the MP4-25 looks like a water diving bird(with the fat rear end and fin representing hind legs tugged back for the purpose of dart-like flight) and it goes just like one unfortunately.

[forty-two]

Sorry to be only just on-topic, but

Where does anyone think the McLaren might have been in the standings had they NOT introduced the F-Duct at all this season?

Here's my initial thoughts:
- I think their early good showings might have been at least in part due to the F-duct (or at least the competition might have thought so)
- Anything which forces the competition to concentrate resources on a new development avenue, theoretically means that they've less available in the tank to work on a new insert component here.
- When all said and done, even if employed solely as a distraction tactic, the F-Duct appears to have paid off for McLaren,

The question remains whether they'd have been as well to introduce it later in the season. Personally, I would have thought that it'd have been more likely to be banned in season, if introduced say six races in.

[Just_a_fan]

S'funny how everyone is saying how bad the McLaren relative to the competition, and yet, there they are in second place in the constructors' championship...

[marcush.]

I feel Mclaren did a substantial step with their 2010 contender. It was not quick enough to match the RedBull on all tracks ,thats true but at times the Mac was simply the car to have .
We should not forget that Mclaren is also the one team that was really able to make KERS work for them in 2009.For me they are in best position to be in contention for 2011.

[kalinka]

S'funny how everyone is saying how bad the McLaren relative to the competition, and yet, there they are in second place in the constructors' championship...

Yes, I was thinking the same. F-duct payed off for sure. I see the season's braking point when they realise ( too late ) , that they have to develop the EBD if they want to win the title (s). Ferrari realised it about same time, but they almost immediatelly succeded to implement it.
After they put it about right, they were down on other things....and so on. It was strinkigly visible in Hungary. I think that race was the ultimate alarm. After SPA, they have enough time, but they can't utilise it properly. Yet again, if you take out technical DNF's which are the "property" of the car/team, Hamilton would be still leading the WDC. So it's NOT a bad car, but if you get down during the season you have to have a better car to catch up. Brawn last year was off the pace too at the end of the season, but they have less problems, and they could afford it. McLaren can't. What bother's me most is the Barcelona DNF where Lewis could get 18 points, and it was absolutely not his fault. He would be now 6 points behind Alonso on 2nd place. I know, know...but still.

[marcush.]

the barcelona dnf is annoying because it is a straight copy of something they had experienced already and obviously preferred not to look into too depply.
What can go wrong will go wrong ..some day...

[ell66]

S'funny how everyone is saying how bad the McLaren relative to the competition, and yet, there they are in second place in the constructors' championship...

Yes, I was thinking the same. F-duct payed off for sure. I see the season's braking point when they realise ( too late ) , that they have to develop the EBD if they want to win the title (s). Ferrari realised it about same time, but they almost immediatelly succeded to implement it.
After they put it about right, they were down on other things....and so on. It was strinkigly visible in Hungary. I think that race was the ultimate alarm. After SPA, they have enough time, but they can't utilise it properly. Yet again, if you take out technical DNF's which are the "property" of the car/team, Hamilton would be still leading the WDC. So it's NOT a bad car, but if you get down during the season you have to have a better car to catch up. Brawn last year was off the pace too at the end of the season, but they have less problems, and they could afford it. McLaren can't. What bother's me most is the Barcelona DNF where Lewis could get 18 points, and it was absolutely not his fault. He would be now 6 points behind Alonso on 2nd place. I know, know...but still.

dont forget the 12 points lost in hungary as well.
i dont think the car was bad, but its half a second down on the bulls at most circuits...thats to much.

[wesley123]

Well if we go through every mistake or problem Lewis had he would have been WDC right now.

18 points in Spain
In australia after Webbers genius driving he lost I believed 5th place which are like 10 points
In Singapore he was second or third(we take in mind that he overtook Webber succesfully) which are 18 or 15 points
In monza he ran fourth until he hit massa and broke his suspension, which are 12 points iic.

Add that to each other and you can see he lost like 50 points by stupid things, which would have ment he would have been WDC right now. But on the other hand, Vettel lost way more.

The car this season just wasnt quick enough, when the season started they had an advantage with the F-Duct, which gave them a few wins. But as the season followed the team just seemed to not be able to get the updates working correctly with the ultimate turning point being the EBD, after a win in Spa it was clear they got way behind, that they came out this well is a wonder. The team had huge bad luck this year, as the tracks where they where best at they were going well, but at any time bad luck caused problems. In Spa Vettels collission caused Button to retire out of a pretty sure(at least) 3rd place. Same for Monza where an pitstop mistake made Button lose the win.

But apart from that, Hamilton threw away some too, from the last 2 races he threw away his position to Alonso, in Korea possibly costing him a win.

You coul really see this as an bad year for mclaren, last year was way better where their dog of an car was turned into an race winner, now they just felt backwards, with them even pretty much struggling with the mercedes'

[Arunas]

Well if we go through every mistake or problem Lewis had he would have been WDC right now.

18 points in Spain
In australia after Webbers genius driving he lost I believed 5th place which are like 10 points
In Singapore he was second or third(we take in mind that he overtook Webber succesfully) which are 18 or 15 points
In monza he ran fourth until he hit massa and broke his suspension, which are 12 points iic.

Add that to each other and you can see he lost like 50 points by stupid things, which would have ment he would have been WDC right now. But on the other hand, Vettel lost way more.

The car this season just wasnt quick enough, when the season started they had an advantage with the F-Duct, which gave them a few wins. But as the season followed the team just seemed to not be able to get the updates working correctly with the ultimate turning point being the EBD, after a win in Spa it was clear they got way behind, that they came out this well is a wonder. The team had huge bad luck this year, as the tracks where they where best at they were going well, but at any time bad luck caused problems. In Spa Vettels collission caused Button to retire out of a pretty sure(at least) 3rd place. Same for Monza where an pitstop mistake made Button lose the win.

But apart from that, Hamilton threw away some too, from the last 2 races he threw away his position to Alonso, in Korea possibly costing him a win.

You coul really see this as an bad year for mclaren, last year was way better where their dog of an car was turned into an race winner, now they just felt backwards, with them even pretty much struggling with the mercedes'

what you are smoking?

[wesley123]

Well if we go through every mistake or problem Lewis had he would have been WDC right now.

18 points in Spain
In australia after Webbers genius driving he lost I believed 5th place which are like 10 points
In Singapore he was second or third(we take in mind that he overtook Webber succesfully) which are 18 or 15 points
In monza he ran fourth until he hit massa and broke his suspension, which are 12 points iic.

Add that to each other and you can see he lost like 50 points by stupid things, which would have ment he would have been WDC right now. But on the other hand, Vettel lost way more.

The car this season just wasnt quick enough, when the season started they had an advantage with the F-Duct, which gave them a few wins. But as the season followed the team just seemed to not be able to get the updates working correctly with the ultimate turning point being the EBD, after a win in Spa it was clear they got way behind, that they came out this well is a wonder. The team had huge bad luck this year, as the tracks where they where best at they were going well, but at any time bad luck caused problems. In Spa Vettels collission caused Button to retire out of a pretty sure(at least) 3rd place. Same for Monza where an pitstop mistake made Button lose the win.

But apart from that, Hamilton threw away some too, from the last 2 races he threw away his position to Alonso, in Korea possibly costing him a win.

You coul really see this as an bad year for mclaren, last year was way better where their dog of an car was turned into an race winner, now they just felt backwards, with them even pretty much struggling with the mercedes'

what you are smoking?

An certain opinion which i dare to share...