2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

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coltmarshmallow
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Re: 2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

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Marc.W wrote:
11 Mar 2024, 20:42
LionsHeart wrote:
11 Mar 2024, 19:10
Stella says major updates could come to Miami or Imola. The second option is more preferable, since it is closer to the team’s base and the track is much more traditional. A little more time for production, and there are also three free practices available.

This means the first major updates will appear only in mid-May. Wait another two months.
I believe Zak has been quoted saying no updates until after Miami because they want to be able to evaluate it properly (not a sprint weekend)
Stella has been playing F1 manager it seems.

Put 1 engineer on a part design to gain extra car expertise for working on the part longer, clearly following the meta.

:lol:

trinidefender
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Re: 2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

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I’ve been looking as much data as I can find and every avenue I think of all leads back to the same reasoning as to why McLaren is consistently setting their cars up with more rear wing than other teams.

I believe it comes down to protecting the tyres in the race. The car this year so far and the upgraded car from last year share common traits of being strong in medium and high speed corners but not great on slow speed corners and terrible on low speed corners that are long such as a hairpin.

I.e. corners where large steering inputs are required and the longer those inputs are required the worse their relative performance is.

Basically the higher they run the downforce on the car the more they can offset some of this negative trait and in addition reduce the scrubbing of the tyres in the lower speed corners helping to keep tyre wear in check.

This has the obvious side effect of high drag levels overall but has the nice side effect of being ridiculously fast in the high speed sections (as was witnessed on the onboards of Hamilton chasing Norris through sector 2 at Saudi Arabia).

I’m sure McLaren would like to set the car up with a more balanced tradeoff of drag and downforce but doing that would mean heavy scrubbing and tyre wear in the lower speed corners ruining race pace.

It’s an unfortunate characteristic but one that will have to be dealt with at least until the upgrades that have been designed in the new tunnel are racing compared to this launch specification which was developed in the Toyota cologne tunnel which we all know had limitations running the car in yaw and with high steering angles.

Just my 2 cents

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mwillems
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Re: 2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

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It could well be at Jeddah and certainly was the case at Bahrain. There wasn't much low speed at Jeddah though and the tyre deg was almost non existent on the hards. but maybe they set it up to protect the softs a little. It'd be interesting to see if we have a tyre deg issue as the season goes on. Bear in mind that it is hard to talk of consistency in 2 races this year.

Knowing what we know about the teams worry that the front didn't have enough strength to perform well here it wouldn't surprise me if they weren't balancing running a little more wing at the front to get better turn in and apex speeds. Given our performance in the corners it did seem that this worry was dialled out. It could well be one, the other or both. Hopefully Stella will shed some light on it.
Last edited by mwillems on 12 Mar 2024, 10:29, edited 1 time in total.
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mwillems
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Re: 2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

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What I do remember that does add to your idea, is that Zak suggested we do still heat the tyres more than others, when at Bahrain he suggested our car does like the cooler weather.
It is noticeable that we do seem to get our best tyre relative performance out of the Harder tyres.
Last edited by mwillems on 12 Mar 2024, 12:29, edited 2 times in total.
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LionsHeart
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Re: 2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

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trinidefender wrote:
12 Mar 2024, 09:06
I’ve been looking as much data as I can find and every avenue I think of all leads back to the same reasoning as to why McLaren is consistently setting their cars up with more rear wing than other teams.

I believe it comes down to protecting the tyres in the race. The car this year so far and the upgraded car from last year share common traits of being strong in medium and high speed corners but not great on slow speed corners and terrible on low speed corners that are long such as a hairpin.

I.e. corners where large steering inputs are required and the longer those inputs are required the worse their relative performance is.

Basically the higher they run the downforce on the car the more they can offset some of this negative trait and in addition reduce the scrubbing of the tyres in the lower speed corners helping to keep tyre wear in check.

This has the obvious side effect of high drag levels overall but has the nice side effect of being ridiculously fast in the high speed sections (as was witnessed on the onboards of Hamilton chasing Norris through sector 2 at Saudi Arabia).

I’m sure McLaren would like to set the car up with a more balanced tradeoff of drag and downforce but doing that would mean heavy scrubbing and tyre wear in the lower speed corners ruining race pace.

It’s an unfortunate characteristic but one that will have to be dealt with at least until the upgrades that have been designed in the new tunnel are racing compared to this launch specification which was developed in the Toyota cologne tunnel which we all know had limitations running the car in yaw and with high steering angles.

Just my 2 cents
I can only support this comment. Last year at the beginning of the year, when there was not enough downforce, the car quickly lost pace. But with the updates, tire wear decreased and race pace returned, but even then Lando said they simply added downforce and that the team had only solved 30% of the problems.

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mwillems
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Re: 2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

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https://formu1a.uno/en/aston-martin-mak ... ag-behind/

McCullough has explained some of the thinking that goes into making an efficient DRS system:

“For a given level of basic resistance, when you open the DRS, other components also come into play, such as the floor.
“The main plane of the rear wing, the interaction between the beam wing and the floor.
“The interaction with the entire car body, the shape of the bonnet, the air coming out of the cooling vents and how you design your cooling package.”
...
“The rear wing we are using now is very similar to some we already had on last year’s car.
“But with the AMR24 we have improved the interaction with the bottom, with the cooling system and with its openings. ” said the English engineer.
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LionsHeart
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Re: 2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

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mwillems wrote:
12 Mar 2024, 10:34
https://formu1a.uno/en/aston-martin-mak ... ag-behind/

McCullough has explained some of the thinking that goes into making an efficient DRS system:

“For a given level of basic resistance, when you open the DRS, other components also come into play, such as the floor.
“The main plane of the rear wing, the interaction between the beam wing and the floor.
“The interaction with the entire car body, the shape of the bonnet, the air coming out of the cooling vents and how you design your cooling package.”
...
“The rear wing we are using now is very similar to some we already had on last year’s car.
“But with the AMR24 we have improved the interaction with the bottom, with the cooling system and with its openings. ” said the English engineer.
Interesting. Thanks!

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mwillems
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Re: 2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

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It will explain a part of why Aston Martin lose some pace in the race vs Qualy compared to Mclaren.
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Darth-Piekus
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Re: 2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

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Rumours of Newey not being content with Red Bull are getting more and more numerous. I think it would be best if Mclaren does everything to bring him back.

trinidefender
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Re: 2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

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https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/nor ... /10586541/

“We could have gained a lot of points, or we could have lost a few. And in the end, we lost a few. But that's just the way it is sometimes. So it was a good try, and I think it was the correct call to make.”

“Sometimes I feel like we're a little bit safe. And it's nice to be a little bit more aggressive, and try something different. So I'm happy with our decision.”

"It wasn't the best one, or let's say the correct one. But that's in hindsight. So I'm still happy with how we tried to execute it all."

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BMMR61
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Re: 2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

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Many of us McLaren fans have felt for some time that the team has been conservative on strategy. Split strategies have been rare and I personally applaud them for taking the shot they did. Risk/reward at a track with high jeopardy was something easy to understand and I hope it may be a sign of more such gambles being taken.

Looking at the lap times of Oscar while he was stuck behind Lewis compared to when he was released into free air showed about a half a second a lap penalty. Tyre deg would have been negligible so I didn't factor that but the 25 laps he was held up would have easily resulted in a 10+ second delay. So it's conceivable Piastri and Leclerc would have finished pretty much line astern. The perception we are in a battle with Mercedes and Aston some way off Ferrari may need revising in the next couple of rounds of high speed circuits. Here's hoping the team's understanding of the new car is better than that of it's rivals and I see evidence that may be the case when we look at the frustration in the Merc camp.

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catent
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Re: 2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

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BMMR61 wrote:
13 Mar 2024, 05:21
Many of us McLaren fans have felt for some time that the team has been conservative on strategy. Split strategies have been rare and I personally applaud them for taking the shot they did. Risk/reward at a track with high jeopardy was something easy to understand and I hope it may be a sign of more such gambles being taken.

Looking at the lap times of Oscar while he was stuck behind Lewis compared to when he was released into free air showed about a half a second a lap penalty. Tyre deg would have been negligible so I didn't factor that but the 25 laps he was held up would have easily resulted in a 10+ second delay. So it's conceivable Piastri and Leclerc would have finished pretty much line astern. The perception we are in a battle with Mercedes and Aston some way off Ferrari may need revising in the next couple of rounds of high speed circuits. Here's hoping the team's understanding of the new car is better than that of it's rivals and I see evidence that may be the case when we look at the frustration in the Merc camp.
If Piastri had the pace to match Leclerc, he would’ve done so when they were within a second of each other for several laps following the SC, and the two would’ve ran away together. Leclerc ultimately pulled away, managed to clear Hamilton in relatively short time, and moved well up the road from Piastri.

McLaren simply lacked some raw pace compared to Ferrari during the first couple weeks. The two teams seem comparable in medium/high-speed (huge strides made by Ferrari this winter, while McLaren has thrived in those areas since the midseason update last season), while Ferrari has an edge in low-speed and straight-line; Piastri’s struggles to pass Hamilton with DRS illustrated this difference in raw pace between McLaren and Ferrari.

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mwillems
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Re: 2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

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I think that the car struggles a bit in dirty air more than we would like. Being so much faster in the corners than the Merc made this not look the case, but against a car that might be running at similar pace at a point in the race, we don't run so well behind.

And if we can't pass a Merc at Jeddah, we sure as hell won't be passing a Red Car.
Last edited by mwillems on 13 Mar 2024, 10:09, edited 2 times in total.
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Emag
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Re: 2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

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Darth-Piekus wrote:
13 Mar 2024, 01:02
Rumours of Newey not being content with Red Bull are getting more and more numerous. I think it would be best if Mclaren does everything to bring him back.
If Newey leaves RedBull now, he will join Ferrari.
He has mentioned in a podcast some time ago that his career regrets were not having designed a ferrari car and not having worked with drivers like fernando and lewis.

He can write off two of those regrets in one go if he leaves and joins Ferrari next year.

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BMMR61
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Re: 2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

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catent wrote:
13 Mar 2024, 05:59
BMMR61 wrote:
13 Mar 2024, 05:21
Many of us McLaren fans have felt for some time that the team has been conservative on strategy. Split strategies have been rare and I personally applaud them for taking the shot they did. Risk/reward at a track with high jeopardy was something easy to understand and I hope it may be a sign of more such gambles being taken.

Looking at the lap times of Oscar while he was stuck behind Lewis compared to when he was released into free air showed about a half a second a lap penalty. Tyre deg would have been negligible so I didn't factor that but the 25 laps he was held up would have easily resulted in a 10+ second delay. So it's conceivable Piastri and Leclerc would have finished pretty much line astern. The perception we are in a battle with Mercedes and Aston some way off Ferrari may need revising in the next couple of rounds of high speed circuits. Here's hoping the team's understanding of the new car is better than that of it's rivals and I see evidence that may be the case when we look at the frustration in the Merc camp.
If Piastri had the pace to match Leclerc, he would’ve done so when they were within a second of each other for several laps following the SC, and the two would’ve ran away together. Leclerc ultimately pulled away, managed to clear Hamilton in relatively short time, and moved well up the road from Piastri.

McLaren simply lacked some raw pace compared to Ferrari during the first couple weeks. The two teams seem comparable in medium/high-speed (huge strides made by Ferrari this winter, while McLaren has thrived in those areas since the midseason update last season), while Ferrari has an edge in low-speed and straight-line; Piastri’s struggles to pass Hamilton with DRS illustrated this difference in raw pace between McLaren and Ferrari.
Partly correct, but "raw pace" wasn't Piastri's main impediment to a closer finish it was an inability to overtake due to the car's poor DRS effect discussed at some length here. Encouraging was his ability to maintain a deficit to Leclerc of 10.5. - 11.5 seconds after he found clear air. Was Leclerc pushing? Yes, he was still contesting second place behind Perez who had a 5 second pit stop infringement to serve after the race. Sure, Leclerc had enough pace to score the fastest lap on the final lap so Ferrari still held the edge - my point is that the gap from 3rd to 4th flattered the Ferrari. McLaren have found sufficient high speed corner speed to give hope of challenging for P2 at some of the tracks to come. The Achilles heel will be the missing top speed and DRS activation that the car had late last year. Perhaps the unassisted top speed deficit could be explained in terms of the team deciding to carry plenty of rear wing to protect the tyres in an effort to open a window for the soft tyres to work at some point as they tried with Lando. But they will need to find more efficiency to prevent the embarrassing lack of straight line speed at Jeddah - they can't hide behind looking after tyre deg given how unabrassive that track was.