Poll: who will be ahead in 2018, McLaren-Renault or STR-Honda

[NathanOlder]

If mclaren had 2 Stoffels and toro rosso had 2 gaslys (instead of Alonso and Hartley)
Would that be a better representation as the how good the 2 cars are ?

[Andres125sx]

Points scored:

McLaren: 12-10-6-8-4-0-0
STR: 0-12-0-1-0-6-0

Ignore the numbers if you will, one team scored points at 5/7 GPs (71.4%), the second at 3/7(42.8%). But the weaker car is the more consistent...


It´s always the same, one race where STR perform because the track suits their car, and people jump into this thread claiming STR is a better car

[techman]

It´s always the same, one race where STR perform because the track suits their car, and people jump into this thread claiming STR is a better car

put two good drivers in toro rosso. and the you get consistency . only one driver is performing in toro rosso, and overall better driver in mclaren. hopefully they put lando in their quickly instead of harlty

[AJI]

Points scored:

McLaren: 12-10-6-8-4-0-0
STR: 0-12-0-1-0-6-0

Ignore the numbers if you will, one team scored points at 5/7 GPs (71.4%), the second at 3/7(42.8%). But the weaker car is the more consistent...


It´s always the same, one race where STR perform because the track suits their car, and people jump into this thread claiming STR is a better car

Nice cherry picking, but I'm not going to let you gloss over the fact that McLaren has way more resources, a way better driver, and have had less accidents. They should have more points.
That said, points scored is a terrible way to judge car performance. Give both cars to an unbiased good driver, give him a test day at a clear track and let him set some times. Then we'll know the relative performance.
My money is on STR Honda right now, but when this poll was created I was firmly in the McLaren camp.

[Andres125sx]

What if... what if...

Reality is not cherry picking, it´s reality. Cherry picking is jumping into this thread only at those races where STR is better, but keeping silent in all the rest

[AJI]

Andres, with respect, I simply pointed out the obvious reasons why McLaren have more points. If you choose to judge a tiny midfield team against an enormous top tier team and quantify their apparent 'success' by an extremely basic points system that ignores the facts, go right ahead. I'm just going to continue to look at the progress of both teams race by race and judge them on their performance, relative to their resources...
I can understand why this thread is so frustrating for McLaren fans, particularly for Alonso fans. He should be at the pointy end. What if… what if… what if…

[HPD]

Points scored:
McLaren: 12-10-6-8-4-0-0
STR: 0-12-0-1-0-6-0
Ignore the numbers if you will.

Do you remember the end of the 2017 season?
In the last races, Mclaren Honda was faster than TR, Haas, Renault and fought with Force India.
They fought to be the fourth force. But they ended up with fewer points than most of them.
You can ignore this if you wish, but I will not. Mclaren and Honda have worked hard to finish 2017 in the best way.

But I understand your point of view, however you should relax more.

[techman]

i belive honda did say the last update last year was very close to renault and mclaren honda was pretty quick compared to toro rosso in the end months last year. current toro rosso is an evolution of last year and it almost the same, they need to bring a b spec like mclaren , but dont it will happen

[Andres125sx]

Andres, with respect, I simply pointed out the obvious reasons why McLaren have more points. If you choose to judge a tiny midfield team against an enormous top tier team and quantify their apparent 'success' by an extremely basic points system that ignores the facts, go right ahead. I'm just going to continue to look at the progress of both teams race by race and judge them on their performance, relative to their resources...
I can understand why this thread is so frustrating for McLaren fans, particularly for Alonso fans. He should be at the pointy end. What if… what if… what if…

First, I don´t choose anything, it´s not me who opened this thread, but we both are participating in it, so we should stick with the original question, who will be ahead?. McLaren, up to now with more than double the points. Fact.

If you want to start a new thread to discuss who´s performing better relative to their budget, I´ll be with you stating McLaren is at the bottom and STR probably at the top, but that´s not the case in this thread.

BTW, the points system does not ignore any fact, racing is about who finish first, not about who was performing better before retiring. I can understand why this is so frustrating for Honda fans tough

[Andres125sx]

Points scored:
McLaren: 12-10-6-8-4-0-0
STR: 0-12-0-1-0-6-0
Ignore the numbers if you will.

Do you remember the end of the 2017 season?
In the last races, Mclaren Honda was faster than TR, Haas, Renault and fought with Force India.
They fought to be the fourth force. But they ended up with fewer points than most of them.
You can ignore this if you wish, but I will not. Mclaren and Honda have worked hard to finish 2017 in the best way.

But I understand your point of view, however you should relax more.

I don´t ignore that HPD, actually when McLaren made official the split it was very bad news to me. They did renounce to the best PU because they were not the works team, and now they´re not the works team, but with the third PU instead of the best

I said and still think the same, they did the dirty job for Honda, and now (next season) RBR will probably enjoy the fruits of their sacrifize. They split at the worst point, just before Honda started to perform. As you say at the end of 2017 Honda was far from the poor and unreliable PU McLaren suffered for the three seasons.

[AJI]

...the points system does not ignore any fact, racing is about who finish first, not about who was performing better before retiring...

The points system is about: a) who finishes in the points, b) who finishes first, and most of all c) who finishes. It has very little to do with who is faster unless you are in the same team and have exactly the same reliability.
You can be the best driver on the grid and score, lets say, 346 points less than the WDC at the end of the season. Does that 'fact' mean that HAM is 21 times better than Alonso? I think we can probably agree that he isn't, but according to the points system he is...
Surely you can see my point now?

[Andres125sx]

...the points system does not ignore any fact, racing is about who finish first, not about who was performing better before retiring...

The points system is about: a) who finishes in the points, b) who finishes first, and most of all c) who finishes. It has very little to do with who is faster unless you are in the same team and have exactly the same reliability.
You can be the best driver on the grid and score, lets say, 346 points less than the WDC at the end of the season. Does that 'fact' mean that HAM is 21 times better than Alonso? I think we can probably agree that he isn't, but according to the points system he is...
Surely you can see my point now?

Yes, I see the point, but we´re talking about cars not about drivers. Points are misleading to rate drivers because 90% of the perfomance comes from the car, but that´s exactly the reason points are pretty accurate to rate cars

[McHonda]

On traction limited low downforce tracks the STR has been better(Bahrain and Canada). On high speed medium to high d/f tracks the McLaren has been better(Australia,Spain and China). In Baku and China the Honda suffered a little with the larger straights hurting the ERS and Monaco was a bit harder to tell as Alonso's Q2 was ridiculous but the McLaren looked worse than the STR to me around there.

Monaco's the only one I think we have to worry about driver influence, the others have been as clear as day.

[ispano6]

Gasly should have scored in France and Austria but was prevented by other teams racing incidents, so rating on points earned during the season doesn't truly gauge performance. Going by qualifying, STR Honda is already ahead of McLaren Renault.

Besides the poll title is stupid because ahead describes no unit of measurement and 2018 is 365 days long so ahead at which point in time 2018?

Going by points results is therfore stupid as well as it only gauges who will place where in the final championship standing should the season end with the current results. But we are not at the halfway point yet and McLaren seems to be falling apart and Redbull Honda are just getting started. Second half of the season should swing STR Honda's way provided no more racing incidents caused by other teams.

[Andres125sx]

And have you found some way to compare two F1 teams and see STR ahead?


A season is a season exactly to stablish who was better along the whole year, not at some cherry picked point of the season. Sorry if you don´t like it but it´s the same at ANY competition, from football to Red Bull Air Race.