2025 McLaren F1 Team

[FittingMechanics]

It's likely that blue on thermal camera means ambient temperature (or close to it) while red is hottest (maybe 100C or so).

To me it just means that McLaren probably just has a super effective isolation (or great cooling) in parts of the brakes.

[Quantum]

It's likely that blue on thermal camera means ambient temperature (or close to it) while red is hottest (maybe 100C or so).

To me it just means that McLaren probably just has a super effective isolation (or great cooling) in parts of the brakes.

Anyone seen these images?
Amazed Red Bull haven't released them.

$40k thermal cameras fixatedly pointed at rivals rather than their own car does seem to be wasteful.

[FittingMechanics]

Anyone seen these images?
Amazed Red Bull haven't released them.

$40k thermal cameras fixatedly pointed at rivals rather than their own car does seem to be wasteful.

To me this is a prime example of "--- stirring". Red Bull knows exactly the temperatures of those areas but they've decided to say that they are "blue" and that they can't be cooled by air. Effectively saying that McLaren is cheating and implying temperature is lower than ambient.

[BMMR61]

Red Bull seem to put bullets in the FIA's gun and ask them to fire away. First was flexi-wings rear, then flexi-wings front, mini DRS, water cooled tyres, and the latest of all allegations is the brake drum using phase-change cooling or some space age tech. The mind boggles with all this Horner nonsense, with either nothing or little to back much of it up. The methods of measuring wing deflection using static load was established long ago then recently modified due to Red Bull's and others' concerns. Pirelli brushed away the w/c tyres with half a sentence, and the FIA did a close examination of the brake "cake-tins" (sorry I'm old and "brake drums" have other connotations!) with an unequivocal all clear.

It's not hard to understand why serious McLaren fans are feeling more vindicated than relieved by the Barcelona performance. Stella and others said "it won't change much", someone in Red Bull was feeding the media saying "McLaren will be nowhere". So if we are to ask who has been more honest throughout this - Red Bull or McLaren, it should be a no-brainer. Whose words are proven more factual? I doubt it will stop another round of some totally spurious concoction, most likely from the office of Christian Horner. It was nice that Toto basically said "enough of all these accusations". Yes M-B do supply power units but.....

It shouldn't be a surprise that the team which has had arguably the most "grey area" innovations in the past two decades should also say "they must be cheating".

[Quantum]

To me this is a prime example of "--- stirring". Red Bull knows exactly the temperatures of those areas but they've decided to say that they are "blue" and that they can't be cooled by air. Effectively saying that McLaren is cheating and implying temperature is lower than ambient.

Precisely.
Publish the photos and point to the irregularity reasoning for illegality. Or....get on with it(I know some have a real issue with that, but it really is as simple as that).
Instead we have an PR machine churning out endless stories about how they're "unhappy" with what McLaren are doing along with highly misleading suggestions of cheating.
The way McLaren are dealing with these incessant, unhealthy and irregular obsessions is exemplary to be quite frank.
Kudos to the Macca crew.

[mwillems]

I haven't noticed anything special about Mclaren starts. They have some good ones on a day when others have bad ones but they also have some bad ones on a day when others have good ones.

Russell had the best start in Imola. Norris didn't have a good one in Spain. Piastri had the best one in Jeddah. Verstappen had the best one in Japan. Not a clear trend to me. Rear traction in a race stint is connected to tire temperatures among other things.

The starts are noticeably better than last year in my view, and the car is generally better off the line than others.

More important is the empirical view. The telemetry demonstrates my points of the way the car is driven through corners and also of strong launch speeds, where the Mclaren is in general running at the fastest speed for most of the launch phase through to the first corner. Sometimes it is a bigger gap, sometimes not, but it is consistently a strong car from launch.

The Mclaren would appear to have excellent rear traction.

[mwillems]

To me this is a prime example of "--- stirring". Red Bull knows exactly the temperatures of those areas but they've decided to say that they are "blue" and that they can't be cooled by air. Effectively saying that McLaren is cheating and implying temperature is lower than ambient.

Precisely.
Publish the photos and point to the irregularity reasoning for illegality. Or....get on with it(I know some have a real issue with that, but it really is as simple as that).
Instead we have an PR machine churning out endless stories about how they're "unhappy" with what McLaren are doing along with highly misleading suggestions of cheating.
The way McLaren are dealing with these incessant, unhealthy and irregular obsessions is exemplary to be quite frank.
Kudos to the Macca crew.

I'm sure we are running colder, but the idea that blue = "brake temps as if idling" is nonsense.
This was clearly there for some of the less informed members of the public to hook onto a perception.
Also, when was this taken? Was this after a very slow in lap with almost no use of the brakes and plenty of cooling?

Most of what is posted about the Mclaren and its drivers are fully unsubstantiated opinions (Posed at times as fact), which clearly have a bias, that when reviewed or questioned, you end up in a circular argument because either the quoting from articles was so selective in order to support a specific argument - or the "context window" of the individual is so small replies are made that were covered a few posts back, and you end up circling round endlessly.

When you have a conversation with someone who's motivation in a discussion is to somehow work through everything to make it fit an outcome and to utilise selective memory and selective quoting, let's be honest, it's an utter waste of time engaging with them.

[Quantum]

I'm sure we are running colder, but the idea that blue = "brake temps as if idling" is nonsense.
This was clearly there for some of the less informed members of the public to hook onto a perception.
Also, when was this taken? Was this after a very slow in lap with almost no use of the brakes and plenty of cooling?

Highly likely to be the case they are running cooler. However if there is no presented Thermal Imaging, it may as well just be "thermal imagining".

Most of what is posted about the Mclaren and its drivers are fully unsubstantiated opinions (Posed at times as fact), which clearly have a bias, that when reviewed or questioned, you end up in a circular argument because either the quoting from articles was so selective in order to support a specific argument - or the "context window" of the individual is so small replies are made that were covered a few posts back, and you end up circling round endlessly.

A by-product of "thermal imagining" and negatively associated context by way of acrimonious finger pointing. All you have to do now is go behind the scenes and complain to the FIA(along with your "sister" team), then spill some crumbs to Michael Schmidt to perpetuate the propaganda reel.

At what point do those guys just *"fix their f--ing car"?
Or are the thermal cameras designated to be pointed away from their own cars?

*Trademarked

[Emag]

It's not even that to be honest, everyone has their own bias. Of course, selling opinions for facts with selective sources is not something I agree with either, but everyone has their own perception of what is a high quality source and what is not. So naturally, you will disagree with them.

I just think the arguments in general were weak and that's where I wanted to chime in, offering my view on the topic.

The "wall" of mechanics when the car is bare, which is used as the biggest indicator of something going on there, is one example of confirmation bias. There's a million reasons why mechanics hide things from the camera when the bodywork is removed. Every team does it. If you believe there is something tricky going on in the brake ducts though, you will just take that as a sign to confirm your belief.

McLaren in particular do it to an "extreme" degree and they have been doing it for a while. I remember even with the MCL35-M, they tried to hide the diffuser for as long as they could. And that was just a simple different interpretation of the rules which didn't end up getting copied from anyone.

I have a slight feeling McLaren is leading the opposition into a wild-goose chase with this brake duct thing, although unintentionally. It was RedBull who started the "rumor" with something possibly going on there after this "blue spots" debacle.

[Farnborough]

It's likely that blue on thermal camera means ambient temperature (or close to it) while red is hottest (maybe 100C or so).

To me it just means that McLaren probably just has a super effective isolation (or great cooling) in parts of the brakes.

Anyone seen these images?
Amazed Red Bull haven't released them.

$40k thermal cameras fixatedly pointed at rivals rather than their own car does seem to be wasteful.

I'd not be so certain of that detail in cost and availability. Virtually all DSLR image capture sensitivity covers IR but screened post lens to avoid collated detail from that part of spectrum. The big manufacturers will remove that through service facility if requested, it wouldn't look any different from casual observation in use and among other photographers.
To screen out the visible spectrum also a IR passing filter can be used .... the longer telephoto lenses have filtration slot back near camera body to facilitate if needed. That would leave just a IR spectrum image in its entirety, no human visible light as part of image consolidation.

Nobody could really tell if one was being used in this configuration in reality.

[AR3-GP]

It's likely that blue on thermal camera means ambient temperature (or close to it) while red is hottest (maybe 100C or so).

To me it just means that McLaren probably just has a super effective isolation (or great cooling) in parts of the brakes.

Anyone seen these images?
Amazed Red Bull haven't released them.

$40k thermal cameras fixatedly pointed at rivals rather than their own car does seem to be wasteful.

Read what is being posted, or don't, but don't create confusion for others because you don't want to read: https://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewt ... 1#p1291131

and reposted:

It is understood that Red Bull has looked at some thermal images obtained from an outside party, which have shown interesting "blue" spots - indicating that certain parts of the McLaren brake drums are remarkably cold compared to others.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/heat ... /10720911/

[Quantum]

Read what is being posted, or don't, but don't create confusion for others because you don't want to read:

It is understood is by no means a factual, I can read.
The same team that accused McLaren of water in their tyres suddenly ends up with thermal imaging of that very specific agenda from an "outside party".
And because there is no authority to claim ownership of that "evidence" it is open to speculation. Nobody on this thread has seen of this speculatedphoto. And the team in question have a very loose relationship with accuracy as has been amply demonstrated these last 3 years.

You can get hung up on the speculative detailing if you want to. But just as you speculate, anyone else can too.

[Ground Effect]

Does anybody remember if the RB19 received anywhere near this level of scrutiny from rivals or the media?

[Quantum]

Nobody could really tell if one was being used in this configuration in reality.

Indeed. I'm speculating there.

But I would also add that in the quests for finer details, a 3k DSLR with back end IR ability will not be fit for purpose.
Having used a DJI Matrice drone over Snowden, I can attest that IR is IR up to a point.
(No I was not aiming it at a tent in the middle of the night)

[Farnborough]

Nobody could really tell if one was being used in this configuration in reality.

Indeed. I'm speculating there.

But I would also add that in the quests for finer details, a 3k DSLR with back end IR ability will not be fit for purpose.
Having used a DJI Matrice drone over Snowden, I can attest that IR is IR up to a point.
(No I was not aiming it at a tent in the middle of the night)

You do seem to be offering "sentiment" over factuality, in both direction though. With estimated 40k and now "back end" ability, to flip the view the other way.
The image matrix on these type camera are native capable, with ir filtered ordinarily to just make record of visible spectrum. Theres no back end about the arrangement. Normally a different focus point is used if pure ir as camera is calibrated for visible spectrum in scales the photographer uses.

This is their profession, most being suitably equipped as to the target market they take on. This use is well within the relms of very easy possibility for most photographer. The resolution we see in colour representation here on images from F1 press photographers is available in the same devices for other parts of visible/invisible to human spectrum.
In reality, the matrices and their mathematical extrapolation can offer even higher detail in resolution than full colour visible spectrum.

Your DJI experience is not a benchmark of the possible availability each team may have access to.