2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[Mclarenfanboy]

Just watched Jeddah. I'm really saddened by the state of the team I used to support and still do in some sense. I see only one solution to their problems....

SACK THE ZACK!!

Sack the guy that saved the team...great thinking.

I think someone forgot to turn their logic circuits on today.

Clearly it’s all Zac’s fault, after all he single handedly designed, built and constructed the car.

That is true, but it is also true that he hires those people, so in a way, it is his responsibility, but what can he do, sack everyone in the middle of the season, just crazy, but I don t see Stella staying after this year, somebody has to be the scape goat, Seidl ran away to audi, Zak needs someone to take the blame or the owners will give him the boot. And Zak being Zak, that will not be him . . I am sorry to say, I dont think that even that will solve the problems, I think that problems with organisation and designing of the car go really deeply in our favorite team. I dont see the light at the end of the tunnel before 2026. But who knows...

[djos]

Modern engineering organisations don’t play the blame game, it’s destructive and unhelpful!

[Swed3121]

I'm a long time supporter but it's amazing that the McLaren threads are always the most popular here when they have hardly done anything interesting in nearly 10 years. Especially with the car. The Honda partnership was the most interesting thing to date in 10 years. Since then it has been downhill in nearly every way, fom management to car design. 1 win and maximum 3rd in the championship. Ron Dennis would have had the team in a better position by now with the Chinese investors that the board hated so much. Imagine the Chinese money + the usual Bahrain money + Honda money + Ron's leadership Ok him and Whitmarsh messed up believing Honda could step up in such a short time but I'm pretty sure he/they would have put it right before now.

For years te threads have been made up with childish bickering which is the same year after year. Even the mods have given up removing unrelated posts amongst others.

Thankfully something substantially interesting and positive is happening again with the wind tunnel and Norris has become potential championship material. He has been bullish recently. If McLaren don't step up soon he will be gone.

You mean Ron's leadership that practically chased Adrian Newey out of the team, completeley screwed up management of the entire team in 2007 allowing spygate to be a thing, leading to Mercedes dumping McLaren as a works team, and forced Honda to enter sooner than they wanted to thus leading to the biggest decline in the history of the team? Man was good in the '80s and '90s, but acting like he's some kind of McLaren Messiah is utterly silly. If anything he should have been removed entirely from the team sooner than what eventually happened in 2017.

You mean Check Chasing Newey? He goes where the money is. He even stayed with McLaren a little longer for more money.

Mercedes were willing to stick with McLaren and actually wanted to continue for at least another year with McLaren. You don't know what you're talking about.

McLaren were in a great position to dig themselves out of the hole they were in TOGETHER with Honda. Honda were becoming more accepting of outside help and were also updating machining and facilities. Honda have came a long way in 10 years. From being delusional liars (just look at their press conferences) to being integrated with Red Bull. It really is amazing. A steady healthy budget and improvement was imminent. It was always funny to read people complaining about lack of stickers on the McLaren Honda cars. Now look at the car and the team is still a failure. I don't think you have comprehended how massive McLaren's budget would have been with Ron and Honda still there. Ok there is a budget cap now but Ron's passion and vision would have meant sticking with Honda and the new wind tunnel would have already been built and in use by now. Oh and Alonso would have stayed longer and McLaren might still own their own bloody building.

McLaren are where they are now because of decisions by the owners, not because of Honda or Ron Dennis. McLaren have lost around 4-5 years of progress because of the owners bad decisions. They know that, Andreas Seidel knew that and that's why he asked for a new wind tunnel and they said yes.

Check chasing newey?
Ever considered that that payday may be worth it considering how many times he has gotten the rule change regulations absolutely perfect, if not for the gutless Renault engine i firmly believe RB would have dominated 2014-2020 as well.

[Bill]

You mean Ron's leadership that practically chased Adrian Newey out of the team, completeley screwed up management of the entire team in 2007 allowing spygate to be a thing, leading to Mercedes dumping McLaren as a works team, and forced Honda to enter sooner than they wanted to thus leading to the biggest decline in the history of the team? Man was good in the '80s and '90s, but acting like he's some kind of McLaren Messiah is utterly silly. If anything he should have been removed entirely from the team sooner than what eventually happened in 2017.

You mean Check Chasing Newey? He goes where the money is. He even stayed with McLaren a little longer for more money.

Mercedes were willing to stick with McLaren and actually wanted to continue for at least another year with McLaren. You don't know what you're talking about.

McLaren were in a great position to dig themselves out of the hole they were in TOGETHER with Honda. Honda were becoming more accepting of outside help and were also updating machining and facilities. Honda have came a long way in 10 years. From being delusional liars (just look at their press conferences) to being integrated with Red Bull. It really is amazing. A steady healthy budget and improvement was imminent. It was always funny to read people complaining about lack of stickers on the McLaren Honda cars. Now look at the car and the team is still a failure. I don't think you have comprehended how massive McLaren's budget would have been with Ron and Honda still there. Ok there is a budget cap now but Ron's passion and vision would have meant sticking with Honda and the new wind tunnel would have already been built and in use by now. Oh and Alonso would have stayed longer and McLaren might still own their own bloody building.

McLaren are where they are now because of decisions by the owners, not because of Honda or Ron Dennis. McLaren have lost around 4-5 years of progress because of the owners bad decisions. They know that, Andreas Seidel knew that and that's why he asked for a new wind tunnel and they said yes.

Check chasing newey?
Ever considered that that payday may be worth it considering how many times he has gotten the rule change regulations absolutely perfect, if not for the gutless Renault engine i firmly believe RB would have dominated 2014-2020 as well.

Newey worked for many years at Mclaren and was not winning championship,you need a complete package to win a championship and pu is one of them.mercedes made some great cars during the hybrid period and if the rules regarding the floor were not changed Max would not have won the champion in 2021

[_cerber1]

Newey worked for many years at Mclaren and was not winning championship

1998-1999

[Edax]

Modern engineering organisations don’t play the blame game, it’s destructive and unhelpful!

I think that is pretty naive. Blaming and especially avoiding blame is unfortunately part of the business behavior in many companies.

It is not for nothing that the Ford CEO came out yesterday with a new reporting structure, with as main goal to expose bad functioning units to the outside.

But it isn’t helpful for sure.

As for Mclaren. I am a bit surprised by the results. From the outside it looks like they are doing the right things. I think they finally have come to terms with the fact that they will not jump back to the top in one go by hiring the best driver driver or some engineering gimmick. Instead it is a multi-year endeavor which starts with a solid car and team.

Unfortunately they took a wrong turn with the car over winter. Let’s see if they can rectify it.

[genarro]

Modern engineering organisations don’t play the blame game, it’s destructive and unhelpful!

I think that is pretty naive. Blaming and especially avoiding blame is unfortunately part of the business behavior in many companies.

It is not for nothing that the Ford CEO came out yesterday with a new reporting structure, with as main goal to expose bad functioning units to the outside.

But it isn’t helpful for sure.

As for Mclaren. I am a bit surprised by the results. From the outside it looks like they are doing the right things. I think they finally have come to terms with the fact that they will not jump back to the top in one go by hiring the best driver driver or some engineering gimmick. Instead it is a multi-year endeavor which starts with a solid car and team.

Unfortunately they took a wrong turn with the car over winter. Let’s see if they can rectify it.

of course they can rectify it.. But like you said, it takes time to build a winning F1 team and even then you can get it wrong sometimes. I have no doubt that the leadership and owners of the team are doing everything to be back on top.

Our time will come...patience is a virtue that low minded people in this forum dont seem to posses.

[djos]

Modern engineering organisations don’t play the blame game, it’s destructive and unhelpful!

I think that is pretty naive. Blaming and especially avoiding blame is unfortunately part of the business behavior in many companies.

It is not for nothing that the Ford CEO came out yesterday with a new reporting structure, with as main goal to expose bad functioning units to the outside.

But it isn’t helpful for sure.

As for Mclaren. I am a bit surprised by the results. From the outside it looks like they are doing the right things. I think they finally have come to terms with the fact that they will not jump back to the top in one go by hiring the best driver driver or some engineering gimmick. Instead it is a multi-year endeavor which starts with a solid car and team.

Unfortunately they took a wrong turn with the car over winter. Let’s see if they can rectify it.

I’m talking about Engineering orgs specifically. The modern “blameless retrospective” Is standard procedure - the whole idea is to allow issues with people, process or technology to be discussed openly without the risk of being fired for doing your job.

The outputs are corrective actions to prevent future failures and lean from mistakes. Making ppl fear for their jobs causes mistakes to be hidden or blame shifted.

That’s not to say incompetence is acceptable, it isn’t and staff failing to be competent or better are usually managed out of the org.

[Bill]

Newey worked for many years at Mclaren and was not winning championship

1998-1999

2000-2005 many years of dry spell

[haza]

[littlebigcat]

Thats a big one

[genarro]

Thats a big one

Key out, Sanchez in... mixed feelings, hoped both would stay

[littlebigcat]

It will be interesting to see who else comes now.

[Swed3121]

Seems to be quite a key development for next year

[Lucky]

I don't like that the position of technical director was divided into three people. There should be one responsible person.