2025 McLaren F1 Team

[Slahinki]

Hope Lando wins this weekend. It will be his first double win of the same GP.

That would be nice. He was mega in the race here last year.

[Hoffman900]

Hope Lando wins this weekend. It will be his first double win of the same GP.

That would be nice. He was mega in the race here last year.

TBF, he got helped massively by a safety car. It was Oscar’s to win.

[Slahinki]

Hope Lando wins this weekend. It will be his first double win of the same GP.

That would be nice. He was mega in the race here last year.

TBF, he got helped massively by a safety car. It was Oscar’s to win.

The safety car helped, but he was the fastest man on track that day, and by quite the margin.

[continuum16]

That would be nice. He was mega in the race here last year.

TBF, he got helped massively by a safety car. It was Oscar’s to win.

The safety car helped, but he was the fastest man on track that day, and by quite the margin.

I am interested to see the comparison when both have the same spec of car. Last year when Miami was the debut of the major updates only Lando had them all and not Oscar (I believe he had some but not all), Oscar was pretty close. We have seen in races like China and Japan in 2024 Oscar was considerably outclassed by Lando last year but this year is on par or ahead. I reckon this weekend will be pretty telling whether Piastri has merely raised his "performance floor" or if he has had just a flat jump across the board.

[AR3-GP]

TBF, he got helped massively by a safety car. It was Oscar’s to win.

The safety car helped, but he was the fastest man on track that day, and by quite the margin.

I am interested to see the comparison when both have the same spec of car. Last year when Miami was the debut of the major updates only Lando had them all and not Oscar (I believe he had some but not all), Oscar was pretty close. We have seen in races like China and Japan in 2024 Oscar was considerably outclassed by Lando last year but this year is on par or ahead. I reckon this weekend will be pretty telling whether Piastri has merely raised his "performance floor" or if he has had just a flat jump across the board.

There are small signs of a tire degradation disadvantage which is still present. The 1st stints in Japan, Bahrain, and Jeddah weren’t scrutinized enough because he won 2 of the races. He was struggling in Japan which is why Mclaren boxed him (Norris also had dirty air…). Then Norris was nowhere in qualy for Bahrain and Jeddah so Piastri wasn’t punished there either when he started to struggle. People say “dirty air”, but Norris also had dirty air…

If Norris actually qualifies well again, Piastri might be in trouble in that first stint.

[AR3-GP]

Not intentionally,

It never is.

but i think what they've done at the front is more than ducts and has created a problem that is reminiscent of the Daniel Ricciardo days, although back then the car offered little feedback in many situations. Initially I thought it was just trail braking, but it seems the general issue is that there is no warning of a loss of grip. Grip doesn't gradually go, it just dissapears like you are on a knife edge. This is my own anecdotal observation.

Daniel Ricciardo days? Serious?

There is some irony in Landos struggles and that his complaints, like Daniels, that the car isn't giving him feedback, but yeah It's not the same scale

As far as RB are concerned, that was a year long descent. Mclaren seem to intent to make it easier to extract the peaks. We'll see i guess, we have our opinions but mine is that the cars are close and it's going to be a long year..

I didn’t know that Ric’s complaints were about feedback from the car or sudden losses of grip. Ricciardo never crashed. Just slow. I thought the issue was that the MCL 36 or 35 needed to be driven in a specific way (u-turn or v-turn) and Daniel with years of training in another style could not adapt.

I don’t know about the rest of the year. Too early to say.

[Macklaren]

TBF, he got helped massively by a safety car. It was Oscar’s to win.

Its amazing that this is the prevailing narrative behind Lando's first win when

1) as has been pointed out, he was on a different strategy and was going long and likely to lead anyway

2) no one ever talks about Max benefitted massively from a red flag and a free pitstop during his supposed "miraculous" drive in Brazil when he was stuck behind Leclerc until the red flag

[mwillems]

It never is.




Daniel Ricciardo days? Serious?

There is some irony in Landos struggles and that his complaints, like Daniels, that the car isn't giving him feedback, but yeah It's not the same scale

As far as RB are concerned, that was a year long descent. Mclaren seem to intent to make it easier to extract the peaks. We'll see i guess, we have our opinions but mine is that the cars are close and it's going to be a long year..

I didn’t know that Ric’s complaints were about feedback from the car or sudden losses of grip. Ricciardo never crashed. Just slow. I thought the issue was that the MCL 36 or 35 needed to be driven in a specific way (u-turn or v-turn) and Daniel with years of training in another style could not adapt.

I don’t know about the rest of the year. Too early to say.

It did V because progressive turning and braking were not possible in that car. Nor long corners etc. One of the main complaints from DR was that he couldn't get feedback from the car.

Driving in a V is exactly what Lando has had to do again to get the car to be compliant in certain corners (Iirc Japan hairpin was an example), whereas he prefers to be aggressive on turn in, hence his difficulties this year. You can see in the telemetry that on entry to corners braking had been less progressive, so they drive in such a way to focus on the exit. At Australia he had to drive in this manner at many of the corners.
Hence they broke hard before the corner but carried good apex speed and had mighty exits. This seems to be where the car likes to be. We are told that this suits Oscars style, he likes to lean on the rears.

[mwillems]

As was mentioned earlier, it's a trait of these cars that the front is tricky. Treat the car right and it's fine, though

[Hoffman900]

TBF, he got helped massively by a safety car. It was Oscar’s to win.

Its amazing that this is the prevailing narrative behind Lando's first win when

1) as has been pointed out, he was on a different strategy and was going long and likely to lead anyway

2) no one ever talks about Max benefitted massively from a red flag and a free pitstop during his supposed "miraculous" drive in Brazil when he was stuck behind Leclerc until the red flag

1) He got a free pit stop. Oscar and others had pitted just before the yellow. So not fully correct. It’s part of racing. Not saying it’s wrong, but was pointing out to the other poster. Also as pointed out, Lando had the full upgrade package that unlocked the Mclaren. *

2) What does that have to do with the conversation?

* also what people forget is the championship never really got closer between Max and Lando points wise than it did at Miami. They made it a thing all year but it stayed about the same.

[mwillems]

TBF, he got helped massively by a safety car. It was Oscar’s to win.

Its amazing that this is the prevailing narrative behind Lando's first win when

1) as has been pointed out, he was on a different strategy and was going long and likely to lead anyway

2) no one ever talks about Max benefitted massively from a red flag and a free pitstop during his supposed "miraculous" drive in Brazil when he was stuck behind Leclerc until the red flag

1) He got a free pit stop. Oscar and others had pitted just before the yellow. So not fully correct. It’s part of racing. Not saying it’s wrong, but was pointing out to the other poster. Also as pointed out, Lando had the full upgrade package that unlocked the Mclaren. *

2) What does that have to do with the conversation?

* also what people forget is the championship never really got closer between Max and Lando points wise than it did at Miami. They made it a thing all year but it stayed about the same.

Essentially Norris lucked out by being the slower of the two Mclarens, so your main point is totally correct, but I think Max would have won without Safety cars as it was only an SC pitstop from a Mclaren that was taking the lead from him. Neither papaya driver was fastest, but it is how it goes. I think the roles were reversed shortly after, where Max got his win back through a SC at a race not long after, or something like that?

[Ben1980]

Didn't Norris come out ahead of Max in Miami? How has it become a race Piastri was robbed in?

Going on Piastri and his tyres, in Australia he was struggling on them first, was regularly warned about managing them for transition.

Looking forward to the weekends race though.

[Hoffman900]

Didn't Norris come out ahead of Max in Miami? How has it become a race Piastri was robbed in?

Going on Piastri and his tyres, in Australia he was struggling on them first, was regularly warned about managing them for transition.

Looking forward to the weekends race though.

Piastri got 3 places at the start to go from 6th > 3rd, then dispatched Leclerc. Max was in front but then hit the bollards and damaged his floor, so he was wounded.


Norris got cycled to the front when everyone else pitted before. He was on an alt strategy to long. He got the free pit stop under a FCY after KMag and Seargant crashed. Lando restarted from the lead.

Piastri got hit by Carlos and had to get his wing replaced on the restart. Piastri had the race’s fastest lap.

[mwillems]

Yeah but without SC it was Max race.

[Hoffman900]

Yeah but without SC it was Max race.

Max fubar’ed his floor when he decided to go offroading over the curbing.