2025 McLaren F1 Team

[mwillems]

Yeah but without SC it was Max race.

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

He did but he would have been at least defending his lead without SC, after that his laptimes look OK and might have been better with clean air, whether he would have held on I don't know and it's a fair point, but.... I'll leave it at this because I've already been plenty disagreeable.. lol

[Slahinki]

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.

Yeah, I don't get it. Before the safety car Lando was faster on his old tyres than the guys who had pitted were on their new rubber... He was on track to build a rather solid tyre offset regardless of the safety car, the safety car just made the rest of the job significantly easier.

[univex]

Max and Oscar, 1 & 2 at 2024 Miami, then Lando gifted the win thanks to Max hitting the bollard.
OP went from 6th to 3rd on lap 1 with a great dive down the inside at turn 1, then managed to get passed Leclerc to go P2.
LN was stuck in P6 and never looked like getting past Sainz, and only had one lap going faster than leaders after Sainz pitted. LN only had one, maybe two laps left in the tyres to get past Sainz with an overcut. He was the only one on Mediums who had not pitted. Completely out raced by OP up till this point. LN highest would have been 5th.

[chrisc90]

Didn’t the safety car pick up 2nd place rather than 1st? This allowing Lando to have an easy easy risk free stop without having any risk of being overtaken?

[Ben1980]

I think its all agreed the safety car helped Lando. Like it didn't help him in Canada.it happens. Like the Red flag helped Max in sao Paulo. That's fine, that's part of the race.

It's just without the safety car, Max was in the lead, and in all probability wins the race. Not sure we can rewrite history that much.

[mwillems]

I think its all agreed the safety car helped Lando. Like it didn't help him in Canada.it happens. Like the Red flag helped Max in sao Paulo. That's fine, that's part of the race.

It's just without the safety car, Max was in the lead, and in all probability wins the race. Not sure we can rewrite history that much.

Yeah It's probably not worth the discussion lol

Safe to say Lando lucked in, Oscar was one lap early in pitting to get the win, and without safety car Max would have led with a hard fought battle for the win from Oscar.

[CjC]

I’m struggling to understand how it was a lost race win for Oscar last season.
He lucked in massively with Perez’s turn one attempt at ten pin bowling. Yes he had a strong opening stint on the mediums, passed and then kept Leclerc at bay until the first round of stops but on the hard stint he was struggling for pace, he never threatened Leclerc for the re-overtake and was constantly battling to keep behind what seemed to be a faster Ferrari of Sainz which resulted in the dive bomb from Sainz which spoilt his race and destroyed Oscar’s
At no point did I ever think at the time or have ever since watching a re-run that Oscar was in contention for the race win.
His fastest lap? Was set on a new set of Mediums after his second stop to replace his broken front wing.

[Darth-Piekus]

I don't think Oscar would have won last year however he has a good chance of winning this year's Miami GP and I admire how much he improved in one year.

[CjC]

Wouldn’t usually got to Sky F1 for analysis but Bernie knows her stuff:

https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433 ... 025-season

[Emag]

Wouldn’t usually got to Sky F1 for analysis but Bernie knows her stuff:

https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433 ... 025-season

The car’s real strength is how well it avoids overheating the tyres in high temperatures. Combined with being a very strong and well-balanced package with a fairly high ceiling in peak performance, that makes them look seriously quick in the right conditions.

They do struggle to extract the same performance in colder temps, relatively speaking. Oscar’s second lap in Suzuka is a clear example. Looking at the telemetry and comparing it to his first push, it’s obvious the fronts weren’t in the window, and he had trouble getting the lap properly prepped. The esses brought the tyres up just enough, which explains the near-perfect second and third sectors that followed.

That said, the car is still a big step forward compared to last year in cooler conditions, so credit to the team for really targeting the MCL38’s previous weaknesses.

[mwillems]

At the moment I'm on the fence about temps. At Australia, on inters with air temps of 15.7c and track temps of 18.9c we had a big pace gap, so it's hard to ignore that.

The only thing I'm really picking out is that the car seems faster with heavier fuel loads, and others catch up a little later in the race.

[Emag]

At the moment I'm on the fence about temps. At Australia, on inters with cool weather we had a big pace gap, so it's hard to say the car isn't good in cooler temps.

Changing conditions is not a valid data point. They were flying in canada last year for a total of 7-8 laps when it was half-dry, but they weren’t particularly quick in inter conditions or on full dry conditions. Silverstone was the same. Both McLarens started flying when a dry line formed and inters started to overheat.

Must be a trait of the car with a combination of drivers also being really good on those types of conditions. Lando in particular just throws the car around like a madman and somehow there’s grip.

If you recall in Australia, Max was hanging with them at the first part of the race and at the end when the track was fully wet. Its when the dry line started to form and the inters started overheating when they both dropped him (and everyone to be fair)

[Ben1980]

I know talk is if tyres, but did you see Leclerc on used mediums in Saudi. He was mega.

[mwillems]

At the moment I'm on the fence about temps. At Australia, on inters with cool weather we had a big pace gap, so it's hard to say the car isn't good in cooler temps.

Changing conditions is not a valid data point. They were flying in canada last year for a total of 7-8 laps when it was half-dry, but they weren’t particularly quick in inter conditions or on full dry conditions. Silverstone was the same. Both McLarens started flying when a dry line formed and inters started to overheat.

Must be a trait of the car with a combination of drivers also being really good on those types of conditions. Lando in particular just throws the car around like a madman and somehow there’s grip.

If you recall in Australia, Max was hanging with them at the first part of the race and at the end when the track was fully wet. Its when the dry line started to form and the inters started overheating when they both dropped him (and everyone to be fair)

For you, perhaps. I don't agree that it isn't valid, or that it is an indicator, just that it's significance is harder to read.
It was tight in Japan and it was tight with RB in Saudi, with one cold track and one hot track. As such, suggesting that the car is weaker in the cold, with not enough data and still questions to answer means I'd prefer to wait and see, particularly since we appeared to have the faster car at the colder race and the slower car at the hotter race.

[_cerber1]

TD