2025 McLaren F1 Team

[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)

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.

You can disagree, but that doesn’t make it more valid. It is not the norm and shouldn’t be accounted for as representative. The car is only significantly faster than the rest in lower temperatures, under very specific conditions (typically when the track is wet but a drying line is starting to form). That’s an outlier scenario, not the baseline. Building a narrative around those conditions skews the overall picture and ignores how the car performs in the majority of colder sessions.

[mwillems]

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.

You can disagree, but that doesn’t make it more valid. It is not the norm and shouldn’t be accounted for as representative. The car is only significantly faster than the rest in lower temperatures, under very specific conditions (typically when the track is wet but a drying line is starting to form). That’s an outlier scenario, not the baseline. Building a narrative around those conditions skews the overall picture and ignores how the car performs in the majority of colder sessions.

There's a misunderstanding.

Im not making a narrative, im making points to demonstrate no narrative or conclusion can be drawn by others, there is enough evidence to throw doubt either way. Take Australia out of it if that’s your opinion, but still we were the better car at the colder race and the slower car at Saudi, versus the RB.

I have nothing to add as to when the car works best, I think it's inconclusive, but respect your opinion. Time will tell.

[mwillems]

TD

I’m looking forward to this race. This is a rear limited track but the Mclarens issue isn’t with front or rear limited tracks, but tracks that demand that we adapt our corner entry. I’m unsure how these corners will challenge the front of the car, but it will be an interesting weekend and hopefully it doesn’t tease out mistakes from our drivers.

[Emag]

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.

You can disagree, but that doesn’t make it more valid. It is not the norm and shouldn’t be accounted for as representative. The car is only significantly faster than the rest in lower temperatures, under very specific conditions (typically when the track is wet but a drying line is starting to form). That’s an outlier scenario, not the baseline. Building a narrative around those conditions skews the overall picture and ignores how the car performs in the majority of colder sessions.

There's a misunderstanding.

Im not making a narrative, im making points to demonstrate no narrative or conclusion can be drawn by others, there is enough evidence to throw doubt either way. Take Australia out of it if that’s your opinion, but still we were the better car at the colder race and the slower car at Saudi, versus the RB.

I have nothing to add as to when the car works best, I think it's inconclusive, but respect your opinion. Time will tell.

Maybe a missuse of the word on my part, or perhaps I didn’t understand what exactly your point was to begin with. All I am trying to say is that they’re not nearly as “unbeatable” as they’re being portrayed on all track conditions. When it’s cold, the gaps shrink.

The car didn’t have mesmerizing pace against George in China. They were beaten in Japan (although, with track position, I concour that they would probably win) and Jeddah was pretty much a coin toss. Maybe Lando was faster than Oscar, but he messed up his quali so it doesn’t matter.

That middle stretch in Australia is not representative because it was under specific track conditions they’re documented to do really well at, last year included.

Other than that, when it was cold, the car was the fastest, but not by margins I would consider big enough to call this season a “throwaway” for the other teams.

[mwillems]

You can disagree, but that doesn’t make it more valid. It is not the norm and shouldn’t be accounted for as representative. The car is only significantly faster than the rest in lower temperatures, under very specific conditions (typically when the track is wet but a drying line is starting to form). That’s an outlier scenario, not the baseline. Building a narrative around those conditions skews the overall picture and ignores how the car performs in the majority of colder sessions.

There's a misunderstanding.

Im not making a narrative, im making points to demonstrate no narrative or conclusion can be drawn by others, there is enough evidence to throw doubt either way. Take Australia out of it if that’s your opinion, but still we were the better car at the colder race and the slower car at Saudi, versus the RB.

I have nothing to add as to when the car works best, I think it's inconclusive, but respect your opinion. Time will tell.

Maybe a missuse of the word on my part, or perhaps I didn’t understand what exactly your point was to begin with. All I am trying to say is that they’re not nearly as “unbeatable” as they’re being portrayed on all track conditions. When it’s cold, the gaps shrink.

The car didn’t have mesmerizing pace against George in China. They were beaten in Japan (although, with track position, I concour that they would probably win) and Jeddah was pretty much a coin toss. Maybe Lando was faster than Oscar, but he messed up his quali so it doesn’t matter.

That middle stretch in Australia is not representative because it was under specific track conditions they’re documented to do really well at, last year included.

Other than that, when it was cold, the car was the fastest, but not by margins I would consider big enough to call this season a “throwaway” for the other teams.

I agree overall, but I think the ability for the car to maintain temps in the cold and wet will be a strong part of how the car performed. it's notable that the car was fast from the moment the Safety car came in, suggesting it got heat into the tyres quicker, and then maintained it's pace against everyone in all conditions, apart from Red Bull who only dropped off once the rain started again, but you know I've thought Red Bull have pace since the start of the season.

I also agree that damp tracks can bring out other variables that mean it's hard to say yes, the tyres were the differentiator. Our boys did seem to be on it for the weekend, and others not so much and of course the cars can have different characteristics, but one of the defining characteristics is how it warms the tyres, particularly from race starts or SC starts.

However, that said, I agree, you cannot use that race to say yes it's good in the cold, or bad. It's a curious outlier. But Japan and Saudi contradict the idea of good in heat, less so in cold.

That said, overall I agree with you, the gaps are not big, it's a tight season and I don't want to argue with you, I know you're not dogmatic or tie yourself to an idea and I'll always have time for an educated argument

One thing Bernie Collins said did strike me, now I've read it. I mentioned earlier that later in the race we seem to have a bit less pace, which I attrbuted to fuel loads. Bernie attributed it to the hard tyres and having a quick look, she's spot on, as you'd expect. Again it makes me think that heat is one part of it, but the car is also less abrasive with the tyres.

[AR3-GP]

One thing Bernie Collins said did strike me, now I've read it. I mentioned earlier that later in the race we seem to have a bit less pace, which I attrbuted to fuel loads. Bernie attributed it to the hard tyres and having a quick look, she's spot on, as you'd expect. Again it makes me think that heat is one part of it, but the car is also less abrasive with the tyres.

End of race is when track is well rubbered in and when the track is the coolest. So while it is tempting to blame it on hard tires, it could also be others becoming less limited on the cooler track and with more rubber on the ground.

My opinion is that everyone is overheating their tires more than Mclaren so they benefit more when track cools and track rubbers in (increasing grip/less slip). It’s not a case of Mclaren starting to struggle with tires not in the window on cooler track. No one is reporting that. Everyone says the opposite. Mclaren able to control tire temps, and everyone else is overheating and losing grip in warm conditions.

[CjC]

TD

He’s right Oscar wasn’t concerned when he was asking earlier in the year.
Like we keep saying… someone is going to be very upset in Spain……

[mwillems]

One thing Bernie Collins said did strike me, now I've read it. I mentioned earlier that later in the race we seem to have a bit less pace, which I attrbuted to fuel loads. Bernie attributed it to the hard tyres and having a quick look, she's spot on, as you'd expect. Again it makes me think that heat is one part of it, but the car is also less abrasive with the tyres.

End of race is when track is well rubbered in and when the track is the coolest. So while it is tempting to blame it on hard tires, it could also be others becoming less limited on the cooler track and with more rubber on the ground.

My opinion is that everyone is overheating their tires more than Mclaren so they benefit more when track cools and track rubbers in (increasing grip/less slip). It’s not a case of Mclaren starting to struggle with tires not in the window on cooler track. No one is reporting that. Everyone says the opposite. Mclaren able to control tire temps, and everyone else is overheating and losing grip in warm conditions.

That’s a fair point, and it could be a mix of any number of the variables. When looking in data earlier, I thought I saw us not doing great when starting on the hards in SA, but on second glance, I think I can’t see anything too abnormal.

[Emag]

The only thing that puts me off is them gaining very little from FP to quali. In Jeddah in particular, it was quite noticeable against other teams.

Lando did say they show a lot more in practice than others, but what’s the point in doing that? Nobody wants to win the FP world championship. In any case, I don’t think they would admit to a “problem” or “issue”, but even if there is one, it’s not critical at the moment.

As for what the “others" are saying, well, everyone has been gloating McLaren as if they have the next messiah of cars, particularly George. so I don’t take their words seriously.

From what we’ve seen so far, they’re really strong on high track temps because they seemingly don’t suffer from overheating. Given how competitive their pace in hot sessions has been, it’s hard to believe this trait doesn’t come with any compromises, in whatever capacity, on the opposite end of track conditions.

I do think that the idea that things simply "equalize" in lower temperatures because other cars stop overheating does not entirely hold up. A more plausible interpretation (in my opinion, based on track performance) is that McLaren gains less relative performance when temperatures drop. From a physics standpoint, a race car will always be faster on lower track & ambient temps (to a certain point of course). If they’re falling back to such extremes (losing ~0.5s relative to others between sessions of differing conditions) , that suggests they’re not extracting everything from the car under those conditions. One thing is for sure though, a race car won't be running optimally at high temps, McLaren just cope with it (much) better than everyone at the moment.

[Darth-Piekus]

Im curious to see how fast they are gonna develop the car tomorrow to be ready for sprint and get the best set up in just one practise. Last time in China they needed another practise run to perfect it.

[mwillems]

The only thing that puts me off is them gaining very little from FP to quali. In Jeddah in particular, it was quite noticeable against other teams.

Lando did say they show a lot more in practice than others, but what’s the point in doing that? Nobody wants to win the FP world championship. In any case, I don’t think they would admit to a “problem” or “issue”, but even if there is one, it’s not critical at the moment.

As for what the “others" are saying, well, everyone has been gloating McLaren as if they have the next messiah of cars, particularly George. so I don’t take their words seriously.

From what we’ve seen so far, they’re really strong on high track temps because they seemingly don’t suffer from overheating. Given how competitive their pace in hot sessions has been, it’s hard to believe this trait doesn’t come with any compromises, in whatever capacity, on the opposite end of track conditions.

I do think that the idea that things simply "equalize" in lower temperatures because other cars stop overheating does not entirely hold up. A more plausible interpretation (in my opinion, based on track performance) is that McLaren gains less relative performance when temperatures drop. From a physics standpoint, a race car will always be faster on lower track & ambient temps (to a certain point of course). If they’re falling back to such extremes (losing ~0.5s relative to others between sessions of differing conditions) , that suggests they’re not extracting everything from the car under those conditions. One thing is for sure though, a race car won't be running optimally at high temps, McLaren just cope with it (much) better than everyone at the moment.

Just my guess, but if the car is tricky and not giving feedback once it gets to the edge, perhaps they have to spend more time exploring its limits and working on the setup in this area.

They gain so much more than us. I had to check the numbers because the article about top teams Jeddah performance has different numbers, but mine are right. RB looks super efficient. I need a pop up to let me know if he got a tow.

[mwillems]

A quick look at the charts suggests that the smaller MCL39 improvement from FP3 to Q only happened at SA, otherwise gains between teams were similar.

FP2 to Q is where we see that the team have been pushing a lot more.

[AR3-GP]

Is the theory here that Mclaren has untapped potential because they can't maintain their 1 second margin from the heat of the day when it cools? Would that make them....dOMinAnt?

[mwillems]

They didn't have a one second gap to maintain, if we did, I'd agree with you

But let's not derail the thread with that conversation again. It's observational, just making folks aware that FP3 is usually more representative, apart from SA, which just made us look even stronger in practise than usual.

[Ben1980]

Red bull bringing an updated floor it seems. They will be getting closer still I'm sure.