2025 McLaren F1 Team

[AR3-GP]

Stella said the car should have locked out the front row.

This is obvious to most...but to some it's still a mystery.

Have you ever considered that the car might need something more to be able to consistently locking the front row unlocking that stability and not choosing when to be consistent? I dont see where it is obvious when the same thing happened in every single Q3.

While Norris felt the final corner was where he lost out the most on both of his Q3 flyers, Piastri rued mistakes at the start of the lap that meant he wasn't able to improve on his best lap from Q2 as one would expect.

"It was just not the level of execution I needed to have in Q3. It's never a great qualifying session when your best lap is the first lap of Q2," he said.

"There was quite a bit left on the table, just a few mistakes on both laps in Q3, which is a shame. On both laps of Q3 I struggled at Turn 1. I think I lost pretty much two tenths. On my first lap I gained back a bit through the rest of sector one and then fell away in the middle.

"On the last one, I eventually recovered some of it at the end, but it wasn't enough. It was nothing to do with preparation. It was just execution of the driving, unfortunately. I'm not concerned about the pace I had today. It was just that I didn't use it when I really needed it. I think after the lap in Q2 I just never quite got back into the same rhythm."

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/pias ... /10719526/

[Darth-Piekus]

Has motorsport ever considered that its more than the driver? In todays age the car does most of the work.

[AR3-GP]

Has motorsport ever considered that its more than the driver?

These are direct quotes from Oscar Piastri.

Nothing to worry about though. They are still fast, like he said. I'm sure the Mclarens will run and hide tomorrow.

[Darth-Piekus]

Obviously Oscar wants to do better. He is a humble guy and wants to improve but why are we all ignoring the car factor? This whole situation in Q3 happened in every single GP so far and it makes me think that its not just the drivers.

[f1isgood]

Has motorsport ever considered that its more than the driver?

These are direct quotes from Oscar Piastri.

Nothing to worry about though. They are still fast, like he said. I'm sure the Mclarens will run and hide tomorrow.

The car has been the best since 2024 Miami. After 24 races, their win record with this driver pairing is not great and this year with a clearly class-of-the-field car, the drivers simply keep failing to deliver. Look at the theoretical bests, they are 2 tenths clear. No one is asking them to be at the limit to get those two tenths. They can at least get one tenth of the two and still get pole comfortable and yet don't do that. I am sure they'll fly tomorrow mostly because I fully expect Lando to lead by T1 and then control the race but they are frankly making it much harder for themselves with the car they have gotten. Pretty disappointing to see them not maximizing the potential.

[mwillems]

The full quotes from Stella.

https://www.racefans.net/2025/05/03/whe ... la-admits/

It’s super-close, but this year when it’s super-close, at the moment, we tend to let Max take the pole position,” he told the official F1 channel. “So definitely we have to improve from this point of view.

I think the potential on the car today was strong from a performance point of view, but sometimes in qualifying it’s not that easy to use the full potential with our car. And today both Oscar and Lando I think left a little bit of lap time on their laps.”

Norris went too deep at turn 17 on his first run in Q3, then took too much of the apex kerb at the same corner on his final lap. His final lap matched Piastri’s best time from the previous session.

“Oscar didn’t manage to improve in Q3 [on] what was already a very strong lap in Q2, probably losing a bit of rhythm,” said Stella. “Lando was flowing very fast in both laps but he left a bit of lap time in the last corner in both attempts.

think in terms of absolute performance, I think our car was slightly faster than the Red Bull. But like we have seen a few times this year, it’s not necessarily the easiest car to drive at the limit.

“This is, in fairness, something that we, the team, have to improve and give our drivers a car that is slightly more predictable, especially at the front end when you push at the limits on new tyres in qualifying sessions.

“So it’s something that we have to work on at McLaren and allow Oscar and Lando to capitalise on the full performance and having to lean less on what is so marginal, whereby you have to take sometimes some margin because otherwise you can make a mistake

[mwillems]

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/pias ... ualifying/

I'll just put the general summary here.

Mistakes at T1 for Oscar, poor execution from himself in general and also mentions the car is hard to drive on the edge in Q3 and the car needs to.improve to get the Maximum potential but with an onus on himself to drive what he's given.

[mwillems]

Some of this article repeats what is in other articles, but this section is new.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/ar ... 9pz7ljz2ro

McLaren's Lando Norris said he was "very happy" after qualifying at the Miami Grand Prix, despite losing out on pole position to Max Verstappen.

Norris ended up 0.065 seconds from the Red Bull driver and, while his satisfaction was mixed with some frustration, it was based on his feeling that he has made progress with some of the problems with which he has been struggling this season.

The Briton has been open about the fact he finds his McLaren car does not 'talk to him' in the way he would like when being pushed to the absolute limit on a qualifying lap.

And while he again made a mistake that he felt cost him pole position, their communication has been better this weekend at the Hard Rock Stadium.

Norris, who won Saturday's sprint race, said that "Max did a Max lap once again and I can't fault him". So in the context of that, and his own weekend, second was not too bad.

"I'm very happy with the end result," Norris said. "Just a shame when you miss out on pole, so that's the only frustrating bit.

"But I've been trying different things, I've been doing different things with the team to try and work a bit more in this area and things have been taking a step forward. So I'm happy. Maybe not quite there yet, but happy with the progress."

.... repeated from Oscar ...


Team principal Andrea Stella says McLaren have now seen enough of a pattern to work out what has been happening to allow Verstappen to take three poles in six races.

"We have now enough statistics to confirm what was already our initial impression in Bahrain during the (pre-season) test," Stella said, "that the car was easier to exploit in terms of performance in race simulation runs, rather than on a single lap with qualifying trim and new tyres.

"We have seen that pretty much so far we haven't had any perfect lap.

"We are definitely trying to assess on a solid engineering basis our understanding so that we can make some adjustments that our drivers can test to see if we can give them a car that is just slightly more predictable and rich of information in terms of how the grip is when driving the car at the limit."

He added: "Just to make sure that my point is clear, it's a car that doesn't give you much 'cueing', which is the technical word we use, and this means that it's not easy for our drivers to repeat some big performances that we can see in individual laps."

[CjC]

If you recall I flagged this in pre-season. Now that we are at the 6th round a pattern is emerging like Stella suggests. We are having ‘challenging/ disappointing’ Saturdays either being on pole or within a tenth of pole! Then the car is better in the race.

I described the car as ‘confidence-sapping’ on the short runs in testing, that may not be the correct phrase but the drivers are struggling.
Verstappen is running his new floor this weekend, without that he wouldn’t be on pole. I said pre- Miami that I thought McLaren will only upgrade if they think they don’t have the fastest car…. I think that needs re-evaluating- I’ve always thought to beat Max you need a clear car advantage and with the current driver quali struggles- McLaren need a few more tenths.

[CjC]

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/pias ... ualifying/

I'll just put the general summary here.

Mistakes at T1 for Oscar, poor execution from himself in general and also mentions the car is hard to drive on the edge in Q3 and the car needs to.improve to get the Maximum potential but with an onus on himself to drive what he's given.

Imagine telling yourself in 2022 that you’d be disappointed with being 0.165 off pole and that deficit would be Oscar’s worse quali performance so far this season.

It’s good to stay humble sometimes

[Sergej]

If you recall I flagged this in pre-season. Now that we are at the 6th round a pattern is emerging like Stella suggests. We are having ‘challenging/ disappointing’ Saturdays either being on pole or within a tenth of pole! Then the car is better in the race.

I described the car as ‘confidence-sapping’ on the short runs in testing, that may not be the correct phrase but the drivers are struggling.
Verstappen is running his new floor this weekend, without that he wouldn’t be on pole. I said pre- Miami that I thought McLaren will only upgrade if they think they don’t have the fastest car…. I think that needs re-evaluating- I’ve always thought to beat Max you need a clear car advantage and with the current driver quali struggles- McLaren need a few more tenths.

What happened to the new diffuser they brought to Jeddah ?

[FittingMechanics]

If you recall I flagged this in pre-season. Now that we are at the 6th round a pattern is emerging like Stella suggests. We are having ‘challenging/ disappointing’ Saturdays either being on pole or within a tenth of pole! Then the car is better in the race.

I described the car as ‘confidence-sapping’ on the short runs in testing, that may not be the correct phrase but the drivers are struggling.
Verstappen is running his new floor this weekend, without that he wouldn’t be on pole. I said pre- Miami that I thought McLaren will only upgrade if they think they don’t have the fastest car…. I think that needs re-evaluating- I’ve always thought to beat Max you need a clear car advantage and with the current driver quali struggles- McLaren need a few more tenths.

What happened to the new diffuser they brought to Jeddah ?

It was a test article.

[CjC]

If you recall I flagged this in pre-season. Now that we are at the 6th round a pattern is emerging like Stella suggests. We are having ‘challenging/ disappointing’ Saturdays either being on pole or within a tenth of pole! Then the car is better in the race.

I described the car as ‘confidence-sapping’ on the short runs in testing, that may not be the correct phrase but the drivers are struggling.
Verstappen is running his new floor this weekend, without that he wouldn’t be on pole. I said pre- Miami that I thought McLaren will only upgrade if they think they don’t have the fastest car…. I think that needs re-evaluating- I’ve always thought to beat Max you need a clear car advantage and with the current driver quali struggles- McLaren need a few more tenths.

What happened to the new diffuser they brought to Jeddah ?

Test item. I think they only brought one of the new spec and with McLarens current development philosophy of not favouring one driver they didn’t want to favour/ hinder one of them.
Like I said prior to the event McLaren won’t rush an upgrade when they think they have the fastest car which they currently do, however Max has hoovered up half of the available poles this season so something needs to change.

[Sergej]

I also feel that they are a bit scary of going down the Red Bull path, making the car unstable in search of performance. Expecting upgrades in Imola ?

[basti313]

Obviously Oscar wants to do better. He is a humble guy and wants to improve but why are we all ignoring the car factor? This whole situation in Q3 happened in every single GP so far and it makes me think that its not just the drivers.

If the driver bottles the Q3 lap, it IS the driver. Norris had a 3-4 tenth error in both his Q3 runs...the car had dominance in it.

Has motorsport ever considered that its more than the driver? In todays age the car does most of the work.

Not if the driver bottles the lap.