2025 McLaren F1 Team

[Macklaren]

I honestly hope Red Bull spend a large amount of resource ‘copying/ playing catch up’ or what ever you want to call it.
Mclaren will be spending just as much of their resource to further enhance their brake ducts or just innovate somewhere else to keep the step ahead.
It’s a shame Mclaren have hit their purple patch in the last season on this rule set but you never know hopefully they can continue their form over 2 rule cycles

Can the brakes be carried over?

After re-reading that article from pre-season that AR3-GP just re-posted according to the man of the moment Mr. R Marshall there isn’t much that can be carried over

“We’re not carrying over much towards the 2026 car, but it enabled us to do some work that we think will be beneficial in the future,” Rob continues.

That’s not a conclusive ‘no’ but as I don’t know the full aero details for 2026 I have no idea.

I think Rob was referring to the actual component rather than the design philosophy.
this is why at the start of every season, fans get excited by quotes like "OMGZ the car is 99% new" but ends up looking pretty much the same

[Macklaren]

The Austrian inquisition has proven to be very illuminating for us on this forum. You can imagine how much more capable the invaders are of making good on this intelligence.

How do you know that this brake drum rabbithole is also not misdirection?

[CjC]

Let’s hope the hot temperatures continue!

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/the- ... hing-edge/

Both the rear brakes and the car cooling is mentioned again here. Like anything the overall advantage of the current cars isn’t just one thing, it’s an accumulation of excellence.

Could the car cooling solution be the innovative feature buried within the car which the smiling Rob Marshall alluded to?

Also an interesting point is made about McLaren holding a lasting advantage with regard to cooling the rear tyres, it was designed into the MCL39s initial concept. Other teams might be able to bring their own solutions to their car but they won’t be as optimised or as good as the McLaren

[mwillems]

Stella has mentioned the cooling and lower total volume of exits. I was wondering if this is why the car is draggy. But whatvwould they be doing with the air?

The cooling exits seem to have shrunk more than the intake.

[Emag]

It’s obviously a very balanced package. The temp management is helping them detatch from the chasing teams when conditions are “right”, but it wouldn’t make this big of a difference if the car had nothing else going for it.

In Japan with the cooler temps (which essentially neutralized the heat management advantage), McLaren was consistently at the top of the sheets (if not the fastest) at S1 and S2. You can’t do that if all you have going for you is better overheating control than the others (on a really cold track)

[AR3-GP]

It’s obviously a very balanced package. The temp management is helping them detach from the chasing teams when conditions are “right”, but it wouldn’t make this big of a difference if the car had nothing else going for it.

In Japan with the cooler temps (which essentially neutralized the heat management advantage), McLaren was consistently at the top of the sheets (if not the fastest) at S1 and S2. You can’t do that if all you have going for you is better overheating control than the others (on a really cold track)

I don't recall any arguments that the Mclaren had nothing else going for it. They were still the fastest car in all of the "cold" races.

[mwillems]

It’s obviously a very balanced package. The temp management is helping them detatch from the chasing teams when conditions are “right”, but it wouldn’t make this big of a difference if the car had nothing else going for it.

In Japan with the cooler temps (which essentially neutralized the heat management advantage), McLaren was consistently at the top of the sheets (if not the fastest) at S1 and S2. You can’t do that if all you have going for you is better overheating control than the others (on a really cold track)

Bear in mind that tyre warm up has been confirmed by Stella as part of the solution. Keeping the tyre temps down is a major part, but it's important to not forget the advantages of a car that can get heat to the tyres quickly.

[Ground Effect]

Didn't McLaren have a tyre degradation problem in 2023? I don't know if I'm remembering wrong, but they seemed to be able to get the tyres switched on quicker than anyone else, but after that suffered quicker and worse degradation than the top teams?

[Slahinki]

Didn't McLaren have a tyre degradation problem in 2023? I don't know if I'm remembering wrong, but they seemed to be able to get the tyres switched on quicker than anyone else, but after that suffered quicker and worse degradation than the top teams?

I think you're mixing up Ferrari and McLaren. As far as I remember, at least after the upgrades came in, the 2023 car grew faster and faster as stints went on. To a point of course, but I don't think McLaren had any worse degradation than anyone bar Red Bull.

[mwillems]

If you recall, we had good deg but a lot of people were putting it down to our scrubbing of the tyres.

We had the pace to stay with RB in nany 2023 races at the end of the season, but not always to challenge.

Silverstone 23, where Lando fought with Lewis, is another example of our good deg.

[FittingMechanics]

Btw this also means Marshall did not bring that innovation to McLaren. It was already on the car in previous years but less obvious and powerful.

But Piastri still struggled to match Lando's tire life so most just chalked it up to Lando being great at tire management.

[zxof]

If you recall, we had good deg but a lot of people were putting it down to our scrubbing of the tyres.

We had the pace to stay with RB in nany 2023 races at the end of the season, but not always to challenge.

Silverstone 23, where Lando fought with Lewis, is another example of our good deg.

We did manage to stay close to RB towards the end of 2023, I remember it also being "credited" in Horner's text message to his PA thing...

[mwillems]

Martin Brundle suggests McLaren are now facing accusations from rival F1 teams that make absolutely ‘no sense’


“It makes no sense, it would just turn into steam instantly anyway. Pressures would career out of control and the carcass of the tyre can sweat sometimes go odd. Then you put them up to 100+ on the track.”

Ex-Aston Martin strategist and expert Bernie Collins found it equally as amusing, replying, “It’s quite funny actually.”


https://www.f1oversteer.com/news/martin ... -no-sense/

[CjC]

Supposedly the rear tyre management is transferable to 2026:

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/therm ... /10720890/

[mwillems]

Nice, I thought I'd read that.