2025 McLaren F1 Team

[Tvetovnato]

I'm confident that the team learned from Japan and that if they end up behind someone, they will not make it easy for the opponents to counter our strategy.

Amid all the calls for "team orders" at McLaren I'd hope the lesson of this season - Suzuka - is they need at this early stage to apply a pincer strategy on the leader when running 2nd and 3rd by offsets where possible. Of course this will have to advantage one driver over another in order to gain a 1-3 finish than a 2-3 finish, but the "favour" to one can be swapped the next time this type of scenario occurs. Otherwise there's still the potential for (probably) Max to keep in contention. Maybe I'm wrong about Suzuka (and I'm contradicting myself a bit) but I think there was a lack of field spread for creative strategy to work anyway. The issue will always be if, say Max, gets the early lead they can regulate the speed to (a) prevent gaps opening up until they are ready to box, and (b) negate somewhat the tyre deg advantage of the McLarens.

I think you are spot on. They should adopt a McLaren first strategy to make sure Max cannot take too many points. He is the only one that can take the drivers title away from them and if he gets a car that can fight for real, he is a massive threat and the favourite very quickly all of a sudden. To me it seems like they struggle with that kind of decision making right now though, as was evident in Suzuka. They at least had a few options to try there but didn’t, offering strange explanations for their choices that one feels were more a deflection from that they wanted to try to keep fairness in the intra team battle more than anything else. But as a team it must surely in the end mean more that one of their drivers wins the title rather than a driver from another team altogether, so they need to act according to that when they have the chance.

[Mcl_G10]

Should be a close run qualy as usual thus weekend. Mclaren have a tenth or so in hand if they can knit it all together which I can see them doing this weekend. The carvjust looks more compliant from the off and both drivers sound happy and comfortable.

Always feel that lando thrives at imola and I think he has the edge over oscar, certainly in race pace. If oscar wins here at imola it's a massive blow to landos wdc challenge.

[mwillems]

They will not favour one driver over another, because Stella believes that avoiding discord for as long as they can will be more beneficial that doing something that might get a few more points in the short term but upset the drivers. So its not a struggle, just a choice that some won't agree with. It's a bit risky, I won't disagree with that, but it's understandable.

[Seerix]

I'm confident that the team learned from Japan and that if they end up behind someone, they will not make it easy for the opponents to counter our strategy.

Amid all the calls for "team orders" at McLaren I'd hope the lesson of this season - Suzuka - is they need at this early stage to apply a pincer strategy on the leader when running 2nd and 3rd by offsets where possible. Of course this will have to advantage one driver over another in order to gain a 1-3 finish than a 2-3 finish, but the "favour" to one can be swapped the next time this type of scenario occurs. Otherwise there's still the potential for (probably) Max to keep in contention. Maybe I'm wrong about Suzuka (and I'm contradicting myself a bit) but I think there was a lack of field spread for creative strategy to work anyway. The issue will always be if, say Max, gets the early lead they can regulate the speed to (a) prevent gaps opening up until they are ready to box, and (b) negate somewhat the tyre deg advantage of the McLarens.

"the "favour" to one can be swapped the next time this type of scenario occurs" - this is problematic, you can't predict who would the leader cover, so you don't know which car are you favoring, therefore you can't swap the "favour" evenly as the favour result depends on outside condition (the leader covering either car which is out of your control)
but obviously the strategy should have, and hopefully did, take some lessons from Japan

[venkyhere]

This image from Miami GP is quite revelatory :

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/u2slam7e ... mxfox&dl=0

Two important things of note :

1. McLaren is able to run 'lower' => naturally more DF without drag penalty. This is thanks to better suspension design (stiffer but without compromising kerb riding - soft for wheel movement, stiff for body movement) in the McLaren that allows such low ride height without the "bottoming out" compromise. All those white markings around the front wing, floor etc show the lower ride height

2. look at the rear engine cover area and see the 'volume of flow' at the coke bottle area, throwing useful air at the BW/RW, by the McLaren. This will tremendously help extraction from diffuser as well, thus enabling more rear DF with the same wing levels as the Redbull. This will in turn (for balance sake) mean more DF can be added at the front wing than the Redbull. We can clearly see the difference between the two FWs.

Just these two points - better suspension design and better engine cover packaging - has enabled McLaren to have :
- better quality DF due to lower running floor
- better DF from BW, RW, FW ; with maybe a little drag added by FW. However this provides a stronger front end to the car, without having a loose rear end.

I think, this is the 'proper' performance advantage that McLaren have over Redbull or anyone else, not just the tyre heat advantage. Proves that MCL39 is the most advanced car in this Ground Effect era, and by quite a big margin. It is impossible to match this car without 'proper innovation' that takes more than 1 year, even if it's possible to come up with the clever ideas. The reason this car doesn't grab pole in every Q is down to their drivers not being able to handle some of the 'quirks' that can come from such a 'strong nosed' car.

[CjC]

@Venkyhere , every time I read your posts about your theory about where the performance of the McLaren comes from- I can’t help but get excited for the races where they throw the drag penalty out of the window and stick on a ‘high’ downforce rear wing. I’m not saying Monaco will be a breeze but I’m thinking more Zandvoort, Budapest, Singapore….

[FittingMechanics]

Those races were dominant last year as well.

Wins by big margins in Zaandvoort and Singapore and 1-2 in Budapest.

Monaco was a Leclerc quali special.

[Ben1980]

Max is close on mediums. So, this isn't going to be am easy 1 and 2.

[BMMR61]

Max is close on mediums. So, this isn't going to be am easy 1 and 2.

Yes, factually true, but the underlying truth is the McLaren is the only car that can sustain any performance from the C6 tyre. In FP3 most of the others failed to improve on their C5 runs with the C6 while both Lando and Oscar did AND were able to do two cool off laps and get close with a second push lap. Will the other teams find it hard to keep the soft tyres alive for a whole lap in Q2 and Q3? Max was another to set his fastest on the medium so this will be important.

[mwillems]

Sometimes RB find a lot more time from FP3 to Q, sometimes it's the same, but they don't drop back. This suggests that Max is in the hunt for pole today.
We've seen Lando understeer here already so this will be no walk in the park, that's for sure.

[Mcl_G10]

I expect it to be very close. But if we can execute 3 sectors yo the cars potential then it can be ours

[Darth-Piekus]

I can't say it was a good Q1. Max was too far from us but I don't think we made a good lap. Let's see in Q2 and Q3. Considering the team could do a 1.14.7 we should be able to replicate it.

[Ben1980]

They were the only team to go out and stay out. Piastri went in the gravel second lap.

Safely through. But Max and RBR look fast.

[mwillems]

Poor laps from us, but I can't say that we'll get pole, it's too close to call.

[Darth-Piekus]

Much better this time in Q2. Can we go even faster?

So Mclaren has to find a way to go 1.14. If a Williams can get first in Q2 then so can Mclaren.