2025 McLaren F1 Team

[mwillems]

Even the temperature factor that was considered the main culprit behind the dominance in Miami, can't actually be considered a stable data point, because track temp was higher in Imola and that did nothing. Track temps in Miami were also the same as they were in Jeddah but RedBull was faster there. McLaren's advantage doesn't seem to be dictated by them at all. They probably have the most balanced package that works really well across different tracks and the gap increases or decreases depending on how much competitors can get out of their car in a given weekend.

I feel like the temp thing may well work in extremes, but time will tell. Let's see what happens in more extreme temps with cold and wet or with high heat.

Piastri said during the race that deg seemed higher than FP2. We don’t know what Mclaren changed in the setup but we do know that it was much warmer on Sunday than it was on Friday.

Piastri at least seemed to be more sensitive on the hotter track, but it makes sense that he would be more susceptible if prior races are scrutinized.

I would have thought that the way it has been spoken about, the tyre magic would be somewhat independent of setup, though not totally.

Truth be told, nobody knows really what the real difference maker is, yet - it's total guesswork by everyone outside of the team. There is no consistent pattern really forming , other than that at the hottest race, it was fantastic, and at the wet race, the tyres warmed up well. But one hot race and one cold and wet race don't help us understand if this is where the benefit lies.

The car seems better at rear limited tracks, I think, but it still isn't consistent.

Interestingly, at Imola, S3 is rear limited and S1 more front limited,

[Watto]

"At all times, the FIA has declared it is satisfied with what McLaren is doing with sources suggesting that its concept is "clever." This means that it was running at Imola exactly the same way as before.

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella has repeatedly suggested that rivals are looking in the wrong areas when it comes to pointing fingers at what his squad is doing - with it already having faced suspicions over flexi wings, water in tyres and mini-DRS.

Speaking at Imola last weekend, Stella said: "For us, it's good news when our rivals get their focus – rather than on themselves – onto some of the aspects that allegedly are present in our car, and that effectively are not even present.

"And certainly, even if they were – let's say, flexi-wings like a front wing deflection, like everyone else – it has nothing to do with the reason why McLaren is very competitive.

"So, I hope that in the future there will be more of these kinds of sagas because it means that our rivals keep focusing on the wrong things. And this is, for us, just good news. It's just helping our quest."

It doesn’t mean it’s the same. It means that the car passes the checks they did after the race. Whether they found something suspect, which they may/may not have done, is a different question. To disqualify a team, means there has to be a clear cut breaking of the rules. You can’t disqualify a team for using a grey area of the rules, but you can close the loophole/grey area with the help of a mid season technical directive. Which effectively means that the FIA can change the rules ‘on the fly’ at at time through the season.

I did read somewhere, that maybe the TD was put in place after a team queried something with the FIA. Now that goes back to the earlier point that if you believe that something was being used, and is a grey area of the rules, and it would add performance to your car, then it’s odd you would go ask the FIA, “hey, we found this grey area in the rules, by using XYZ material, which will gain us laptime, can we do it?”
Teams would go out the way to develop the idea first and use it to their advantage then wait for it to be 1) found out by others and 2) wait for it to be clamped down by the FIA.

Stella isn’t exactly going to stand infront the world and say, “hey, we were doing this, the FIA have seen it, they don’t like it, but we going to keep doing it anyhow”. The Baku mini drs was a perfect example. Supposedly they didn’t have to change any parts, but it was clear as day to anyone watching the clips exactly what was happening and what the FIA clamped down on.
All the “it’s hidden away, and teams are barking up the wrong tree wasting resources” is complete PR spin. These teams on the grid aren’t stupid, and they know how/why things are done a LOT more than what’s ever let out into public. Stella isn’t going to openly say that “look teams, our silver bullet comes from the brake cooling, I suggest you look down that route to how to make upgrades to your car”. That’s helping the competition, he’s trying to throw them off by skirting around the topic of interest claiming there is nothing there, when there likely is.

You just wouldn’t say it the way he does.

I really only printed it because on the one hand the article talks up the TD and then immediately dispels it, this article is pretty much just clickbait talking to both sets of fans.

Agree there is as far as I see it there isn't anything saying McLaren are in the wrong here. I see it as similar really to the assemetric brake TD last year that some accused Red Bull of using. The FIA said no team was using it that they were aware of, rather the TD was there to just tighten any loopholes.

[Ben1980]

As I heard in the bbc podcast, they said the difference is managing the heat into the tyres and stopping them from overheating but if it's just standard degradation that's different, and the car is similar to the red bull.

I'm not expert, but the way it was explained sort of made sense.

Tyres at Imola were not overheating just degrading. Maybe it was because they were softer?

[Darth-Piekus]

Regarding these multiple Techniqual Directives I have a question. Was Mclaren forced to make drastic changes that tilted the game in favor of Red Bull?

[Watto]

Regarding these multiple Techniqual Directives I have a question. Was Mclaren forced to make drastic changes that tilted the game in favor of Red Bull?

I don’t think so no.


The brakes/wheel assembly one I think is just covering off any loopholes teams might be looking at to replicate whatever McLaren are doing.


The skid blocks one Stella has said that didn’t relate to them some speculation it may refer to Mercedes if anyone.

[FittingMechanics]

Btw I think this talk of Red Bull pace is premature. The only reason it looked big was because Piastri bailed on a one stop and pit into traffic and Norris lost a bunch of time behind Russell and then went to pits one lap before VSC and Verstappen. Without those things happening, we would probably get a Japan like race where two McLarens are close to Verstappen the whole race but unable to threaten to overtake.

It is likely there was no serious drop of pace here, it's just that the cars in traffic run worse and that Red Bull works well in medium/high speed tracks with low degradation.

What I do think it proves is that McLaren is not a super dominant car. It has some tracks and conditions where they have a big advantage (like in 2024) but at other tracks it is evenly matched and execution is everything. Just like Max was able to execute and win in 2024, he can do it this year as well.

I hope McLaren can keep up their pace of development because if they can do that, they will start to increase the gap.

[Darth-Piekus]

Last year though he had a 50 points advantage. This year it will be much harder as he has to cope with two Mclaren drivers and Im pretty confident Oscar wont do the same mistake twice and will bounce back.

[chrisc90]

Wasn’t the pace ofNorris slightly slower than Max?

[FittingMechanics]

Wasn’t the pace ofNorris slightly slower than Max?

No, the gap was stable.

Norris kept the gap at around 9-10 seconds for the stint he was in clear air. And that was after he had to fight through Russell so he used up his tires a lot during that period. In the second stint, Norris was matching Verstappen pace (or Verstappen was keeping the gap stable, could be either one). Only in last stint where Norris was behind Piastri who was on old tires did Verstappen pull out a gap.

We would have completely different view of the race if the circumstances were like in Japan. Prevailing story would be Max held back a rocketship McLaren.

[chrisc90]

Wasn’t the pace ofNorris slightly slower than Max?

No, the gap was stable.

Norris kept the gap at around 9-10 seconds for the stint he was in clear air. And that was after he had to fight through Russell so he used up his tires a lot during that period. In the second stint, Norris was matching Verstappen pace (or Verstappen was keeping the gap stable, could be either one). Only in last stint where Norris was behind Piastri who was on old tires did Verstappen pull out a gap.

We would have completely different view of the race if the circumstances were like in Japan. Prevailing story would be Max held back a rocketship McLaren.

Guess bit early to draw a conclusion. Max was managing a lot, and I’m sure when he got the stop under the VSC and the gap was huge to the mclarens he had no real reason to push.

More races needed, shame Monaco won’t tell us anything, and we can see what the gaps look like ahead.

I still find it odd Oscar burned up his mediums after just a handful of laps, yet Norris and Max could go twice as long without suffering any deg.

[Waz]

Fully agree that the circumstances of the race showed a different picture to reality, and the details are being overlooked to set a false narrative that McLaren have been pegged back.

[Waz]

Wasn’t the pace ofNorris slightly slower than Max?

No, the gap was stable.

Norris kept the gap at around 9-10 seconds for the stint he was in clear air. And that was after he had to fight through Russell so he used up his tires a lot during that period. In the second stint, Norris was matching Verstappen pace (or Verstappen was keeping the gap stable, could be either one). Only in last stint where Norris was behind Piastri who was on old tires did Verstappen pull out a gap.

We would have completely different view of the race if the circumstances were like in Japan. Prevailing story would be Max held back a rocketship McLaren.

Guess bit early to draw a conclusion. Max was managing a lot, and I’m sure when he got the stop under the VSC and the gap was huge to the mclarens he had no real reason to push.

More races needed, shame Monaco won’t tell us anything, and we can see what the gaps look like ahead.

I still find it odd Oscar burned up his mediums after just a handful of laps, yet Norris and Max could go twice as long without suffering any deg.

We have seen many times that the tires come back if a driver keeps going. I think McLaren pulled the trigger based on Leclercs pace after his stop, thinking Max would follow the next lap.

Ironically, they probably gave Max no option but to keep going or lose position to the undercut.

Also, Oscar might have gone all in on a qualifying biased set up to control the race from the front. Falling asleep in the braking zone didn't help that idea.

[AR3-GP]

Btw I think this talk of Red Bull pace is premature. The only reason it looked big was because Piastri bailed on a one stop and pit into traffic and Norris lost a bunch of time behind Russell and then went to pits one lap before VSC and Verstappen. Without those things happening, we would probably get a Japan like race where two McLarens are close to Verstappen the whole race but unable to threaten to overtake.

I don't think it was like Japan at all. Verstappen was clearly slower than the Mclarens in Japan. Ideal sector times from qualifying showed it, Verstappen also was not happy with the balance in Japan. He could never build any breathing room to Norris like he prefers to do.

1st stint per Horner (Imola):

“I think the first stint was really encouraging because we could see that he was managing more than the guys behind, so he was driving very smartly and still pulling out a gap.

“That’s always a happy place to be in. So you get the longevity. It’s the first time in quite a while that we’ve been in that position.

https://www.planetf1.com/news/red-bull- ... grand-prix


2nd Stint per Radio (lap 32):

Max: Just keep me up to date with his (Lando) pace so I manage mine around that, you know.
GP: Yep, understood
Max: I'm staying like this and just manage with
GP: best recommendation would be to suppress your peaks, so keep the peaks down for the first five or 6 laps. Norris generally doesn't have anything to lose so expect him to go flat out initially but as I say, let's uh, introduce these tires carefully.

3rd stint:
Norris only spent around 3 laps behind PIA. He had no answer to Max after he passed. Max set a fastest lap of the race which was 3 tenths quicker than what Norris (with less fuel) had done. On lap 59, GP told Max "no heroics", gave him a lower engine mode ( "strat 13", also visible in telemetry), and told him to calm down and bring it home so he slowed down. Norris still pushed and did a personal best on the final lap.

[FittingMechanics]

The pace was probably slightly better for Max than in Japan, but it wasn't 20-30 seconds gap that it ballooned in the race into. If Piastri didn't lose P1 (or Norris had it), it's likely they would have won it. That is my point, circumstances of the race exaggerated the gap.

Good work to Max, that was a great victory.

Btw I want to mention Norris and his overtaking in Imola. He pulled off a strong overtake on Russell and later on against Piastri. Really solid work. Piastri also did well on his climb through hard runners but the pace difference was bigger against those cars.

[Cassius]

Do we know how much Piastri was pushing early in his 3rd stint? He had similar tyres as Norris and Verstappen, but was consistently faster by a few tenths.

Was that less management and did we see some drop-off at the end or was he just managing after Norris passed him after the SC?