2025 McLaren F1 Team

[Slahinki]

Honestly one of the most boring races of the season. Good 1-2, but my god, nothing happened! At all!

[Emag]

I had to leave after the first 30 minutes (race didn't even start), so I only watched a replay later and yeah, my god was that a boring race. These cars have literally become worse than the ones we left in 2021 for overtaking. If this race was completely dry, it would have been like Japan with barely any overtakes. After the "start" in lap 5, there was nothing to watch from the Top 4. Max got somewhat close to Leclerc a couple of times, but nowhere near enough to try a proper overtake attempt. Basically a sprint repeat.

I am kind of expecting Baku to be similar as well. This race, alongside Suzuka, probably the most boring races this season so far, but at least Suzuka had a cool qualifying. Don't have high hopes for a great race in Hungary either, which is kind of a shame because I'll be going to that race track next week.

[Watto]

Honestly one of the most boring races of the season. Good 1-2, but my god, nothing happened! At all!

My criticism of the whole thing would be that they waited until it was near bone dry to start the race there was no rain when the original race start was planned - I will accept too much spray but a single lap behind the SC I am not sure what else they were expecting do half a dozen laps that wold have cleared a fair bit of water off the track. Access from there would have been some racing in wet conditions and a changeover to dry. The rolling start too I am not sure I agree with. But I am not sure it would have changed the McLarens winning . I think they were too good today

[vorticism]

Another flawless execution. Great car design, two great drivers, good strategy. Unstoppable combo. Surely they are headed for the record for most WCC points in a season. How often do you get not one but two A-drivers and the cleverest car at the same time? Crosses my mind sometimes, if Piastri had ended up at Alpine... Dodged a bullet there.

Believe it or not, this season Mclaren are only just a fraction ahead on average points per race than Red Bull in 2023….

Pretty crazy, but then again, Perez did get second in the WDC that year, although his points tally tapered off in the latter 2/3 of that season. If Norris and Piastri maintain their form, the team should be comfortably breaking RB's '23 tally.

[mwillems]

You saw, because its your perspective, not one universally shared. I didn't think the car was WDC championship capable, though i do think Lando could have made a better fight of it.

Well I cant argue much if somebody is going to willfully deny reality like this.

Makes your initial post make more sense, though.

I mean, I can 'perceive' that Ayrton Senna wasn't actually a great F1 driver. I'm guessing you wouldn't take me very seriously if I said so, though.

Your reality lol

The car was not the best car over the season, but since Miami. It was too much to close the gap. But it should have been much closer. Outside of some on Reddit and some certain threads in here, this appears to be the concesus.

Anyway, that was last year.

[CjC]

Another flawless execution. Great car design, two great drivers, good strategy. Unstoppable combo. Surely they are headed for the record for most WCC points in a season. How often do you get not one but two A-drivers and the cleverest car at the same time? Crosses my mind sometimes, if Piastri had ended up at Alpine... Dodged a bullet there.

Believe it or not, this season Mclaren are only just a fraction ahead on average points per race than Red Bull in 2023….

Pretty crazy, but then again, Perez did get second in the WDC that year, although his points tally tapered off in the latter 2/3 of that season. If Norris and Piastri maintain their form, the team should be comfortably breaking RB's '23 tally.

Tally yes, as we have 2 more races this season than in ‘23 but maybe one less sprint race? I struggle remembering all the sprint weekends.

Also, I hadn’t realised that McLaren made it into the top 10 of the most points scored in a season with their WCC last season- putting them 8th. Ferrari made it in, in 10th place for coming second last season too!

[Vanja #66]

McLaren using the new Silverstone floor at Spa went quite a lot under the radar. Not a small part of dominant display at Spa

[WardenOfTheNorth]

Call me crazy for pointing out the difference in the team (mainly Zac) when Piastri wins. Say it’s rubbish “blah blah blah”.

But actually it’s not just me seeing this. Go look on Reddit and other forums, there are literally images of Zac comparing the two reactions. 100s of people commenting on the exact same observation.

When you look at their history, Zak backed Lando in his junior career long before he arrived in F1. He’s been a mentor to him for over a decade. I don’t think it is that strange that Zak gets a little bit more emotionally invested in Lando’s victories than those of a driver he poached from another team.

I think it is therefore admirable that the team is giving both drivers equal treatment.

[Emag]

McLaren using the new Silverstone floor at Spa went quite a lot under the radar. Not a small part of dominant display at Spa

It’s difficult to quanitfy the update though. What was improved in the car where they weren’t good before?

It was quietly tested in Silverstone, but it was impossible to see from the outside how much of an improvement it brought. Both cars had it here, but the gaps, considering the length of the track, weren’t that dramatic.

The sprint quali kind of exaggerated the advantage in my opinion, but it is also true that McLaren generally hasn’t done that great in efficiency tracks, so perhaps any advantage should be considered a big advantage for McLaren.

Let’s wait a couple of more races, but I agree that it might have been somewhat of a “dark horse” upgrade and they have quietly unlocked more pace from the car.

[AR3-GP]

McLaren using the new Silverstone floor at Spa went quite a lot under the radar. Not a small part of dominant display at Spa

You wrote on your twitter page that Leclerc was only 0.13s a lap behind Piastri, finding "6 tenths of improvement" from the sprint because of Ferrari "getting a handle on their new rear end". 0.13s a lap is hardly "dominant", especially on a longer track like this. So I'm confused now...Why are you posting here that it was a "dominant display"? I was hoping this twitter account would not just become another Ferrari propaganda page lying to fans about the performance gaps to get followers.

In today's race, Leclerc was about 16.2s behind Piastri after first lap on Mediums and finished 20.2s behind overall. In dry, Piastri was 0.13s a lap quicker

6 tenths of improvement don't happen just like that, it was a matter of Ferrari getting the most of the new rear end and Leclerc and Hamilton getting used to it. Most of those 6 tenths are down to setup, but 1-2 would be confidence for sure

Can Ferrari dream and take the fight to McLaren in Hungary

[Vanja #66]

It’s difficult to quanitfy the update though. What was improved in the car where they weren’t good before?

Better efficiency for sure, but it really is almost impossible to quantify if we try comparing them between SQ and Q vs Verstappen. Rear wing change is very small and still they were much better in post-Pouhon part of S2 than Verstappen in SQ3.

This wasn't really the case in Silverstone with very similar aero specs for both teams - excluding McLaren floor. On top of that, Copse to Chappel in Silverstone was exceptional advantage for Verstappen, while Pouhon was much, much smaller gain. I don't see that as just pure setup improvement for McLaren

[mwillems]

The majority of the gaps opened up in changeable conditions, much like Australia.

There's plenty of reason to hold judgement on the floor.

[Macklaren]

The majority of the gaps opened up in changeable conditions, much like Australia.

There's plenty of reason to hold judgement on the floor.

Australia was very different with waves of rain and an extreme mix of strategy
Here the race started (as has been debated extensively) almost at the crossover point of slicks and the McLarens were 1-2 laps late to switch to slicks because of the lead that they already had. Yet they were lapping almost 1sec/lap faster in the first half of the race before everyone (except Lando) switched to extreme tire save mode in the second half of the race
they crushed it yesterday despite cooler conditions. Bodes really well for the remaining races

[mwillems]

The majority of the gaps opened up in changeable conditions, much like Australia.

There's plenty of reason to hold judgement on the floor.

Australia was very different with waves of rain and an extreme mix of strategy
Here the race started (as has been debated extensively) almost at the crossover point of slicks and the McLarens were 1-2 laps late to switch to slicks because of the lead that they already had. Yet they were lapping almost 1sec/lap faster in the first half of the race before everyone (except Lando) switched to extreme tire save mode in the second half of the race
they crushed it yesterday despite cooler conditions. Bodes really well for the remaining races

Mclarens were great in all the wet and changeable conditions of Aus. Whilst not so wet at the start at Spa, the start wasn't crossover conditions immediately, the pits happening much later.

But even so, The car was most potent in changeable conditions and on inters, whilst the car's traits of managing the tyre temps was likely the reason for our dominance as the inters were managed better on a drying track. After slicks the car was only a little faster.

Its a big stretch to apply that performance in changeable condition to the floor just yet.