McLaren 2011

[Dragonfly]

They have shown in 2009 that with lack of in-season testing and with a lot of data to feed the simulation facilities they can develop the car to top performance.
Question is whether it'll be possible to catch up in the championship fight having a low start. Previous years experience show that who misses to accumulate enough points during the first third of the season, cannot accumulate enough later.
This year however there are more uncertainties, especially with tire performance IMO, so that the presumed leader may also suffer in real race conditions.

[Just_a_fan]

I'm wondering if half the problem for Hamilton is the new tyres, he seems a lot more downbeat than Jenson about the car.

Nah, Hamilton is just more comfortable with giving a team a little "hurry up" in public. Hamilton is also much more able to deal with a sub-optimal car than Button. Indeed, Button has admitted as much in interviews.

Button had a better day yesterday than Hamilton did today so I wouldn't be surprised that Hamilton is a little down at the moment. If he gets a good day's testing with 100 laps on Saturday and is able to get some good time out of the car then he might well give a more upbeat interview.

[Mchamilton]

Hamilton said: "Do I believe I have a car to win the world championship at the moment? I don't. No.

"But that doesn't mean it won't become a world championship-winning car.

"From today, the improvements we've had, it's something that can grow to be better, so as long as we keep pushing in the right direction with the development, and the new things we have coming several races down the line, hopefully they will enable us to close the gap and compete for wins.

"As long as we pick up a good few points in the first few races, then we won't be miles behind.

"Say for example we were able to be in the top five for the first three or four races, get those points, and then if we happen to have a car capable of winning, then it would still be possible.

"So I'm definitely not shutting the year off. Everything is still to play for."

..."But in terms of how long the can go in terms of reliability and our true pace, that's an unknown factor for us because in the time we have had we've not been able to maximise things.

"That's no one's fault, just issues you have in testing, and this is testing, this is what it's all about, finding where your weaknesses are so you can build on them and fix them.

"We've been focusing on those, but we definitely have several issues that are not as easy to rectify as we had hoped."

from autosport, I read that as McLaren aiming for p5 finishes at the first few races, they have a good baseline and think they can improve but there are problems. I'm wondering if half the problem for Hamilton is the new tyres, he seems a lot more downbeat than Jenson about the car.

aiming for a P5 would imply he thinks they should/could be the 3rd fastest team, which isnt too pessimistic.. he beat buttons best time from yesterday by a tenth, lewis has had the lions share of reliability issues from what i can see so he may be more downbeat

[Neno]

i am 90% sure that this car wont be in top 3 (in first 4 GP's). this is not a bad car but it's not also on lvl Red Bull's, Ferrari's and Lotus Renault Gp's (on testing). Mp4-26 have potential but also STR-6 have same percent of potential in this case.

[Richard]

Neno - this is a technical forum, so please do share the data that led to those percentages

[bot6]

Except the best way to understand how this or that upgrade works is still to listen to what the people from that team say about it.

Especially at this point when we are speculating about what they will come up with next.

I do understand however that if it takes too much importance in the topic it might be worthy of a new thread. But the discussions are becoming hard to follow, especially as the amount of different threads is augmenting rapidly.

Always better to move than to delete.

Now end of OT

[PlatinumZealot]

i am 90% sure that this car wont be in top 3 (in first 4 GP's). this is not a bad car but it's not also on lvl Red Bull's, Ferrari's and Lotus Renault Gp's (on testing). Mp4-26 have potential but also STR-6 have same percent of potential in this case.

The STR is better than the Renault by faaaar..
But any way.. not looking forward to this season at all!

[Tamburello]

The STR is better than the Renault by faaaar..
But any way.. not looking forward to this season at all!

What do you base this assertion on? You seem very certain.

[tjaeger]

Oh man, the team is falling behind. Cannot believe all the problems, integration, still trying to do adjustment work, setups.....not looking good I am afraid.

[volarchico]

Oh man, the team is falling behind. Cannot believe all the problems, integration, still trying to do adjustment work, setups.....not looking good I am afraid.

A perfect example of what should be posted in the team thread, NOT here. I don't envy Giblet's job of keeping this clean. He's scrubbed a few of my posts, which I wasn't happy about at first, but he makes a good point: this thread should be all pictures and discussion of new parts. Take EVERYTHING else to the team thread. But can we get a "team thread" section like we have a "car" section? It'd make it easier to get to and more clear that they exist... Giblet, go ahead and delete my post, but I wanted to voice my suggestion about the "team" section, and I knew since you'd be deleting this you'd also read it!

[raymondu999]

i am 90% sure that this car wont be in top 3 (in first 4 GP's). this is not a bad car but it's not also on lvl Red Bull's, Ferrari's and Lotus Renault Gp's (on testing). Mp4-26 have potential but also STR-6 have same percent of potential in this case.

The STR is better than the Renault by faaaar..
But any way.. not looking forward to this season at all!

- this is a technical forum, so please do share the data that led to those percentages

What he said

[wrcsti]

I thought this car couldnt get any uglier, boy was I wrong.

[adrianjordan]

if they're trying radically different approaches to their exhausts, which it seems to me they have, doesn't that just show that they lack confidence in their initial design?

Possibly. Or that they are confident in their radical design, but expect it to take time to fully bed in and understand so want to have a more conventional solution available to use up until they are ready to race the new one...if that makes sense.

[SiLo]

I think the car will be very quick, ONCE they understand how it works and how they can best tune it in to the track. I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that they will be pushing very hard in the second half of the year and that if they can really get this design working, they should be hard to beat, even for Red Bull.

[Goran2812]

They are in deep s**t... It's the final test of the preseason and they still haven't decided on the exhaust... They don't have speed, they don't have reliability... epic fail...