More details about McLaren's technical leadership changes are becoming public as it has now become clear that Toro Rosso's highly valued technical director, James Key, is set to join McLaren in the same role.
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I watched this interview live in spanish, and I want to explain how positive and plenty of confidence Alonso was while saying the part I marked red, even laughing. He looked like someone fully conviced McLaren will improve a lot in next couple of races, to the point he´s not even worried about Renault, Haas, etc.
I'm only worried that Mclaren can not still push the PU to the max, maybe do to the overheating issue? As Alonso says in the interview
we'll have a lot of updates from now and the integration we need to do
We are the only ones who have to do that - so we have 'free' upgrades that are going to make us a lot more competitive
He didn´t said a word about not being able to push the PU to the max
im a huge Mclaren fan, however they are the new Williams, no doubt about it now. So, i guess the optimists/ die hard defenders of the team are now going into hiding.
it was obvious since testing, at the time i said 1.5+ seconds from the top... i guess i was wrong, its much worse... there is no hiding it now.. not even Q3.
its a full disaster, they cant even change tires in practice, heat issues due to design errors, they did not even bring an updated engine cover to fix it, and i was sure they wold... all in all its even worse than i thought. plus like some people say, with less 100 million they are worse than they were before. last year they were q3 most of the end of the year.
that Eric Boullier needs to be fired! he hasn't done anything positive so far to fix the team. They are slacking, not good enough! that´s the reality.
they have huge drag issues ( dirty downforce and please dont come to me with comments like,, ´´haa and you know this from what? pictures? ) hahahahha i guess reality is stating to sink in....
Where were they at the start of the 2017 season? That is all i am asking.
fernando did p13 in qualy, today he did p11.. so around the same place give or take as they werebefore
... and that is with the ´´gp2 engine´´ so either the car got worse or the ´´gp2 engine´´ was better... my guess is the car is worse or chassis lost ground to some other teams as the renault is for sure better!
Fernando made a mistake on his final Q2 lap, so his time isn't even representative of what the car is capable of.
Favourite driver: Lando Norris
Favourite team: McLaren
Turned down the chance to meet Vettel at Silverstone in 2007. He was a test driver at the time and I didn't think it was worth queuing!! 🤦🏻♂️
im a huge Mclaren fan, however they are the new Williams, no doubt about it now. So, i guess the optimists/ die hard defenders of the team are now going into hiding.
it was obvious since testing, at the time i said 1.5+ seconds from the top... i guess i was wrong, its much worse... there is no hiding it now.. not even Q3.
its a full disaster, they cant even change tires in practice, heat issues due to design errors, they did not even bring an updated engine cover to fix it, and i was sure they wold... all in all its even worse than i thought. plus like some people say, with less 100 million they are worse than they were before. last year they were q3 most of the end of the year.
that Eric Boullier needs to be fired! he hasn't done anything positive so far to fix the team. They are slacking, not good enough! that´s the reality.
they have huge drag issues ( dirty downforce and please dont come to me with comments like,, ´´haa and you know this from what? pictures? ) hahahahha i guess reality is stating to sink in....
Where were they at the start of the 2017 season? That is all i am asking.
fernando did p13 in qualy, today he did p11.. so around the same place give or take as they werebefore
... and that is with the ´´gp2 engine´´ so either the car got worse or the ´´gp2 engine´´ was better... my guess is the car is worse or chassis lost ground to some other teams as the renault is for sure better!
did you actually watch any of it, or are you just looking at the postings? i assume that you mean he was p13 in p3. but if you watched it you would have known that he was faster than the mercedes in the wet, and on a quickly drying track didnt get a late lap like everyone else did, so his lap time was p13 on a fairly wet track, while everyone ahead of him did theirs on much dryer conditions. and he could have made p3 fairly easily with no mistakes. so things arent nearly as bad as a lot of people wish.
Fernando had luck with Haas and the Safety car, but you have to be there to capitalise on stuff like that, and after that masterful defending against Verstapen. And all of this with a fairly basic car and still no full potential unlocked. Just have a look at where STR ended their race...
Hope they continue like this rest of the season and get even better! Good job McLaren, Fernando and Stofel!!!
Also very interesting now that the season has started it is Haas who are having the wheel nut issues and Toro Rosso and others having mechanical issues. Let's hope the reliability remains good for mclaren. Of course there's no denying the fact that the pace wasn't there to keep up with the top 3 teams on merit but at least once Alonso was up there he wasn't mugged by everyone on the straight. Let's hope that the updates come quick and that they work well. Plenty to look forward to this year!
Just before SC with both VET and ALO pushing at maximum and with clean air, ALO lapped faster by a couple of tenths. Don't remember now exact lap time, but it was quite a respectable one.
It was a great race by Alonso, with a lot of luck. He was pushing just before the VSC, maybe about to come in anyway?
Difference between Renault and McLaren seems marginal at this point but quite a difference to RB.
But the McLaren seems like it may look after its tyres reasonably well.. bodes well for the future.
Great race for Mclaren.
Happy to see Fernando able to fight again. He had some luck with the VSC and Haas problems, but we have to give credit to his race craft as well. He managed it well he controlled his pace and did his fastest laps during his last 5 laps which is always good.
Haas are very fast on race pace also. Their where able to maintain a surprisingly fast pace on their first stint.
IMO
Mclaren will reach Best of the rest position on Qually and Race very fast and very soon ( If they are not already).
They will maintain that position comfortably during the year. Alonso favorite qualification position will be 7th i guess from one point onward, and then race for something better.
Mclaren was 0.9 - 1.2 seconds behind red bull in AUS, Qually and Race Pace. The road to reach the top 3 will be long and difficult. I am guessing they will manage to cut that margin to half quite soon, but the last 0.5s deficit to RB will not be easy to recover it. At Barcelona circuit will have a better understanding where that margin sits. Mclaren hopefully will have recover some of it by then.
Those are my thoughts about Mclaren and about the Season.
In the space of one day all the trolls have left this thread and are instead posting crap on the TR-Honda one, it's like a pack of children :/
Mclaren a bit steady in the race but tyres on long runs looked great, Alonso put a couple of faster laps in when needed and had more than enough power to keep the RB's at bay - it's certainly not the fastest chassis on the grid, about where the Renault is at the moment although it seems faster on old tyres, but there should be a lot of low-hanging fruit for them over the next few races.
It looks like a car that's going to settle into the top 5 teams almost straight away and I would hope they'll be up there scaring Red Bull after some of the EU gp's
Gone for good, it was great in it's hayday, thanks to all who contributed.
In the space of one day all the trolls have left this thread and are instead posting crap on the TR-Honda one, it's like a pack of children :/
Mclaren a bit steady in the race but tyres on long runs looked great, Alonso put a couple of faster laps in when needed and had more than enough power to keep the RB's at bay - it's certainly not the fastest chassis on the grid, about where the Renault is at the moment although it seems faster on old tyres, but there should be a lot of low-hanging fruit for them over the next few races.
It looks like a car that's going to settle into the top 5 teams almost straight away and I would hope they'll be up there scaring Red Bull after some of the EU gp's
The fact that they have been able to match the works team from the go despite changing PU last moment speaks volumes. With proper and better integration, more experience the team is going to develop quickly.
