2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[gastonmazzacane]

It's not a title sponsor is it?
I think it's going be the same as it was on Mercs, maybe on Helmet or some small logo on a car.
Anyway...hats down to Mclaren, they really have a way with sponsors

[proteus]

It's not a title sponsor is it?
I think it's going be the same as it was on Mercs, maybe on Helmet or some small logo on a car.
Anyway...hats down to Mclaren, they really have a way with sponsors

It is written in the press statement that logos will be only on helmets, overalls and drink bottles.

[taperoo2k]

Obviously, we didn't out develop them, nobody did, they won 21 of 22 races. I would suggest you tone down expectations of surpassing Red Bull. I don't know why you think it's such an easy thing to do. They practically stood still and weren't caught in 2023. It's about closing the gap enough to provide a challenge, fight for podiums and be in a position to win if the opportunity presents itself. McLaren will basically be pushing to be P2 from the get go.

What do you mean we didn't. The car was 1.5 seconds off the pace and in one year we gained more than 1 second over them and they had to bring some updates as they couldn't stay completely still.

On another note what Zack did with Mercedes might give the team a huge boost. If he managed to get Mclaren in equal terms with Mercedes in engine development then he might have upgraded Mclaren to something more than a customer team. That looks like a works-type deal to me.

I think you need to temper your expectations, the RB19 was the class of the field in 2023. McLaren knew what the problem was at the start of the season with their car and followed a plan to rectify it alongside technical changes that have paid off.
For McLaren to have any chance at beating Red Bull they have to hit the ground running in 2024 and have found a development path that outsmarts Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari. It's a tall order.

As for the engine deal? It's not a works type deal, it's Mercedes being strategic as ever. Strong customer teams = data that can be used to improve the power units. Doesn't mean McLaren will benefit from that immediately.

[mwillems]

It's not a title sponsor is it?
I think it's going be the same as it was on Mercs, maybe on Helmet or some small logo on a car.
Anyway...hats down to Mclaren, they really have a way with sponsors

It is written in the press statement that logos will be only on helmets, overalls and drink bottles.

I always remembered Monster more than any other sponsor when I saw Mercedes for some reason. I think the numbers were pretty decent also, at least at Merc.

More importantly, it is another added rivalry for the Red Bull branded car

Everything just seems to be setting up for a showdown of rival cars and rival energy drinks!
Destiny draws us to a title fight...

[mwillems]

Obviously, we didn't out develop them, nobody did, they won 21 of 22 races. I would suggest you tone down expectations of surpassing Red Bull. I don't know why you think it's such an easy thing to do. They practically stood still and weren't caught in 2023. It's about closing the gap enough to provide a challenge, fight for podiums and be in a position to win if the opportunity presents itself. McLaren will basically be pushing to be P2 from the get go.

What do you mean we didn't. The car was 1.5 seconds off the pace and in one year we gained more than 1 second over them and they had to bring some updates as they couldn't stay completely still.

On another note what Zack did with Mercedes might give the team a huge boost. If he managed to get Mclaren in equal terms with Mercedes in engine development then he might have upgraded Mclaren to something more than a customer team. That looks like a works-type deal to me.

I think you need to temper your expectations, the RB19 was the class of the field in 2023. McLaren knew what the problem was at the start of the season with their car and followed a plan to rectify it alongside technical changes that have paid off.
For McLaren to have any chance at beating Red Bull they have to hit the ground running in 2024 and have found a development path that outsmarts Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari. It's a tall order.

As for the engine deal? It's not a works type deal, it's Mercedes being strategic as ever. Strong customer teams = data that can be used to improve the power units. Doesn't mean McLaren will benefit from that immediately.

I think you need to give credit to the team, they repeatedly extracted time from the car and improved it massively. Everyone knows what the car can and can't do, it's talent that fixes it and we did exactly that. I think it is also wrong to assume that if we'd started the season with the Baku spec, that the team still wouldn't have known how to find a big chunk of time, I think they know exactly how to keep improving this car beyond what they got to in Singapore.

The penalty for Red Bull certainly helped and I'm sure they will be faster than us next year, but nobody matched the Mclaren for in season development this year and if RB had brought one more big upgrade we'd still have made up a big chunk of time over the season I think.

[AR3-GP]

What do you mean we didn't. The car was 1.5 seconds off the pace and in one year we gained more than 1 second over them and they had to bring some updates as they couldn't stay completely still.

On another note what Zack did with Mercedes might give the team a huge boost. If he managed to get Mclaren in equal terms with Mercedes in engine development then he might have upgraded Mclaren to something more than a customer team. That looks like a works-type deal to me.

I think you need to temper your expectations, the RB19 was the class of the field in 2023. McLaren knew what the problem was at the start of the season with their car and followed a plan to rectify it alongside technical changes that have paid off.
For McLaren to have any chance at beating Red Bull they have to hit the ground running in 2024 and have found a development path that outsmarts Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari. It's a tall order.

As for the engine deal? It's not a works type deal, it's Mercedes being strategic as ever. Strong customer teams = data that can be used to improve the power units. Doesn't mean McLaren will benefit from that immediately.

I think you need to give credit to the team, they repeatedly extracted time from the car and improved it massively. Everyone knows what the car can and can't do, it's talent that fixes it and we did exactly that. I think it is also wrong to assume that if we'd started the season with the Baku spec, that the team still wouldn't have known how to find a big chunk of time, I think they know exactly how to keep improving this car beyond what they got to in Singapore.

The penalty for Red Bull certainly helped and I'm sure they will be faster than us next year, but nobody matched the Mclaren for in season development this year and if RB had brought one more big upgrade we'd still have made up a big chunk of time over the season I think.

True, but admittedly some of Mclaren's jump comes from the fact that they were basically running last year's car at the start of the season. If everyone else had done that, then brought their real '23 cars midway into the season, they might also look to have made miraculous improvements as well.

I'm optimistic (fearful ), not because of how far Mclaren have come, but because they know the right conceptual direction (like RB) and have more Wind Tunnel time. In a straight fight, I don't see Mclaren or Red Bull being head and shoulders above one or the other in terms of development rate, but when one team has more wind tunnel time, this is a bit of a trump card. With regard to Ferrari/Mercedes, I wouldn't want either of RB or Mclaren to have extra windtunnel time because unlike many of the actual backmarker teams, they know what to do with it...

[mwillems]

I think you need to temper your expectations, the RB19 was the class of the field in 2023. McLaren knew what the problem was at the start of the season with their car and followed a plan to rectify it alongside technical changes that have paid off.
For McLaren to have any chance at beating Red Bull they have to hit the ground running in 2024 and have found a development path that outsmarts Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari. It's a tall order.

As for the engine deal? It's not a works type deal, it's Mercedes being strategic as ever. Strong customer teams = data that can be used to improve the power units. Doesn't mean McLaren will benefit from that immediately.

I think you need to give credit to the team, they repeatedly extracted time from the car and improved it massively. Everyone knows what the car can and can't do, it's talent that fixes it and we did exactly that. I think it is also wrong to assume that if we'd started the season with the Baku spec, that the team still wouldn't have known how to find a big chunk of time, I think they know exactly how to keep improving this car beyond what they got to in Singapore.

The penalty for Red Bull certainly helped and I'm sure they will be faster than us next year, but nobody matched the Mclaren for in season development this year and if RB had brought one more big upgrade we'd still have made up a big chunk of time over the season I think.

True, but admittedly some of Mclaren's jump comes from the fact that they were basically running last year's car at the start of the season. If everyone else had done that, then brought their real '23 cars midway into the season, they might also look to have made miraculous improvements as well.

I'm optimistic (fearful ), not because of how far Mclaren have come, but because they know the right conceptual direction (like RB) and have more Wind Tunnel time. In a straight fight, I don't see Mclaren or Red Bull being head and shoulders above one or the other in terms of development rate, but when one team has more wind tunnel time, this is a bit of a trump card. With regard to Ferrari/Mercedes, I wouldn't want either of RB or Mclaren to have extra windtunnel time because unlike many of the actual backmarker teams, they know what to do with it...

You are right that things could have been different. but I only got involved in this conversation because someone was talking as if we didn't out developed RB. We did out develop RB by a very large gap.

After that fact everyone can have their own opinions on whether it would have been different if we'd started with the Baku spec and then not been able to find much more time come Singapore race and whether Red Bull would have equalised if they'd brought one more package or even two. I don't think Red Bulls extra upgrade or two would have found a second to close the development gap, to be honest but you can't rule that out, and I think that the team know how to find more time still so if they'd started with the Baku spec and brought three updates, then I suspect the third update would still be significant.

RB did bring updates this year and didn't stand still as some suggested, just not at the rate we did because we had more time in the Tunnel and CFD and because they had the luxury of knowing they were unlikely to be caught and could switch to the RB20 earlier.

[organic]

There's also the fact that the McLaren was already very strong in high speed corners at the beginning of the year. But the first tracks don't place much emphasis on this. As soon as we arrive at a normal track the car was competitive already. So I think that the figures of car development since Bahrain aren't that representative for other reasons, not just that they started the season with a deliberately undeveloped car

[_cerber1]

It's a pity that in the offseason, we were left without insiders in the team, PhillipM was the man whose posts excited the imagination in the cold winter. Now we can only hope for Mika Hakkinen.

[billamend]

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/norri ... /10553167/

[LionsHeart]

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/norri ... /10553167/

Thanks!

[mwillems]

There's also the fact that the McLaren was already very strong in high speed corners at the beginning of the year. But the first tracks don't place much emphasis on this. As soon as we arrive at a normal track the car was competitive already. So I think that the figures of car development since Bahrain aren't that representative for other reasons, not just that they started the season with a deliberately undeveloped car

Saudi Arabia and Australia are tracks that this car would now like I think. Looking at Australia we were 1.5 seconds slower than RB per lap. You could also argue that RB were holding their pace back much more then and weren't being pushed as much so my own feeling is that there is a representative gap of 1.5s here plus the time that RB had in the bank.

Obviously Saudi was a write off for us.

[organic]

There's also the fact that the McLaren was already very strong in high speed corners at the beginning of the year. But the first tracks don't place much emphasis on this. As soon as we arrive at a normal track the car was competitive already. So I think that the figures of car development since Bahrain aren't that representative for other reasons, not just that they started the season with a deliberately undeveloped car

Saudi Arabia and Australia are tracks that this car would now like I think. Looking at Australia we were 1.5 seconds slower than RB per lap. You could also argue that RB were holding their pace back much more then and weren't being pushed as much so my own feeling is that there is a representative gap of 1.5s here plus the time that RB had in the bank.

1.5s per lap at australia is not correct - the pace gap between Max and Lando when each were in clean air was less than 5 tenths. Even without factoring out time lost in traffic for Lando, he was less than 30s behind Max after 53 laps which is 6 tenths per lap at worst. https://en.mclarenf-1.com/2023/gp/s9093 ... s/821-842/ Let's not exaggerate things for narrative purposes

[mwillems]

There's also the fact that the McLaren was already very strong in high speed corners at the beginning of the year. But the first tracks don't place much emphasis on this. As soon as we arrive at a normal track the car was competitive already. So I think that the figures of car development since Bahrain aren't that representative for other reasons, not just that they started the season with a deliberately undeveloped car

Saudi Arabia and Australia are tracks that this car would now like I think. Looking at Australia we were 1.5 seconds slower than RB per lap. You could also argue that RB were holding their pace back much more then and weren't being pushed as much so my own feeling is that there is a representative gap of 1.5s here plus the time that RB had in the bank.

1.5s per lap at australia is not correct - the pace gap between Max and Lando when each were in clean air was less than 5 tenths. Even without factoring out time lost in traffic for Lando, he was less than 30s behind Max after 53 laps which is 6 tenths per lap at worst. https://en.mclarenf-1.com/2023/gp/s9093 ... s/821-842/ Let's not exaggerate things for narrative purposes

The difference between the fastest lap in the race and the fastest lap in Q2 where Lando got knocked out was over 1.1s each time so you are right, the 1.5 seconds is overstated, but the .5 I think understates as you are not comparing pace, you are comparing deltas. Even then I think that RB were hiding their pace to avoid looking like they need reigning in since Max was not pushed at all, so I don't think its far wrong in terms of pace difference in the cars.

That site is great, much easier to compare than racefans.

[haza]

The only thing I’d think of that the team could experiment with is anti dive front suspension it’s hard to do during the season due to mounting points etc but it’s shown to work well there were also rumours that the Mercedes engine will have more kick next year due to new cooling requirements apparently the slim pod concept resulted in the engine not having optimum cooling meaning the engines couldn’t be ran at full capacity could be somewhat true considering the merc power units were bulletproof pretty much all year I think lando had a new engine in spa an ran the rest of the season with it