2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

[bluechris]

Give the guy a brake guys, everyone needs time to used to be on top imo

[mwillems]

I'm very happy with Oscar, but he still needs to get up to speed. He doesn't match Norris yet.

I agree, he needs to keep improving, it just reads like he's below where he needs to be. He would have won in Miami if not for circumstances. He was the fastest driver, and he would have had both Mclaren wins this year, but he got dropped to 4th and into a battle with Sainz who damaged his car. He changed his nose and lost a ton of time. It's things like that that make those stats you posted a bit redundant.

I think I said before, he is less consistent than last year, but he is starting to hit the peaks now and have some weekends where the tyre management is on point.

If you remove that Miami number, for instance, then his average finish is 4.53,1 place below Lando, which is fine, I think?

Worth noting that Oscar finishes a full place ahead of his start position whereas Lando finishes on average where he starts.

In any case, I don't think that 1.5 season old Oscar should be expected to be in the same place as 6.5 season old Lando, and I think his trajectory is fine. I would imagine that by next season, at this rate, he will be close to a match for Lando, which is why Lando needs to get his act together. And it is for this reason why I think the team won'e put Baby (Oscar) in the corner.

No, Oscar was much slower in Miami, just look at the pace before pit. The tire management has improved, but here is the merit of the car, it has become better. Oscar has a champion character, which is a huge plus.

He was faster in Miami, as you can see below, until his car was damaged, including his wing. And he was managing his pace whereas Lando was chasing position. He lost 35 seconds to pit and change his wing and the other damage caused him to lose further time. And this is the type of analysis you need to do when you compare the drivers. He was on for Mclarens only 2 actual wins this season. The reason is that Oscar is more likely to convert his chances.



Oscar definitely needs to be faster, but I don't know if it is fair to suggest he needs to be as fast as Lando today, that seems unreasonable to me, and that's how I seem to interpret your opinion. It's a personal subjective opinion, but for me, where he is today is fine, actually I think it is exciting, but if his progress drops off and he plateaus too early, then I'd say there is a problem. But so far, he continues to improve.

[Lucky]

I agree, he needs to keep improving, it just reads like he's below where he needs to be. He would have won in Miami if not for circumstances. He was the fastest driver, and he would have had both Mclaren wins this year, but he got dropped to 4th and into a battle with Sainz who damaged his car. He changed his nose and lost a ton of time. It's things like that that make those stats you posted a bit redundant.

I think I said before, he is less consistent than last year, but he is starting to hit the peaks now and have some weekends where the tyre management is on point.

If you remove that Miami number, for instance, then his average finish is 4.53,1 place below Lando, which is fine, I think?

Worth noting that Oscar finishes a full place ahead of his start position whereas Lando finishes on average where he starts.

In any case, I don't think that 1.5 season old Oscar should be expected to be in the same place as 6.5 season old Lando, and I think his trajectory is fine. I would imagine that by next season, at this rate, he will be close to a match for Lando, which is why Lando needs to get his act together. And it is for this reason why I think the team won'e put Baby (Oscar) in the corner.

No, Oscar was much slower in Miami, just look at the pace before pit. The tire management has improved, but here is the merit of the car, it has become better. Oscar has a champion character, which is a huge plus.

He was faster in Miami, as you can see below, until his car was damaged, including his wing. And he was managing his pace whereas Lando was chasing position. He lost 35 seconds to pit and change his wing and the other damage caused him to lose further time. And this is the type of analysis you need to do when you compare the drivers. He was on for Mclarens only 2 actual wins this season. The reason is that Oscar is more likely to convert his chances.

https://i.ibb.co/hyxYBS5/Oscar-Miami.png

Oscar definitely needs to be faster, but I don't know if it is fair to suggest he needs to be as fast as Lando today, that seems unreasonable to me, and that's how I seem to interpret your opinion. It's a personal subjective opinion, but for me, where he is today is fine, actually I think it is exciting, but if his progress drops off and he plateaus too early, then I'd say there is a problem. But so far, he continues to improve.

look at the pace when there were no cars ahead, the Landau was going much faster, so Oscar was called to the pit.

[mwillems]

No, Oscar was much slower in Miami, just look at the pace before pit. The tire management has improved, but here is the merit of the car, it has become better. Oscar has a champion character, which is a huge plus.

He was faster in Miami, as you can see below, until his car was damaged, including his wing. And he was managing his pace whereas Lando was chasing position. He lost 35 seconds to pit and change his wing and the other damage caused him to lose further time. And this is the type of analysis you need to do when you compare the drivers. He was on for Mclarens only 2 actual wins this season. The reason is that Oscar is more likely to convert his chances.

https://i.ibb.co/hyxYBS5/Oscar-Miami.png

Oscar definitely needs to be faster, but I don't know if it is fair to suggest he needs to be as fast as Lando today, that seems unreasonable to me, and that's how I seem to interpret your opinion. It's a personal subjective opinion, but for me, where he is today is fine, actually I think it is exciting, but if his progress drops off and he plateaus too early, then I'd say there is a problem. But so far, he continues to improve.

look at the pace when there were no cars ahead, the Landau was going much faster, so Oscar was called to the pit.

Oscar got ahead and then his pace ran to a Delta as far as I can see, whereas Lando was within 2 seconds of Sainz chasing position. Are you looking at 4 laps and saying that represents the 26+ lap first stint? Even so, the time Lando made was marginal. But looking at the blue section I highlighted in Oscars first stint, and saying that means Lando was faster, doesn't make sense to me. Oscar pitted first because of strategy, not because of Lando, without the SC Oscar had the undecut and the gap to Lando even bigger. There was no benefit or making way being gifted to Lando. And none of this mentions how Lando started one place ahead of Oscar and that Oscar had earned being in front to manage his race, pace and to stop first, something that ultimately unintentionally benefited Lando.



But even so, none of this answers where you think Oscar should be now at this stage of his development?

[Lucky]

a clean track appeared from lap 19
https://ru.mclarenf-1.com/2024/gp/s9223/lap_times

[mwillems]

a clean track appeared from lap 19
https://ru.mclarenf-1.com/2024/gp/s9223/lap_times

Right, but the gap barely closed and Lando had lost position to him in that stint and with no one to chase, was Oscar running to a delta after getting 4 places ahead of Lando when starting 1 behind?

I think it's quite a stretch to be handing that stint to Lando, to the point of being quite unbelievable. Oscar earned his 1st place and lost it through circumstance. He was put into a battle with Sai z that significantly slowed him before Sainz damaged his car and was penalised for it, ruining Oscar's race.

If you go through all the races, you will find all sorts of context those stats strip out.

At the end of the day, Oscar is in touching distance of Lando and has a race win under his belt. All earnt, no gifts.

Let's agree to disagree. For me, the table tells the truest story.

[Lucky]

a clean track appeared from lap 19
https://ru.mclarenf-1.com/2024/gp/s9223/lap_times

Right, but the gap barely closed and Lando had lost position to him in that stint and with no one to chase, was Oscar running to a delta after getting 4 places ahead of Lando when starting 1 behind?

I think it's quite a stretch to be handing that stint to Lando, to the point of being quite unbelievable. Oscar earned his 1st place and lost it through circumstance. He was put into a battle with Sai z that significantly slowed him before Sainz damaged his car and was penalised for it, ruining Oscar's race.

If you go through all the races, you will find all sorts of context those stats strip out.

At the end of the day, Oscar is in touching distance of Lando and has a race win under his belt. All earnt, no gifts.

Let's agree to disagree. For me, the table tells the truest story.

Oscar is certainly good, but he is next to Lando in points, only thanks to Norris' poor starts.
I hope Oscar will be getting faster, there is more of a champion character in him.

[mwillems]

I think both have been retarded by circumstances and some mistakes. But Oscar is also up there because of his good performances. By all rights it should be 8 6 with Miami going Oscar's way, but that's how it works. Some things go in your favour and some don't and I feel like luck, circumstances etc are equal and the points reflection is fair.

I know you're not being biased towards one driver so I don't see this as one of those convos. I think your points are valid. But I think that when you get into the detail it is more complex than 9-5

Ultimately I think Oscar is fast enough, I think that Lando hasn't converted enough. If Lando had fulfilled his potential I'd still be happy with what Oscar is doing.

[BMMR61]

I think both drivers are doing well, very quick, young drivers. Lando naturally, in his sixth season has developed his natural speed and has been held back in developing winning ways by the general lack of competitiveness of previous cars prior to Silverstone 2023. There are worrying signs about Lando which I see - the apparent insecurity is, I'm sure, leading to some of his mistakes. By insecurity I'm not referring to an insecurity within the team but within himself. His interviews reveal this, if you know the signals to look for - they're quite obvious. He's not getting the right sort of personal support I would expect him to get in my observation. When I look at the demeanour of his race engineer through many radio comms I think they are too much of a mirror of each other - an apparent defensiveness and lack of assertiveness, important things in a champion.

Oscar has flashes where his speed equals or even exceeds Lando's speed and his race speed is now improving quite quickly. His quiet composure is amazing in an F1 driver with his modest level of experience. He doesn't seem to need any outside support beyond what he's getting, Webber quietly mentoring him perhaps? He's obviously streets ahead of the other virtual rookies who entered in 2023 and really looks a better package for the future than guys like Russell, Leclerc, Tsunoda, and the two old war horses Hamilton and Alonso. He's pretty stunning and will be good to follow and see if he can reach Max's high level with his calmer approach - how could you let him go??? Or Lando for that matter!

[mwillems]

Well, as many readers of this forum will be aware, I'm more critical of the guy in his 7th season of F1 than Oscar, but I also think that is fair commentary as what should we be expecting of Oscar. I think that if Oscar is able to mount challenges and beat Lando more regularly in Season 2 then he's achieved his objectives. He's doing that. Last year the race H2H was 17-5 in Lando's favour. This year that ratio has almost halved, so I'm very happy, particularly because in one or two of those races you are starting to see outright fastest race pace and top race and tyre management.

But that is just a personal opinion of which there will be many that vary and conflict.

[mwillems]

This shows some nice visualisations, and you can see that Oscar and Lando are one of the closer pairings on the grid.

https://www.formula1points.com/season/t ... ttles/2024

[Ground Effect]

Like all leading teams, McLaren considered whether to try to sign Newey, but Brown is confident enough in the strength of the team now that he says he is not going to pursue him.

"We're not going to sign Adrian," Brown says. "I'm very happy with the team. Adrian is a great friend, huge talent, resume [CV] second to none. But with what we have in place here, I couldn't be happier. We can get the job done. I'm happy with the race team we have and we're going to try to win the world championship with the team sitting here today."

There's that.

Full article https://www.bbc.com/sport/articles/clynnlndevjo

[CjC]

Like all leading teams, McLaren considered whether to try to sign Newey, but Brown is confident enough in the strength of the team now that he says he is not going to pursue him.

"We're not going to sign Adrian," Brown says. "I'm very happy with the team. Adrian is a great friend, huge talent, resume [CV] second to none. But with what we have in place here, I couldn't be happier. We can get the job done. I'm happy with the race team we have and we're going to try to win the world championship with the team sitting here today."

There's that.

Full article https://www.bbc.com/sport/articles/clynnlndevjo

Yep.
We can now continue to watch the stroll team fans cream themselves over the prospect of signing him
I agree with Zac I think it would upset the apple cart too much at Mclaren, who have proved they are more than capable of hauling in Neweys input at Red Bull.

I think the upside to siding him would potentially give his new team a head start on design or at the very least allow them to catch up in the design office fairly quickly but that just adds pressure to his new team- especially the high expectations from the fans who no doubt didn’t know/ forgot that it took him 3 seasons to create a racing winning car, 4 to create a championship winner.

[CjC]

Brief mention of post summer break upgrades:
‘Its post-summer updates plan – multiple are lined up at a time when Red Bull is struggling to add performance to the RB20 and understand fully what it already has’

Paywalled:
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/how-2 ... /10642528/

Or

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/how- ... /10642564/

[Ground Effect]

Like all leading teams, McLaren considered whether to try to sign Newey, but Brown is confident enough in the strength of the team now that he says he is not going to pursue him.

"We're not going to sign Adrian," Brown says. "I'm very happy with the team. Adrian is a great friend, huge talent, resume [CV] second to none. But with what we have in place here, I couldn't be happier. We can get the job done. I'm happy with the race team we have and we're going to try to win the world championship with the team sitting here today."

There's that.

Full article https://www.bbc.com/sport/articles/clynnlndevjo

Yep.
We can now continue to watch the stroll team fans cream themselves over the prospect of signing him
I agree with Zac I think it would upset the apple cart too much at Mclaren, who have proved they are more than capable of hauling in Neweys input at Red Bull.

I think the upside to siding him would potentially give his new team a head start on design or at the very least allow them to catch up in the design office fairly quickly but that just adds pressure to his new team- especially the high expectations from the fans who no doubt didn’t know/ forgot that it took him 3 seasons to create a racing winning car, 4 to create a championship winner.

True, the team are in a good place and have found their rhythm. That said, I don't see Adrian as an apple cart upsetting guy. It's been said before that he's pretty humble and tends to give advice or finesse things. I was kind of hoping to have the Newey-Marshall-Prodromou partnership front RB's early success days.