2022 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[nola]

Paddy Lowe is no top engineer. Paddy just thought he was.

Seems a little harsh. His 2 years stint with Williams has really tarnished his reputation

It has. That has to do with the general public's understanding of the inner workings of a F1 team. The average person doen't realise that the job he did there(CFO) was different to what he had done before that. Although the situation at Williams didn't help, I can safely say nobody will ever give Paddy a Job as CFO again. I can only presume that whatever he did at Merc, McLaren and the first stint at williams all those years met with some satisfaction from his bosses over the years.

I'm guessing you mean CTO? I can't imagine they wanted him for his financial skills.

[Stig14]

Ricciardo uncapable of overtaking Vettel with Drs. What a cáncer...

Lando wasn't able to overtake anyone either - he only got 7th place because Carlos got a 5 second penalty.

The difference being that Lando was racing competitive drivers in competitive cars for points-paying positions and was running a few seconds ahead of his rivals before the VSC/SC.

[djos]

Ricciardo uncapable of overtaking Vettel with Drs. What a cáncer...

Lando wasn't able to overtake anyone either - he only got 7th place because Carlos got a 5 second penalty.

The difference being that Lando was racing competitive drivers in competitive cars for points-paying positions and was running a few seconds ahead of his rivals before the VSC/SC.

Daniel spent most of the race on someone else's gearbox, as did Lando. Neither were able to overtake anyone.

[mwillems]

Seems a little harsh. His 2 years stint with Williams has really tarnished his reputation

It has. That has to do with the general public's understanding of the inner workings of a F1 team. The average person doen't realise that the job he did there(CFO) was different to what he had done before that. Although the situation at Williams didn't help, I can safely say nobody will ever give Paddy a Job as CFO again. I can only presume that whatever he did at Merc, McLaren and the first stint at williams all those years met with some satisfaction from his bosses over the years.

I'm guessing you mean CTO? I can't imagine they wanted him for his financial skills.

[mwillems]

Lando wasn't able to overtake anyone either - he only got 7th place because Carlos got a 5 second penalty.

The difference being that Lando was racing competitive drivers in competitive cars for points-paying positions and was running a few seconds ahead of his rivals before the VSC/SC.

Daniel spent most of the race on someone else's gearbox, as did Lando. Neither were able to overtake anyone.

Zandvoorte is a sh*t track for racing, just for going fast round in circles. It's only here because of Max, I can't wait for it to go.

[djos]

The difference being that Lando was racing competitive drivers in competitive cars for points-paying positions and was running a few seconds ahead of his rivals before the VSC/SC.

Daniel spent most of the race on someone else's gearbox, as did Lando. Neither were able to overtake anyone.

Zandvoorte is a sh*t track for racing, just for going fast round in circles. It's only here because of Max, I can't wait for it to go.

I agree, If it weren’t for the safety cars, I’d have been bored out of my mind.

[mwillems]

Daniel spent most of the race on someone else's gearbox, as did Lando. Neither were able to overtake anyone.

Zandvoorte is a sh*t track for racing, just for going fast round in circles. It's only here because of Max, I can't wait for it to go.

I agree, If it weren’t for the safety cars, I’d have been bored out of my mind.

I didn't watch it, and it's rare for me to miss watching a GP. Qualifying is beautiful to watch to be fair.

[mwillems]

I think McLaren need some fresh eyes in their ranks. Someone from a winning team, Red Bull, Mercedes, even Ferrari. These guys are used to designing cars with the expectation of winning races. James Key doesn't have that pedigree, I think he's solid, but maybe he needs a couple of lieutenants from a winning team.

He needs the tools to do his job properly. We all know Mclaren doesnt have their facilities up to date. We are talking about this for months. If he fails when new windtunnel is introduced, then it will be time to look elsewhere. But dont expect miracles until then. This means atleast 2 more seasons of midfield position.

Key also held his hands up saying that none of the ideas on the grid were unknown to McClaren, they saw them and chose to be more reserved and it didn't work (Those saying that the car looked simple at the start of the year were spot on).

He also mentioned about Covid and Brexit preventing people from easily getting to Cologne and having anything close to a quick Wind Tunnel turnaround so to be fair there were issues last year and the car was also impacted by that.

I do think they should be able to produce a faster car under normal circumstances at Cologne and I expect them to do that next year and whilst the new wind tunnel will help, I don't think that outside of Covid and Brexit that it is an excuse.

From other posts on the thread:
I also do think that keeping a fresh influx of knowledge from winning teams is a good idea, but I fully expect that the team will be doing that anyway and we just don't hear about it.

In terms of replacing the top dogs in the team, I don't know who we would replace them with and who is available, although it is certainly true that our best performing car recently came via Pat Fry's assistance and it seems a shame he is at Alpine making the same difference there.

This year we just produced a step backwards in part due to design direction and in part due to circumstances. I'm just going write this year off, enjoy the racing and move on to next year. If next year we are fighting for 5th then I'll probably enter panic mode and demand everyone's heads too!

[_cerber1]

The deal between Porsche and Red Bull fell through, and now the Germans are looking towards McLaren.

According to F1 insider information, Porsche definitely wants to enter the premier class from 2026. An alternative could be McLaren. Their team boss Andreas Seidl was once responsible for the successful Le Mans project with the Swabians and still has excellent contacts with his former employer.

https://f1-insider.com/formel-1-porsche ... tzt-48136/

[Ben1980]

The question is what do Porsche want? To provide engines or to take chunks of the team and their own team?

[CjC]

The deal between Porsche and Red Bull fell through, and now the Germans are looking towards McLaren.

According to F1 insider information, Porsche definitely wants to enter the premier class from 2026. An alternative could be McLaren. Their team boss Andreas Seidl was once responsible for the successful Le Mans project with the Swabians and still has excellent contacts with his former employer.

https://f1-insider.com/formel-1-porsche ... tzt-48136/

The teams are in such a strong position these days. Fair play to liberty media
In the Bernie days teams would have queued up to team up with Audi or Porsche

[Ground Effect]

The deal between Porsche and Red Bull fell through, and now the Germans are looking towards McLaren.

According to F1 insider information, Porsche definitely wants to enter the premier class from 2026. An alternative could be McLaren. Their team boss Andreas Seidl was once responsible for the successful Le Mans project with the Swabians and still has excellent contacts with his former employer.

https://f1-insider.com/formel-1-porsche ... tzt-48136/

“An alternative could be McLaren…” sounds like guesswork to me, using Seidl’s past link to create a talking point. I personally don’t see this happening. Even though you can’t call Porsche and McLaren competitors and are not in the same league, it would still be Porsche wanting ownership, or at the very least, control of whoever they buy.

[Mansell89]

Ricciardo uncapable of overtaking Vettel with Drs. What a cáncer...

Is that honestly an acceptable comment? We’re talking about racing drivers and sport here. Not some horrid dictator or criminal.

Is Ricciardo having some poor results? Yes. Does that affect the team in a fight for 4th in the WCC? Yes.

But to call someone a cancer for a rough patch in their career? Goodness me.

Way overstepping the mark IMO.

[FittingMechanics]

“An alternative could be McLaren…” sounds like guesswork to me, using Seidl’s past link to create a talking point. I personally don’t see this happening. Even though you can’t call Porsche and McLaren competitors and are not in the same league, it would still be Porsche wanting ownership, or at the very least, control of whoever they buy.

Agreed. Another problem is that Audi guy said that Porsche will build their engines in the UK while Audi will build in Germany. This means that they expected to buy Red Bull Powertrains. If this falls through, what options are there for Porsche? Only thing that could make sense if they partnered with Audi and badged the car with two names. But they explicitly said they do not want to do that as the engine is then a compromise.

Even though I'd love for McLaren to become a works team for a successful engine manufacturer, I don't think it works here. There is more sense if Audi partnered with McLaren than Porsche. Audi and McLaren are not direct market competitors, Red Bull can partner with Porsche, etc.

[iRacer]

“An alternative could be McLaren…” sounds like guesswork to me, using Seidl’s past link to create a talking point. I personally don’t see this happening. Even though you can’t call Porsche and McLaren competitors and are not in the same league, it would still be Porsche wanting ownership, or at the very least, control of whoever they buy.

Agreed. Another problem is that Audi guy said that Porsche will build their engines in the UK while Audi will build in Germany. This means that they expected to buy Red Bull Powertrains. If this falls through, what options are there for Porsche? Only thing that could make sense if they partnered with Audi and badged the car with two names. But they explicitly said they do not want to do that as the engine is then a compromise.

Even though I'd love for McLaren to become a works team for a successful engine manufacturer, I don't think it works here. There is more sense if Audi partnered with McLaren than Porsche. Audi and McLaren are not direct market competitors, Red Bull can partner with Porsche, etc.

Red Bull might just continue with what they are doing now and rebadge the engine as Porsche. Not like they don't have history of doing such a thing. Then it's just a case of Audi and Porsche injecting some of their ideas to the Red Bull Ex Honda Employee Powertrains to make it simply Red Bull Ex Honda Employee Volkswagen Audi Group Porsche Audi Powertrains.

Simple.