2022 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[mwillems]

People have to want to leave to be poached. Allison just accepted the CTO role at Merc in 2021 with Mike Elliott replacing him as Technical Director.

Plus what would you do with Key?

What do you do with Key? It depends what the structure is; I feel like he might be a good Mike Elliot to someone's James Allison, but AFAIK McLaren does not have a CTO and TD (Key's current title) is top of the engineering dept. I single out Key because despite being in F1 for over a decade (TD since 2005) he has yet to produce a car that has finished higher than 4th in the WCC and even then it was the MCL35/35M which were evolutions of designs that were not his.

People are leaving Merc/RB for Aston, so clearly some people want to leave; it's probably a matter of Stroll willing to throw more cash at it than Brown.

As for the wind tunnel, yes, I know it's a limitation, but Alfa/Sauber have an excellent wind tunnel (and simulator) and they aren't exactly running away with the WCC despite being a customer team like McLaren and nearly operating at the budget cap. On the opposite end of the spectrum, RB uses the oldest and smallest wind tunnel in F1 (it's from the 1950s) with the least ATR time and seems to have no problem producing decent cars. Great tools help but you've got to know how to use them.

Not sure if RBRs wind-tunnel is outdated - but in any case the main problem is around efficient use of the wind-tunnel. RBR want to build a new one in their Milton Keyes campus for better efficiency even though their existing wind-tunnel is in the UK. For Mclaren, this is even worse as they have to use a wind-tunnel in a different country. In one of the articles posted earlier - James Key alluded to not being able to fully utlise their wind-tunnel time.

I still think that Ron Dennis was right that Mclaren at some point will need to have a partnership with an engine manufacturer and not as a customer. RBR has proven it with Honda. At this point, Mclaren's aero is so far behind it doesn't really matter that they are a customer.

When James Key was talking about not being able to use Wind Tunnel time, it was in during the impact of both Brexit and Covid, which was limiting how people and parts were moving around. Covid tests, isolation, documents for the transfer of the parts into the EU etc The COVID side has gone now and I suspect there is some beurocracy to do with Brexit, but I don't think they will have the same issue again, unless Covid rears its head this winter.

I've said this till I've gone blue, the wind tunnel benefits are decided by how good are the people that are using it.

This years car suffered not only from the wind tunnel issues last year, but also from some poor design decisions which were also spoken about in that same article as the wind tunnel.

https://www.gpfans.com/en/f1-news/89626 ... id-brexit/

"Beyond that, I think, to be honest, we've chided ourselves a little bit for not being as brave as we could've been.

"Some of the bodywork concepts we had were quite extreme, and actually not dissimilar to what we've begun to see on a few other cars, let's say.

"We figured not knowing these cars very well and committing to something which was extreme in the first year of rags, 'can we be confident we're going to get this right particularly after some of that caught on the back, and so on early on? Have we got time to absolutely be sure?' We ended up a little bit more conservative."

[SmallSoldier]

When James Key was talking about not being able to use Wind Tunnel time, it was in during the impact of both Brexit and Covid, which was limiting how people and parts were moving around. Covid tests, isolation, documents for the transfer of the parts into the EU etc The COVID side has gone now and I suspect there is some beurocracy to do with Brexit, but I don't think they will have the same issue again, unless Covid rears its head this winter.

I've said this till I've gone blue, the wind tunnel benefits are decided by how good are the people that are using it.

This years car suffered not only from the wind tunnel issues last year, but also from some poor design decisions which were also spoken about in that same article as the wind tunnel.

https://www.gpfans.com/en/f1-news/89626 ... id-brexit/

"Beyond that, I think, to be honest, we've chided ourselves a little bit for not being as brave as we could've been.

"Some of the bodywork concepts we had were quite extreme, and actually not dissimilar to what we've begun to see on a few other cars, let's say.

"We figured not knowing these cars very well and committing to something which was extreme in the first year of rags, 'can we be confident we're going to get this right particularly after some of that caught on the back, and so on early on? Have we got time to absolutely be sure?' We ended up a little bit more conservative."

I don’t think that they were completely wrong with the approach and can understand why they made that decision… Getting it completely wrong could have easily meant been P10 and that would have a very damaging impact on the long term, not only in terms of prize money, but sponsors, credibility, team morale (at the track and the factory) and making it harder to recover from (like with the MCL33) since they would have to use an important amount of time and resources understanding why they got it wrong… Been conservative, working with something that you think you understand better and can react easier.

Finishing P5 this season will be a blow, but in the big scheme of things it isn’t a death blow… Hopefully they are using 100% of their time working on the 2023 car, which should be very different now that not only other concepts are known, but also their potential.

I also think that most of the performance delta to the big 3 isn’t due to the car’s bodywork, it has very little to do with the sidepods shape or the fact that they were still going for a coke bottle area that is a carry over from previous generation cars… The delta is in the suspension (traction out of corners), apparently RBR for example has figured out how to stall the rear end of their cars and that’s why they have so much top speed compared to the rest of the grid.

An extreme bodywork concept isn’t necessarily what will drive a change in performance, as a matter of fact Aston Martin is a great example of this, it has the same (almost an exact copy) bodywork concept than Red Bull… They aren’t at the front of the grid.

[mwillems]

When James Key was talking about not being able to use Wind Tunnel time, it was in during the impact of both Brexit and Covid, which was limiting how people and parts were moving around. Covid tests, isolation, documents for the transfer of the parts into the EU etc The COVID side has gone now and I suspect there is some beurocracy to do with Brexit, but I don't think they will have the same issue again, unless Covid rears its head this winter.

I've said this till I've gone blue, the wind tunnel benefits are decided by how good are the people that are using it.

This years car suffered not only from the wind tunnel issues last year, but also from some poor design decisions which were also spoken about in that same article as the wind tunnel.

https://www.gpfans.com/en/f1-news/89626 ... id-brexit/

"Beyond that, I think, to be honest, we've chided ourselves a little bit for not being as brave as we could've been.

"Some of the bodywork concepts we had were quite extreme, and actually not dissimilar to what we've begun to see on a few other cars, let's say.

"We figured not knowing these cars very well and committing to something which was extreme in the first year of rags, 'can we be confident we're going to get this right particularly after some of that caught on the back, and so on early on? Have we got time to absolutely be sure?' We ended up a little bit more conservative."

I don’t think that they were completely wrong with the approach and can understand why they made that decision… Getting it completely wrong could have easily meant been P10 and that would have a very damaging impact on the long term, not only in terms of prize money, but sponsors, credibility, team morale (at the track and the factory) and making it harder to recover from (like with the MCL33) since they would have to use an important amount of time and resources understanding why they got it wrong… Been conservative, working with something that you think you understand better and can react easier.

Finishing P5 this season will be a blow, but in the big scheme of things it isn’t a death blow… Hopefully they are using 100% of their time working on the 2023 car, which should be very different now that not only other concepts are known, but also their potential.

I also think that most of the performance delta to the big 3 isn’t due to the car’s bodywork, it has very little to do with the sidepods shape or the fact that they were still going for a coke bottle area that is a carry over from previous generation cars… The delta is in the suspension (traction out of corners), apparently RBR for example has figured out how to stall the rear end of their cars and that’s why they have so much top speed compared to the rest of the grid.

An extreme bodywork concept isn’t necessarily what will drive a change in performance, as a matter of fact Aston Martin is a great example of this, it has the same (almost an exact copy) bodywork concept than Red Bull… They aren’t at the front of the grid.

I'm not trying to suggest they are completely wrong, I'm saying that the human element is the biggest factor over the wind tunnel, CFD and Sim and that people make mistakes, have good luck and bad luck, good ideas and bad ideas and that this year was an example of that, erring more on the side of lower grade decisions and ultimately a lower quality of car than we'd like.

The fact that Key refers to ideas they looked at that other cars have evolved into this year suggests that those extremes weren't far off being the right idea. So I think there was a balance between creating a development platform, which is what they seem to have done, rather than locking into a more specific design. They got it wrong it seems, by their own admission and the team themselves believe they made the wrong choices and should have believed in themselves more.

[MrGapes]

What do you do with Key? It depends what the structure is; I feel like he might be a good Mike Elliot to someone's James Allison, but AFAIK McLaren does not have a CTO and TD (Key's current title) is top of the engineering dept. I single out Key because despite being in F1 for over a decade (TD since 2005) he has yet to produce a car that has finished higher than 4th in the WCC and even then it was the MCL35/35M which were evolutions of designs that were not his.

People are leaving Merc/RB for Aston, so clearly some people want to leave; it's probably a matter of Stroll willing to throw more cash at it than Brown.

As for the wind tunnel, yes, I know it's a limitation, but Alfa/Sauber have an excellent wind tunnel (and simulator) and they aren't exactly running away with the WCC despite being a customer team like McLaren and nearly operating at the budget cap. On the opposite end of the spectrum, RB uses the oldest and smallest wind tunnel in F1 (it's from the 1950s) with the least ATR time and seems to have no problem producing decent cars. Great tools help but you've got to know how to use them.

As far as I know RB doesn't really have any wind tunnel technological limitations in terms of data collection, its mostly because it takes a while to start up which eats into their wind tunnel allocation time they want a new tunnel + it would be inhouse. "RB uses the oldest and smallest wind tunnel in F1", RB probably have one of the largest tunnels of all the teams on the grid (even though it doesn't matter as long as it can fit a 60% model), its old but has been heavily modified and updated. Sauber have a much smaller employee base than that of the other larger teams soo its hard to make that comparison... I think its too early to judge Key, they had to overcome many battles with the design of the MCL36... covid, brexit, pu change etc. I think its better they implement the fundamental changes that they think are necessary to go forward, if nothing changes from there then they makes alterations to the team, no use in making hasty decisions.

is that what you're really trying to say there ? Sounds like a contradiction.

I was quoting a segment from the previous comment in speech marks

[iRacer]

When James Key was talking about not being able to use Wind Tunnel time, it was in during the impact of both Brexit and Covid, which was limiting how people and parts were moving around. Covid tests, isolation, documents for the transfer of the parts into the EU etc The COVID side has gone now and I suspect there is some beurocracy to do with Brexit, but I don't think they will have the same issue again, unless Covid rears its head this winter.

I've said this till I've gone blue, the wind tunnel benefits are decided by how good are the people that are using it.

This years car suffered not only from the wind tunnel issues last year, but also from some poor design decisions which were also spoken about in that same article as the wind tunnel.

https://www.gpfans.com/en/f1-news/89626 ... id-brexit/

"Beyond that, I think, to be honest, we've chided ourselves a little bit for not being as brave as we could've been.

"Some of the bodywork concepts we had were quite extreme, and actually not dissimilar to what we've begun to see on a few other cars, let's say.

"We figured not knowing these cars very well and committing to something which was extreme in the first year of rags, 'can we be confident we're going to get this right particularly after some of that caught on the back, and so on early on? Have we got time to absolutely be sure?' We ended up a little bit more conservative."

I don’t think that they were completely wrong with the approach and can understand why they made that decision… Getting it completely wrong could have easily meant been P10 and that would have a very damaging impact on the long term, not only in terms of prize money, but sponsors, credibility, team morale (at the track and the factory) and making it harder to recover from (like with the MCL33) since they would have to use an important amount of time and resources understanding why they got it wrong… Been conservative, working with something that you think you understand better and can react easier.

Finishing P5 this season will be a blow, but in the big scheme of things it isn’t a death blow… Hopefully they are using 100% of their time working on the 2023 car, which should be very different now that not only other concepts are known, but also their potential.

I also think that most of the performance delta to the big 3 isn’t due to the car’s bodywork, it has very little to do with the sidepods shape or the fact that they were still going for a coke bottle area that is a carry over from previous generation cars… The delta is in the suspension (traction out of corners), apparently RBR for example has figured out how to stall the rear end of their cars and that’s why they have so much top speed compared to the rest of the grid.

An extreme bodywork concept isn’t necessarily what will drive a change in performance, as a matter of fact Aston Martin is a great example of this, it has the same (almost an exact copy) bodywork concept than Red Bull… They aren’t at the front of the grid.

I'm not trying to suggest they are completely wrong, I'm saying that the human element is the biggest factor over the wind tunnel, CFD and Sim and that people make mistakes, have good luck and bad luck, good ideas and bad ideas and that this year was an example of that, erring more on the side of lower grade decisions and ultimately a lower quality of car than we'd like.

The fact that Key refers to ideas they looked at that other cars have evolved into this year suggests that those extremes weren't far off being the right idea. So I think there was a balance between creating a development platform, which is what they seem to have done, rather than locking into a more specific design. They got it wrong it seems, by their own admission and the team themselves believe they made the wrong choices and should have believed in themselves more.

To be fair even the relatively conservative approach to the design worked out pretty well for staying in 4th place which was probably where McLaren belong this year. There's only one weakness and that's Daniel Ricciardo. I don't think McLaren were ever going to trouble the top 3 this year but it would have been nice to be that clear best of the rest, shows there's a difference between Mclaren and the peons lol.

[diffuser]

I don’t think that they were completely wrong with the approach and can understand why they made that decision… Getting it completely wrong could have easily meant been P10 and that would have a very damaging impact on the long term, not only in terms of prize money, but sponsors, credibility, team morale (at the track and the factory) and making it harder to recover from (like with the MCL33) since they would have to use an important amount of time and resources understanding why they got it wrong… Been conservative, working with something that you think you understand better and can react easier.

Finishing P5 this season will be a blow, but in the big scheme of things it isn’t a death blow… Hopefully they are using 100% of their time working on the 2023 car, which should be very different now that not only other concepts are known, but also their potential.

I also think that most of the performance delta to the big 3 isn’t due to the car’s bodywork, it has very little to do with the sidepods shape or the fact that they were still going for a coke bottle area that is a carry over from previous generation cars… The delta is in the suspension (traction out of corners), apparently RBR for example has figured out how to stall the rear end of their cars and that’s why they have so much top speed compared to the rest of the grid.

An extreme bodywork concept isn’t necessarily what will drive a change in performance, as a matter of fact Aston Martin is a great example of this, it has the same (almost an exact copy) bodywork concept than Red Bull… They aren’t at the front of the grid.

I'm not trying to suggest they are completely wrong, I'm saying that the human element is the biggest factor over the wind tunnel, CFD and Sim and that people make mistakes, have good luck and bad luck, good ideas and bad ideas and that this year was an example of that, erring more on the side of lower grade decisions and ultimately a lower quality of car than we'd like.

The fact that Key refers to ideas they looked at that other cars have evolved into this year suggests that those extremes weren't far off being the right idea. So I think there was a balance between creating a development platform, which is what they seem to have done, rather than locking into a more specific design. They got it wrong it seems, by their own admission and the team themselves believe they made the wrong choices and should have believed in themselves more.

To be fair even the relatively conservative approach to the design worked out pretty well for staying in 4th place which was probably where McLaren belong this year. There's only one weakness and that's Daniel Ricciardo. I don't think McLaren were ever going to trouble the top 3 this year but it would have been nice to be that clear best of the rest, shows there's a difference between Mclaren and the peons lol.

If you're goal is to finish 4th then maybe all is well. Even in that endevour, there is still 1/3 of the season left, the points difference by the end maybe be tripple what it is now or more. In the mean time, Alpine continue to develop and test developments on track, so they know for certain what is working and what isn't. If McLaren stop bringing upgrades to the track, all their upgrades will be theoritical, there will be some hit and miss. Add to that AMR is coming, with the addition of Alonso they will make a jump forward in 2023. Zak has to be taking inventory and looking to see what he needs to do to improve aside from the infrastructure changes they're making, the challangers aren't standing still.

[mwillems]

I don’t think that they were completely wrong with the approach and can understand why they made that decision… Getting it completely wrong could have easily meant been P10 and that would have a very damaging impact on the long term, not only in terms of prize money, but sponsors, credibility, team morale (at the track and the factory) and making it harder to recover from (like with the MCL33) since they would have to use an important amount of time and resources understanding why they got it wrong… Been conservative, working with something that you think you understand better and can react easier.

Finishing P5 this season will be a blow, but in the big scheme of things it isn’t a death blow… Hopefully they are using 100% of their time working on the 2023 car, which should be very different now that not only other concepts are known, but also their potential.

I also think that most of the performance delta to the big 3 isn’t due to the car’s bodywork, it has very little to do with the sidepods shape or the fact that they were still going for a coke bottle area that is a carry over from previous generation cars… The delta is in the suspension (traction out of corners), apparently RBR for example has figured out how to stall the rear end of their cars and that’s why they have so much top speed compared to the rest of the grid.

An extreme bodywork concept isn’t necessarily what will drive a change in performance, as a matter of fact Aston Martin is a great example of this, it has the same (almost an exact copy) bodywork concept than Red Bull… They aren’t at the front of the grid.

I'm not trying to suggest they are completely wrong, I'm saying that the human element is the biggest factor over the wind tunnel, CFD and Sim and that people make mistakes, have good luck and bad luck, good ideas and bad ideas and that this year was an example of that, erring more on the side of lower grade decisions and ultimately a lower quality of car than we'd like.

The fact that Key refers to ideas they looked at that other cars have evolved into this year suggests that those extremes weren't far off being the right idea. So I think there was a balance between creating a development platform, which is what they seem to have done, rather than locking into a more specific design. They got it wrong it seems, by their own admission and the team themselves believe they made the wrong choices and should have believed in themselves more.

To be fair even the relatively conservative approach to the design worked out pretty well for staying in 4th place which was probably where McLaren belong this year. There's only one weakness and that's Daniel Ricciardo. I don't think McLaren were ever going to trouble the top 3 this year but it would have been nice to be that clear best of the rest, shows there's a difference between Mclaren and the peons lol.

But the teams target isn't and can't be to stay in 4th place, it is to close the gap to the front and the gap has got bigger, so I don't think it has worked that well.

Daniel has lost us fourth, that is for sure. But we aren't trying for fourth and nor is it fair to say it's OK for the team to produce an underpar car but not OK for Dan to have an underpar season. It's not OK for both and both should have done better.

It is understandable to a degree but in this forum folks defend the team as if they are immune from criticism up until the point they want them fired, and then it is all guns blazing!

To win the F1 championship, unless your car was already sizeable ahead, you have to push the boundaries and make the right calls in one year, the very best will do it years running. The team have to improve because a slow start to the season means constant catchup which is I'm sure is as demoralising for the team as for the fans.

[djos]

The team lost 4th and ruined a winning drivers reputation by not designing a car that handles the way Daniel and Lando both asked for, and by being too conservative with their design!

[MrGapes]

I am curious.. with all these rumors of several different PU manufacturers interested in the 2026 regs, surely McLaren is speaking to one of them right..? I'm sure they would be a prime candidate for manufacturers interested in only developing PU's.

[Balalu]

The team lost 4th and ruined a winning drivers reputation by not designing a car that handles the way Daniel and Lando both asked for, and by being too conservative with their design!

You're delusional...

[Shakeman]

The team lost 4th and ruined a winning drivers reputation by not designing a car that handles the way Daniel and Lando both asked for, and by being too conservative with their design!

Still punting this nonsense?

[MrGapes]

So Lando will run the larger wing.. as a back to back to verify data their models and understanding for next year.

[the EDGE]

The team lost 4th and ruined a winning drivers reputation by not designing a car that handles the way Daniel and Lando both asked for, and by being too conservative with their design!

Not sure McLaren ruined Daniels reputation. He did that on his own, starting when he walked away from RB

Personally I rate him highly still & I’d imagine team bosses do, and I think if Lewis quit he’d find himself in a Merc (given Lando’s contract is locked-in for years)

Simple truth is… there’s very few places left for Daniel to go at present

[101FlyingDutchman]

Not too bad from Lando on high fuel on softs. Only around 0.4s of VER also running high fuel. Eyeballing of course but tentatively they seem to be a bit more on top of the drag issue. Maybe our issues are more rear traction related than I initially thought

[haza]

This is gonna be a weekend to forget in my opinion even if they qualify decent we’re going to get royally shafted on these straights during the race roll on Singapore