2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[Juzh]

Top speed wouldn't really be gear limited, but you would lose a horrific amount of laptime compared to others in the corners due to gear ratios.

These engines need 7 gears at most, and 6 would be enough to have nearly zero laptime loss. Back in 2014 pat symonds (then at williams) said even only 5 gears would be sufficient.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/merc ... re/456427/
"The engines have so much torque that we could make do with a five speed gearbox," he said. "It would save a lot of weight and space.

"Unfortunately, the regulations prescribe the eighth gear -- otherwise we would have never had it," said Symonds.

So why do the teams use gears they don't need? Surely if it was of no advantage, no one would be making unnecessary shifts to higher gears.

Because 8 gears are prescribed by regulations they are spaced accordingly. Otherwise 5 or 6 gears would be used to cover the same range with next to no laptime loss.

[PhillipM]

You're prescribed to have them and they must be functional (that's TD got put in after some of the first gearboxes with the regs like this were rumoured to have 7th and 8th 'gears' to be basically a pair of ultra light paper thin discs that are never used), so you may as well space them out and gain the odd hundredth of a second here and there and not really having to worry about ratios at any track on the calender any more.

If you gave the teams the option of running a shorter, lighter 6 or 7 speed gearbox I think a lot would jump at it.

[mwillems]

You're prescribed to have them and they must be functional (that's TD got put in after some of the first gearboxes with the regs like this were rumoured to have 7th and 8th 'gears' to be basically a pair of ultra light paper thin discs that are never used), so you may as well space them out and gain the odd hundredth of a second here and there and not really having to worry about ratios at any track on the calender any more.

If you gave the teams the option of running a shorter, lighter 6 or 7 speed gearbox I think a lot would jump at it.

Would a six speed gearbox with the same ratios for a season be something the teams would be interested in?

If so, why did we change to so many gears?

[mwillems]

viewtopic.php?t=29307&hilit=why+do+the+rules+mandate+8

[PhillipM]

Would a six speed gearbox with the same ratios for a season be something the teams would be interested in?

If so, why did we change to so many gears?

Because it would be lighter and you'd end up with a smaller/shorter gearbox making other things easier to package for aero benefits.

And we have that many gears because the FIA mandated it when the engines changed and cost cutting came in so that people weren't making new gearboxes for every race, and nobody fell into the trap with the development of the new engines and ended up with a gearbox that was too short or too long for the latter half of the season.
Now they're fairly stable on the engine front I don't see any problem allowing a 6 speed 'box and let teams decide themselves to optimise for slower or higher speed circuits. Would bring a bit of variety.

[billamend]

McLaren is paying the price for hiring a driver widely known for being very poor at giving technical feedback.

[mwillems]

Would a six speed gearbox with the same ratios for a season be something the teams would be interested in?

If so, why did we change to so many gears?

Because it would be lighter and you'd end up with a smaller/shorter gearbox making other things easier to package for aero benefits.

And we have that many gears because the FIA mandated it when the engines changed and cost cutting came in so that people weren't making new gearboxes for every race, and nobody fell into the trap with the development of the new engines and ended up with a gearbox that was too short or too long for the latter half of the season.
Now they're fairly stable on the engine front I don't see any problem allowing a 6 speed 'box and let teams decide themselves to optimise for slower or higher speed circuits. Would bring a bit of variety.

I was just reading the article posted above. They were 7 speed by and large but the FIA wanted sealed boxes so they mandated an extra gear to ensure they would be flexible enough to accomodate a seasons worth of tracks.

I guess the question I mean to ask is, would the 6 gears be flexible enough to work at all tracks, would this create an issue the teams aren't happy about?

[PhillipM]

Maybe, engineers will always whine if they can't have their cake and eat it too. Makes it a better spectacle for the viewer though.

But the 7 speed boxes were on screaming N/A engines so I don't see much issue with a 6 on these torquey turbo monsters, especially with the electrical assistance.
You don't even need to mandate it, give them the option of 6-8 and if they're happy without changing they can stick to 8.

[M840TR]

McLaren is paying the price for hiring a driver widely known for being very poor at giving technical feedback.

This talks about Ricciardo having poor technical knowledge or different work ethic to other drivers. But important to note the comments are apparently made by Ricardo Penteado, former powertrain engineer at Renault. I'm not sure if that speaks anything of Ric's feedback to the aero engineers etc.

[organic]

On Oscar

[Mclarenfanboy]

Slowly, Mclaren is turning in kind of a team where driver career goes to die. Ok, Piastri burned his bridges to Alpine , but there are 8, maybe 9 teams in the future that will take him, so for him Mclaren is a good deal. But , Lando, please get the f.... out of there soon. Guy , it will never gonna happen, Perez is not going to drive forever. , you need to jump that ship ASAP , money is not worth it.

So not really a Mclarenfanboy then.

I am, just tired of 10 + years of tears, with one smiley Italian afternoon, too old for fairytales and incompetent bull....

[mwillems]

Maybe, engineers will always whine if they can't have their cake and eat it too. Makes it a better spectacle for the viewer though.

But the 7 speed boxes were on screaming N/A engines so I don't see much issue with a 6 on these torquey turbo monsters, especially with the electrical assistance.
You don't even need to mandate it, give them the option of 6-8 and if they're happy without changing they can stick to 8.

I like cake, so I sympathise with the engineers, but I'd like less gears, see a few more struggles.

[FittingMechanics]

McLaren is paying the price for hiring a driver widely known for being very poor at giving technical feedback.

McLaren is paying the price for hiring a driver widely known for being very poor at giving technical feedback.

This talks about Ricciardo having poor technical knowledge or different work ethic to other drivers. But important to note the comments are apparently made by Ricardo Penteado, former powertrain engineer at Renault. I'm not sure if that speaks anything of Ric's feedback to the aero engineers etc.

I may have mentioned this here once or twice but I got the same impression about Ricciardo when reading between the lines when he talked with other drivers. I remember preseason videos for McLaren when Ricciardo was doing some racing/karting with Button and they talked about their history, I think it was quite clear that Button was talking about how Ricciardo was bad at giving technical feedback.

It might explain why he was unable to adapt the car to his styling over two years. If he struggles to understand the car and what he needs, it's going to be tough to make the necessary changes. This article and source seems to corroborate that theory to a degree.

[mwillems]

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/183830/n ... words.html

Norris saying that he never expected to win championships with Macca and that he also is not the most patient man and open to a move in the future.

[billamend]

McLaren is paying the price for hiring a driver widely known for being very poor at giving technical feedback.

This talks about Ricciardo having poor technical knowledge or different work ethic to other drivers. But important to note the comments are apparently made by Ricardo Penteado, former powertrain engineer at Renault. I'm not sure if that speaks anything of Ric's feedback to the aero engineers etc.

I may have mentioned this here once or twice but I got the same impression about Ricciardo when reading between the lines when he talked with other drivers. I remember preseason videos for McLaren when Ricciardo was doing some racing/karting with Button and they talked about their history, I think it was quite clear that Button was talking about how Ricciardo was bad at giving technical feedback.

It might explain why he was unable to adapt the car to his styling over two years. If he struggles to understand the car and what he needs, it's going to be tough to make the necessary changes. This article and source seems to corroborate that theory to a degree.

And I also heard the same implied by a McLaren's mechanical engineer.