2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[101FlyingDutchman]

I'm not sure I'd go so far for as saying bullish, they are still targeting a quite modest 4th fastest car by seasons end, but you can certainly feel the optimism from Mclaren.

But I suppose what happens depends as much whether other teams also can see similar gains ahead, this is something that we or Mclaren can not know. Exciting to see though!

I don't remember the team talking how much potential their development path has. This does seem out of character. Maybe it is just leadership style of Stella?

Totally, they are being very up front but bullish to me suggests they think they can get in the mix, but they are just saying 4th fastest car by seasons end. That's just the progress I expect to see.

Okay different viewpoints perhaps but I’d say it’s bullish. 4th car looking at how close the AM has leapt to the front means a significant leap for us. Even matching Merc at present would present quite a pole vault up in performance

[mwillems]

I guess it depends on what you class as a decent season. I suppose I feel that if we finish the season with what is the 5th fastest car, then we've not succeeded. 4th is my criteria for a solid season getting regular top 5 finishes by the end is very good.

4th fastest car is my minimum for a good season.
But perhaps I'm being too black and white.

[mwillems]

I'm not sure I'd go so far for as saying bullish, they are still targeting a quite modest 4th fastest car by seasons end, but you can certainly feel the optimism from Mclaren.

But I suppose what happens depends as much whether other teams also can see similar gains ahead, this is something that we or Mclaren can not know. Exciting to see though!

Well, what they actually said was a top four car, at the time I assume they thought mixing it RB, Merc & Ferrari, or at least at the back of that fight

Of course things have changed since then and AM have taken a step forward and Merc a step back, and the whole field are now closer together. Merc won’t be standing still, so we could be looking at a top 5 later this year

Their goal for this year really has to be getting back to a position of having both cars regularly in the top 10, and fighting for podiums again. That would be significant progress

I'll try and find the quote but it is a new one from last week, talking about how they want to end the season.

[MrGapes]

I'm not sure I'd go so far for as saying bullish, they are still targeting a quite modest 4th fastest car by seasons end, but you can certainly feel the optimism from Mclaren.

But I suppose what happens depends as much whether other teams also can see similar gains ahead, this is something that we or Mclaren can not know. Exciting to see though!

Well, what they actually said was a top four car, at the time I assume they thought mixing it RB, Merc & Ferrari, or at least at the back of that fight

Of course things have changed since then and AM have taken a step forward and Merc a step back, and the whole field are now closer together. Merc won’t be standing still, so we could be looking at a top 5 later this year

Their goal for this year really has to be getting back to a position of having both cars regularly in the top 10, and fighting for podiums again. That would be significant progress

I'll try and find the quote but it is a new one from last week, talking about how they want to end the season.

I think Andrea said it in a interview after the car launch, I wonder if those post have shifted since, to a certain extend some teams at the front are under performing and some lower teams over…everything looks quite condensed bar Red Bull flying off in the distance, although they do have very limited wind tunnel time.


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[Mansell89]

Looking forward to seeing how the car goes this weekend- a positive performance would really whet the appetite for upgrade time. Though it must be said- I think the whole field are looking at making a step in Baku!

[Arcanum]

I think the telemetry that was posted earlier in the thread showed McLaren struggling a lot in traction zones.

If you compare Bahrain with Jeddah (and even Melbourne), the traction zones are nowhere near as significant. The minimum corner speeds at Bahrain were 65km/h in T1, 105km/h in T4, 70km/h in T8, 65km/h in T10 and 105km/h in T14. In contrast, at Jeddah, after T1 (90km/h), T2 (80km/h) and T27 (100km/h) there's nothing less than 140km/h.

Jeddah is a very different circuit and McLaren's traction challenges won't hurt it as much. The telemetry from earlier in the thread indicated they are around mid-pack on drag, and that will matter a lot at Jeddah.

https://mercedes-benz-archive.com/marsF ... =190181828
https://mercedes-benz-archive.com/marsF ... =189925416

Counter-inuitively, despite Melbourne being a street circuit, it's quite fast with fewer traction zones than Bahrain.

[organic]

Midpack on drag with what looked like one of the largest rear wings. Presumably a loser df spec is available for this race?

[Arcanum]

IIRC, there was a split last year in some teams running higher DF to gain through sector-1 and parts of sector-2 (and get out of DRS range from the car behind). Then other teams went lower DF to maximise sector-3.

[organic]

You're right - good point. I'm thinking the tyre degradation was low enough last year that it ended up being favourable to go with lower df

[JordanMugen]

4th is my criteria for a solid season getting regular top 5 finishes by the end is very good.

4th fastest car is my minimum for a good season.

But there is a "big four" now -- Red Bull, Ferrari, Aston Martin and Mercedes. In a normal race, we can expect these four teams to fill positions 1 through 8.

I don't see McLaren beating any of those teams over the season, so surely that goal has to be revised to P5 WCC -- best of the midfield? Or are McLaren truly confident of overhauling Mercedes GP? Or Aston Martin Racing? Or both and taking a fine P3 in the WCC?

This shows they are really confident about the B car. So maybe it really is worth a lot of time then! It explains all the happy faces despite the Bahrain result. Looking forward to Baku. Although it will probably take a couple of races for the team to get to know the new car. Realistically I think RB are too far off. But maybe the team can bring the fight to AM and Ferrari. That would be great.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/stell ... /10439934/

“For us, that is the ambition, we want to be able to do what McLaren was able to do in 2009, I remember they recovered a lot of performance, and in 2012 as well.

...

Quite ambitious considering 2009 they went from barely getting points to winning by mid season, lets see where they end up by the end of the season.

The latter then. An impressive ambition! It will be a pleasure to see this realised on track.

So McLaren are confident of upgrading the car to be at least the second fastest car in the field?

[Chuckjr]

I wouldn’t drink that koolaid if I were you.

[Mclarenfanboy]

They will fight for sixth place this year with Alfa, everything else is just a fantasy. But as the song goes, everybody is entilted to believe what they like. At least dreams are free.

[mwillems]

4th is my criteria for a solid season getting regular top 5 finishes by the end is very good.

4th fastest car is my minimum for a good season.

But there is a "big four" now -- Red Bull, Ferrari, Aston Martin and Mercedes. In a normal race, we can expect these four teams to fill positions 1 through 8.

I don't see McLaren beating any of those teams over the season, so surely that goal has to be revised to P5 WCC -- best of the midfield? Or are McLaren truly confident of overhauling Mercedes GP? Or Aston Martin Racing? Or both and taking a fine P3 in the WCC?

This shows they are really confident about the B car. So maybe it really is worth a lot of time then! It explains all the happy faces despite the Bahrain result. Looking forward to Baku. Although it will probably take a couple of races for the team to get to know the new car. Realistically I think RB are too far off. But maybe the team can bring the fight to AM and Ferrari. That would be great.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/stell ... /10439934/

“For us, that is the ambition, we want to be able to do what McLaren was able to do in 2009, I remember they recovered a lot of performance, and in 2012 as well.

...

Quite ambitious considering 2009 they went from barely getting points to winning by mid season, lets see where they end up by the end of the season.

The latter then. An impressive ambition! It will be a pleasure to see this realised on track.

So McLaren are confident of upgrading the car to be at least the second fastest car in the field?

We have 4 teams who were faster at one track that has very specific requirements from a car in order to go fast.

Suggesting that after a single race we that have a big four is pushing it a little I think but we will see. I think you are going to see a close pack from 2nd or 3rd down with different cars prevailing at different circuits.

The only thing that looks certain is the RB doing well at many tracks, again.

It's interesting to note that the team themselves targeted 4th fastest car by seasons end, and that was before the Bahrain race, where they realised the car was faster than they thought even in this itertion, so I don't think that target has moved further away, if anything in their minds it might be a little more optimistic now than when they made that prediction.

[Mostlyeels]

We have 4 teams who were faster at one track that has very specific requirements from a car in order to go fast.

Suggesting that after a single race we that have a big four is pushing it a little I think but we will see. I think you are going to see a close pack from 2nd or 3rd down with different cars prevailing at different circuits.

The only thing that looks certain is the RB doing well at many tracks, again.

Certainly the vibe I'm picking up from Ferrari is that they're not convinced they can challenge RB consistently this season. And Merc are going back to square one. I'd love it if one of them could pull out a surprise at a few tracks, and develop strongly through the season. AMR have started quite promisingly.

The midfield seems more condensed so far. Drivers made a lot of difference to where the cars ended up in the first race. I'm very hopeful (based on team comments) on McLaren's development through this year, but it's just too early to see any kind of trajectory. They did well last year, pulling more speed out of understanding the setup in the early part of the season (as did a lot of teams). I think we'll see some sorting out of the order of teams in the next few races, then the Baku upgrade (for at least a few teams) might see another reordering. It makes the first bit of the season fun (in a nail-biting way).

[kfrantzios]

As we all know our rankings since 2018 were
2018 6th
2019 4th
2020 3rd
2021 4th
2022 5th.

I don't see any progress in that. Fighting for 6th or 5th or 4th in 2023 is not progress. It is so much different to fight for 2nd or 3rd than being at most the 4th team. I have been a fan of the team for 30 years and i still am. But this, for me, is not Mclaren.
I can not believe that the team needed all these "awakenings" that have been talked about. First the "ok the structure is not working" then the "maybe its not just the shitty honda engine" and then the "we just realized we don't have enough engineers and we will hire some".
To me as an engineer and business owner, there is only one problem with the team and that is financial resources. Aston Martin improved because Stroll made huge investments. We had to sell and leaseback MTC. I hope that now, with the budget cap, the team can be profitable enough to repay those huge loans and start focusing on how to win. Because till now it was how to survive.