2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[mwillems]

Have in mind that Mclaren might bring more updates that might rectify that. It's not a matter of engine but drag.

It is a matter of Aero efficiency with and without DRS. One thing that will help a lot at this track is if your car produces more downforce than others from the floor. It's hard for us to say definitively that it does because we don't have the data, but it is hard to imagine a car perform like this and not produce a lot of DF from the floor compared to the competitors. The more we are able to trim the wings the better we will be at Spa.

I am also thinking that we are running the car more like RB used to, which is to say with more wing than others, not because we lack downforce but because the car is intrinsically fast even with the extra wing and it is more beneficial to the tyres and the lap time to have the extra DF.

Spa is a track where IF you can scrub the blunt force DF of the wings and still maintain enough DF you will do very well.

But as SmallSoldier says, there is also the matter of DRS and that I am not sure we have an answer to and now we talk about it, I think that is part of the reason for the straight line speed difference we'd been discussing at Silverstone, but was in opinions attributed to drag/wings and deployment.

[mwillems]

It's incredible! What a high pace! I am very happy that the car went and went very well! We start from the second row. Lando has a fresh medium, I hope the team will not decide to put software on the race for our pilots, otherwise it will be a loss. We are fast on the track, which should not have been suitable for us. This is the most productive upgrade I've seen, except perhaps for the McLaren blown diffuser in 2011, when they realized in tests earlier that they lacked downforce. Lando and Oscar are doing wonders in recent McLaren history! Oscar also confirms the high speed! McLaren has the youngest squad, but very fast. Go ahead guys! Full speed ahead!

in 2011, it was not a blown diffuser. It was the fan tail (octopus) exhaust. they quickly copy RB exhaust in the first race (australia) and found 1s gain. I remembered Newey was not happy with that copy cat, but it was proven to be the mainstream exhaust design by the season goes by.

Yes, blown diffuser was Renault I think?

[Emag]

It's incredible! What a high pace! I am very happy that the car went and went very well! We start from the second row. Lando has a fresh medium, I hope the team will not decide to put software on the race for our pilots, otherwise it will be a loss. We are fast on the track, which should not have been suitable for us. This is the most productive upgrade I've seen, except perhaps for the McLaren blown diffuser in 2011, when they realized in tests earlier that they lacked downforce. Lando and Oscar are doing wonders in recent McLaren history! Oscar also confirms the high speed! McLaren has the youngest squad, but very fast. Go ahead guys! Full speed ahead!

in 2011, it was not a blown diffuser. It was the fan tail (octopus) exhaust. they quickly copy RB exhaust in the first race (australia) and found 1s gain. I remembered Newey was not happy with that copy cat, but it was proven to be the mainstream exhaust design by the season goes by.

Which is a shame, because in theory the octopus exhaust made a nice pair with the "early waterslide" style of sidepods.

And they had to ditch that idea in the end but thats OKAY. That's what has been holding McLaren back these last couple of seasons imo.

They were too scared to risk anything. Under James Key, they just went for the safest option.

And this year is proof that its okay to take risks. If you do a good enough job, you can at least claw back to a respectable level of performance.

But if you dont take some sort of risk, you will never be where RedBull has been this year.

[AR3-GP]

This car will win a race this year.

[saputra_25]

It's incredible! What a high pace! I am very happy that the car went and went very well! We start from the second row. Lando has a fresh medium, I hope the team will not decide to put software on the race for our pilots, otherwise it will be a loss. We are fast on the track, which should not have been suitable for us. This is the most productive upgrade I've seen, except perhaps for the McLaren blown diffuser in 2011, when they realized in tests earlier that they lacked downforce. Lando and Oscar are doing wonders in recent McLaren history! Oscar also confirms the high speed! McLaren has the youngest squad, but very fast. Go ahead guys! Full speed ahead!

in 2011, it was not a blown diffuser. It was the fan tail (octopus) exhaust. they quickly copy RB exhaust in the first race (australia) and found 1s gain. I remembered Newey was not happy with that copy cat, but it was proven to be the mainstream exhaust design by the season goes by.

Yes, blown diffuser was Renault I think?

Still NOT. Blow diffuser was the name of the game back in 2009, when Brown GP, William, and Toyota found a loop hole in the regulation. It deemed illegal by 2010 (If I recall correctly).

[SmallSoldier]

Even though everyone is hyped up and excited (and rightly so), I would be careful with setting up expectations based on the qualifying result… One thing I noticed is that everyone expected the team to do poorly at Hungary, but it is a track where even the last year’s car did ok (classified P4)… Albeit due to Red Bull screwing up, but they weren’t that off the pace in qualifying… Interestingly, when doing a comparison between Norris qualifying last year and this one (2022 Softs vs 2023 Mediums… Same compound), interestingly Norris had the same sector time in S1 (with the MCL36 even a little faster in the sector)… What is clear though, is that the delta between the cars is created in the second sector, where the MCL60 is 4 tenths faster the MCL36 while the Sector 3 times were also fairly similar.

[Mcl_G10]

So happy to see it. I think lando felt the car had pole position in it. Hamilton extracted everything for the merc but I think we had a touch more.
Roll on race day. Serious chance of at least 1 podium place tomorrow. Must start on new mediums if possible. I'd even be tempted for hards if the believe they can keep the alpha behind them at the start (starting on hards is unlikely but tempting if we are serious at playing the long game to win.
I said a week ago that the team developed the car and the target based on the data/numbers was for the car to be in amongst the fer/merc/aston battle. Since then the performance data has shown that the car is over delivering from there targets. I'm not sure what job or role Mika has in f1 these days but he must of had it on good authority to make such vastly bold predictions that turn out to be so true. I was also told by my dodgy but source that the new car would be with the battle for best of the rest and this was before we found that it outperformed its goals. This was from the same person that told me at the end of nov 2022 that "then new car was slow and the engineers were not happy" this turned out to be true.
This in my mind puts mclaren as the frontrunner for p2. We will be ahead or right at the front of that bunch that have been competing for p2 in the constructors. If you also consider how well piastri is extracting as much as norris and you can see a lot of points for mclaren from here on.

[geogate]

mclarens drs was only 4kph behind RBR the last analysis i saw

[coltmarshmallow]

Heard Lando's radio after his last q3 lap. He wanted pole so badly, it's great he's that hungry!

[LionsHeart]

in 2011, it was not a blown diffuser. It was the fan tail (octopus) exhaust. they quickly copy RB exhaust in the first race (australia) and found 1s gain. I remembered Newey was not happy with that copy cat, but it was proven to be the mainstream exhaust design by the season goes by.

Yes, blown diffuser was Renault I think?

Still NOT. Blow diffuser was the name of the game back in 2009, when Brown GP, William, and Toyota found a loop hole in the regulation. It deemed illegal by 2010 (If I recall correctly).

I will tell you as a person with a technical background, do not confuse a blown diffuser with a double diffuser.

[the EDGE]

in 2011, it was not a blown diffuser. It was the fan tail (octopus) exhaust. they quickly copy RB exhaust in the first race (australia) and found 1s gain. I remembered Newey was not happy with that copy cat, but it was proven to be the mainstream exhaust design by the season goes by.

Yes, blown diffuser was Renault I think?

Still NOT. Blow diffuser was the name of the game back in 2009, when Brown GP, William, and Toyota found a loop hole in the regulation. It deemed illegal by 2010 (If I recall correctly).

No... 2009 was the double-diffuser, 2010 was the blown diffuser, when RB put fake exhaust stickers on the car to disguise the fact there was no visible exhaust outlets on their cars

[MTudor]

What about Softs is the question. Can we repeat our speed on the mediums?

I think the verdict is in.

The car is good.

It seems better here than on the high speed corners, have you ever seen an upgrade so strong as this? I cannot in my life think of another upgrade as effective as this.

In this hybrid era to cone from 2.2s from Verstapen in Bahrain to be just 0.2,0.3s behind him in a MASSIVE jump,this kind of gap would have been recoup in the aspirated era with unlimited testing and no restrictions to development.

[the EDGE]

Oscar has a two year contract, Expect discussions to begin this summer for a multi million pound multi year deal, they will not risk anything to let him go.
Also expect to see him buy a property in Monaco shortly

I would say they've already begun. Especially as Webber was seen talking to Horner as quali ended

[LionsHeart]

Yes, according to Lando, he was counting on the pole position. Well: appetite comes with eating.

[LionsHeart]

Yes, blown diffuser was Renault I think?

Still NOT. Blow diffuser was the name of the game back in 2009, when Brown GP, William, and Toyota found a loop hole in the regulation. It deemed illegal by 2010 (If I recall correctly).

No... 2009 was the double-diffuser, 2010 was the blown diffuser, when RB put fake exhaust stickers on the car to disguise the fact there was no visible exhaust outlets on their cars

Yeah! 100% correct.