2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

[mwillems]

No strategy would have achieved a better result. Apart from Max's rare DNF there was no luck going our way, hey that's OK we are more interested in improving the competitiveness than pure results which can be deceptive. Even Checo's 3 place drop didn't make much difference, Lando was quicker and Oscar had the edge in the final stint. Again, Oscar did a better tyre management job in the final stint , showing he's a fast learner. Most people don't regard how big a job learning this craft is, look at Yuki who is finally getting race results even if he's still a hot head.

The pace relative to Ferrari who in turn were competitive with RedBull is encouraging and bodes well for the Suzuka circuit. We're clear 3rd in the constructors title now, shove that little truth you pundits who ignore the steady rise.

I dont get the Piasti hype, i mean he is good at Qualiying, But if Norris is not having any issues he still seems to have more raw pace then Oscar.
The big problem for Piastri his that he has average race pace (compared to Norris) and im not sure race pace can really be fixed. Have we ever had in the past a driver tha was average in race pace and was able to improve it? I cant think of anyone?

He seems well regarded by fans, Journalists and professionals alike and I don't really see this question out there at all. I would question the idea his race pace is average. The reason he started getting plaudits is because he never looked out of his depth and because he has continued to shorten the gap to Lando over time. I suppose if you look at Lando being around the same points as Carlos in Season 2, and that this is Lando's 6th Season. I'd like to think this Lando would beat season 2 Lando quite comfortably, so for Oscar to be shortening the gap in pace is rather good.

He's still got some way to go in Race craft AND tyre management to be honest, but he is up against one of the best drivers on a Sunday that there is around and his Saturdays continue to improve. And it's worth not forgetting that Oscar seems to have a lot of mental resilience and just races his race, continues to learn and doesn't let the ups and downs sidetrack him.

Time will tell if he makes real the promise some people think he shows.

I remember Lando's first Podium in Austria, literally being remote controlled by his pit engineer instructing him at every corner lol

[Emag]

I dont get the Piasti hype, i mean he is good at Qualiying, But if Norris is not having any issues he still seems to have more raw pace then Oscar.
The big problem for Piastri his that he has average race pace (compared to Norris) and im not sure race pace can really be fixed. Have we ever had in the past a driver tha was average in race pace and was able to improve it? I cant think of anyone?

Lando Norris

Got beaten 1-2 in terms of ratio of points in his maiden season against Sainz (2019).
It was almost 1-1 in 2020 a year later although he still got beaten.

It wasn't until 2021 when Lando had a pretty big jump in terms of race pace though, because he could finally manage the tires much better than previous seasons.

Yep, but also Carlos had a pretty bad start to 2019.

I am developing a telemtry tool which also calculates average race pace and here are some snippets of some of the races :

Silverstone :


Hungary :


Russia :


There were some races where Lando was ahead, but overall Carlos had the upper hand with similar gaps to the races above. But as you can see, Lando was often the better qualifier. Which for a driver in his rookie season it's really impressive.

That's why people rate Piastri this high. Because he is doing rather well against someone who is quite a talent in the sport, although unfortunately, the stats may not show it.

[mwillems]

I think you mean to reply to LionsHeart, Emag, cos it looks like you're arguing with yourself

I'm liking the data. Problem with looking at the laptimes alone is because of tyre wear from battles and running to Deltas and because of Racecraft and cautiousness. In F1 I find it is as much about data mining as it is about Data Anlysis. In Landos first few seasons he was pretty handy with raw pace if I recall, I think his biggest deficit to Carlos was in how would prioritise bringing the car home and learning his trade rather than taking risks. There were races where Lando just didn't make much progress or went backwards because he was so cautious. It was his third season when he started to get his elbows out, as you correctly note, it was this season that he started to really make good his promise.

A very nice page for Head to Heads.

This is the 2019 Season (Year Dropdown Can be found at the bottom of the top of the page)
https://www.formula1points.com/head-to- ... os%20Sainz

This is the launch page where you can select any driver.
https://www.formula1points.com/head-to-head

[Emag]

I think you mean to reply to LionsHeart, Emag, cos it looks like you're arguing with yourself

I'm liking the data. Problem with looking at the laptimes alone is because of tyre wear from battles and running to Deltas and because of Racecraft and cautiousness. In F1 I find it is as much about data mining as it is about Data Anlysis. In Landos first few seasons he was pretty handy with raw pace if I recall, I think his biggest deficit to Carlos was in how would prioritise bringing the car home and learning his trade rather than taking risks. There were races where Lando just didn't make much progress or went backwards because he was so cautious. It was his third season when he started to get his elbows out, as you correctly note, it was this season that he started to really make good his promise.

A very nice page for Head to Heads.

This is the 2019 Season (Year Dropdown Can be found at the bottom of the top of the page)
https://www.formula1points.com/head-to- ... os%20Sainz

This is the launch page where you can select any driver.
https://www.formula1points.com/head-to-head

haahah yeah, I might have deleted some quotes accidentally.

I agree about your points, but average pace can be quite telling if both drivers drove under similar conditions in the race. Which back in 2019 was hard for a midfield team that was McLaren. But in general, I think Carlos had superior race craft compared to Lando for 2019 at least.

And I have been developing this tool just for my own personal use since it helps look at the lapchart and pace of multiple drivers :



But it's not perfect yet since I do not exclude outliers based on standard deviation. I might actually make it public if I feel it's polished enough.

[mwillems]

It looks good. Feel free to share. What did you write it in?

I've got some stuff in Excel and some stuff in Python, that doesn't look like either unless it is VBA?

In the FastF1 API, if this is where you get your data from, you can use get_quicklaps() and it will automatically remove the outliers for you, it works to the 107% rule but you can override.

[Darth-Piekus]

Japan and Suzuka this weekend and though I dont think Ill wake up to watch it live I hope the team takes another step up getting help from the small upgrade.

[Emag]

It looks good. Feel free to share. What did you write it in?

I've got some stuff in Excel and some stuff in Python, that doesn't look like either unless it is VBA?

In the FastF1 API, if this is where you get your data from, you can use get_quicklaps() and it will automatically remove the outliers for you, it works to the 107% rule but you can override.

I am just using the raw data from ergast api in which fast api is based on. But unfortunately ergast is going to get shut down soon. The fastapi team is working to try and keep it going in the future, so I will probably switch at some point.

This was developed on Angular as a web application.

[Tomsky]

[Tomsky]

Suzukа will be a good test for Oscar, he did a bad job with tire wear last year.

[BMMR61]

Suzukа will be a good test for Oscar, he did a bad job with tire wear last year.

Yep, that's really where his poor tyre preservation showed up, Hungary also. His ability to progress through qualifying improving at every step is just one of the benchmarks of a stellar rookie year. His low error rate, ability to absorb pressure, and beating Verstappen to the win at Qatar were other highlights. For me it's the calm that's all around him, he has immense capacity for someone so young to run the best race for Oscar without getting distracted. If you can't see those characteristics, that's fine, we're all entitled to our opinions, though maybe we should revisit our thoughts of March 2024 in December.

[LionsHeart]

If the team finds the optimal settings right away, that would be a good start. Last year, I remember very well what Stella said about how the long, slow corners in Miami weren't suiting them and how that was affecting the race pace. Will there be updates on two cars? Or how last year they would bring spare parts for one car? Well, in any case it will be a good test and feedback from the drivers.

[Mostlyeels]

https://www.racefans.net/2024/03/29/rac ... p-29-03-7/

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown says his team are aiming to score more podiums with their upcoming car updates following Lando Norris’s third place last weekend in Australia.

Speaking with Channel 4 in Melbourne, Brown said the team were working to introduce upgrades to their car after the Japanese Grand Prix next weekend.

“I think Miami’s the game plan at the moment,” he said. “We’re pushing hard, as is everybody else. But I think if we can stay on the development trajectory we’ve been on since the second half of last year, we should just get quicker and rack up some more podiums this year.”

[BMMR61]

No strategy would have achieved a better result. Apart from Max's rare DNF there was no luck going our way, hey that's OK we are more interested in improving the competitiveness than pure results which can be deceptive. Even Checo's 3 place drop didn't make much difference, Lando was quicker and Oscar had the edge in the final stint. Again, Oscar did a better tyre management job in the final stint , showing he's a fast learner. Most people don't regard how big a job learning this craft is, look at Yuki who is finally getting race results even if he's still a hot head.

The pace relative to Ferrari who in turn were competitive with RedBull is encouraging and bodes well for the Suzuka circuit. We're clear 3rd in the constructors title now, shove that little truth you pundits who ignore the steady rise.

I dont get the Piasti hype, i mean he is good at Qualiying, But if Norris is not having any issues he still seems to have more raw pace then Oscar.
The big problem for Piastri his that he has average race pace (compared to Norris) and im not sure race pace can really be fixed. Have we ever had in the past a driver tha was average in race pace and was able to improve it? I cant think of anyone?

Not average. He harried Charles last weekend until forced into an early pitstop to defend the undercut. After that he was on a poor tyre delta relative to Lando and had a quite anonymous 4th place secure. Besides, he's actually leading Lando after 3 races so where's the "average" performance. I think you failed to read my comment that, and I'll be more explicit, learning the dark art of the F1 Pirelli is probably a bigger challenge for the F1 rookie than at any other time. Last weekend we saw one of the first total race performances from Yuki who always qualifies well but struggles to match it in the races. So my answer to your question if a driver in the past with an "average" race pace was able to improve it. Everyone? Max, Carlos, George, champions like Fernando, Jenson, Lauda, Schekter, Piquet, Jones, Hill, Hakkinen, maybe only Lewis was straight on it. He had the benefit of far more testing and the cars and tyres were much easier to master (I am told). If you're here because you're a papaya fan (optional) you should be very excited by this driver pairing.

[LionsHeart]

This is exactly what I wrote about a few days ago.

https://x.com/McLarenF1_News/status/177 ... 13542?s=20

Problems with slow turns are a critical factor. And the low efficiency of DRS can be solved later.

[Emag]

In a way, it's good there is a clear weakness to work towards. Of course, it's a problem that has been haunting them for a while so I am not 100% confident they will be able to fix it, but it's nice to have a clear target of improvement which is guaranteed to bring significant laptime.

In the case of Ferrari for example, they actually have a really balanced package, it's just not on RedBull's level yet. But Ferrari also started the year with a relatively basic iteration so I am expecting them to have a lot of laptime to gain with their first major upgrade as well.

I am just hoping that McLaren might have slightly more margin for improvement if they manage to tackle that low-speed weakness.
If they were only half as bad to Ferrari in that last sector in Australia, that would have been enough for them to take the win.