2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

[LionsHeart]

Today I read about innovations in the sprint format. After Friday's practice before sprint qualifying, it's parc ferme mode. Then after the sprint race before qualifying you can make adjustments to the balance settings if necessary. Then, starting from qualifying, the park-closed regime is in effect again until the end of the Sunday race.

[SilviuAgo]

An analysis made by The Race about McLaren gaining's on RB, but not on the important area:

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/wher ... s-it-lost/

This was on Suzuka:

McLaren was a little disappointed with its pace at Suzuka overall. Team principal Andrea Stella admitted Ferrari always had the beating of it while Norris said Ferrari was just faster. So why such a strong Saturday before a less impressive Sunday?

It was most likely because new tyres and low fuel can mask the weaknesses of any car, plus Ferrari seems to have had a little bit of difficulty maximising its own pace over one lap. Norris was also pretty pleased with his own qualifying performance:

“We just excelled, I put in some very strong laps, and made us look maybe too good, and [the race] was a bit more back to reality.”

[SilviuAgo]

[De Wet]

Maybe Lando should take a new PU here since we will struggle anyway...

[Tomsky]

Maybe Lando should take a new PU here since we will struggle anyway...

What for? As long as you don't use 4, you can't put 5.

[De Wet]

Maybe Lando should take a new PU here since we will struggle anyway...

What for? As long as you don't use 4, you can't put 5.

He's lost a PU already... Not sure he can make it on 3 only...

[Zaamy]

Maybe Lando should take a new PU here since we will struggle anyway...

What for? As long as you don't use 4, you can't put 5.

He's lost a PU already... Not sure he can make it on 3 only...

But he can't add a extra 5th unit until he has used all 4 of his regular ones

[De Wet]

What for? As long as you don't use 4, you can't put 5.

He's lost a PU already... Not sure he can make it on 3 only...

But he can't add a extra 5th unit until he has used all 4 of his regular ones

Ok... Didn't know that...

[organic]

What for? As long as you don't use 4, you can't put 5.

He's lost a PU already... Not sure he can make it on 3 only...

But he can't add a extra 5th unit until he has used all 4 of his regular ones

They can break the seal on the rest of their allocation (engines 3 and 4) and then take the 5th engine, all within the same weekend. This does not breach the anti-stockpiling rules and this has been demonstrated: Ferrari did precisely this in 2022 with Leclerc @ Canada.

However, it's entirely unrealistic to be talking about this already. Lando lost an engine @ Bahrain 2023 and completed the season without penalties as well. They will avoid it if at all possible

[haza]

Ted kravitz saying the McLaren redbulls and ferrari look best so far

[AR3-GP]

If Mclaren end up being very competitive here, I'll be very confused about their pessimism.

[dialtone]

Only concern I have for Mclaren is that their rears looked shot while the car was lining up for practice starts at the end. I think their rear is slipping which is helping on 1 lap pace but might not be great for tire deg in the race.

[_cerber1]

[trinidefender]

Lando was, IIRC, 0.491 seconds up on Piastri at the end of sector 2 and then bailed out of the lap at the pit entry. Assuming they make the same last sector time that would put lando at 136.138 or 0.164 faster than stroll in P1.

I’ll go ahead and make a bit of a guess and say lando would have had a better sector 3 simply from having driven here before and seeming stronger overall in this practice session.

Early indications are positive but I won’t get my hopes up too soon. The teams will learn a lot and the track seems to have a lot of evolution.

[mwillems]

Aside from that FP1 pace not being very representative, The car will look good on lower fuel. It will be up there like it usually is. We will have a decent Qualy and sprint race I hope. It is Sunday where we will encounter difficulties I think, but as I said before, I still think we have enough to be ahead of Merc and AM bar any mishaps.

Remember Suzuka where the car was very competitive at Q, including in the slow and long corners before dropping a lot of pace in the race.

Where the cars were putting 4 or so laps together the Mclaren looks a little behind the Ferrari and a little ahead of AM and Merc.