2025 McLaren F1 Team

[MTudor]

It's not all rosy at Mclaren:

[Emag]

It's not all rosy at Mclaren:

This is a setup limitation which can be dialed in by compromising the front end a bit. Playing around with diff settings could also help keep the rear under control under off-throttle turn-in. In the morning the car did not look good when pushed.

I think I pointed this out already, but not sure if they were testing some sort of extreme setups with Lando on the more "representative" weather conditions, because Lando had a lot of "medium-length" runs inbetween trips to the pits.

On the long-runs it's almost never as bad somehow. If it's a case of a car not having enough rear to deal with the front, then it would show up in the form of really bad rear-tire degradation on a longer-stint, but that obviously wasn't the case with either driver.

Also, Andrea did say that they improved over their weaknesses without sacrificing their strengths and they were happy with what they were seeing from the car on track. But yes, the floaty rear-end on "push" laps, particularly this morning, is not great by any means. Something to iron out until Melbourne. Maybe that mega front-end would need to be tamed down a bit, because there's not enough rear grip to cope with it under certain conditions.

[MrGapes]

Unfortunately missed yesterdays testing, how was Oscars race sim??

More degradation than for Lando (when it was colder), but still it looked like the best sim out there.

Qualy runs didn't light the world on fire.

ahh alright tyty will check out the lap spread later

[geogate]

Bahrain looks extremely positive for Mclaren. Its a rear limited circuit, with a mclaren that has a massive front end. I probably shouldnt, but i feel extremely positive heading to a first race front limited circuit

[mwillems]

Stella suggests the rear need work to mitigate the traction issues but that it has improved, as has the nose through the mid speeds, which was what he referred to previously about fixing an issue without hurting the mid speed. Though I think they have improved the front graining issue too, and hopefully front issues in cold or wet.

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/329702/m ... ponds.html

I don't expect us to be fastest at one of our worst tracks, just better.

As I said previously, testing days have been track and weather specific, because these cars are sensitive.

It's going to be a fist fight for the championship, it looks really close.

[venkyhere]

a well written mature summary of Bahrain testing : https://www.planetf1.com/news/f1-testin ... servations

[mwillems]

Front just looks to be stronger than the rear right now. Rear can be improved from setup alone and once the rear is as good as can be, then they may need to dial town the front a bit to balance it. But I'm sure there is more to come from the rear yet.

As both the video and that summary suggest, the nose is almost at times too strong now, but that bodes well for front limited tracks, obviously. So if we've looked alright here, we stand to look better elsewhere. Cold weather makes things more rear limited, hence the issues becoming more apparent. At this point I'm not sure if our rear is any worse than anyone else or if they were just trying to find a setup that got the rear working with a strong nose, without sacrificing any of the grip at the front.

But what they've done to the front of the car is a very big step.

The boys won't have just been doing laps yesterday, but trying a lot of in car settings during the race run to see how it makes the car work, hence it looks like they were wrestling the rear round in long runs, but really they'd have been working super hard in the cockpit to see what works. We should be thankful for those tricky conditions because it gave us an opportunity to see the rear at its worst and to try to address it.

Obviously you can dial down the front, but doing this in certain situations may bring back the graining and front deg issues, so the priority has to be to try and get the rear to work a bit better, independently of other areas of the car, you don't want to lose that front if you can help it, although there will be some situations where it isn't necessary.

Australia is a mix of front and rear limited corners and its a track we traditionally like, so there's time for learning and still getting some good results. Looking forward to seeing the car through 9 and 10!!!

Friday's conditions and track configuration offered us what I think is a view of the car facing many of its demons, and it was Reasonably good.

[_cerber1]

[_cerber1]

I'm wondering if it's possible to make such graphs based only on the time of the second sector?

[Darth-Piekus]

So pretty much everyone has Mclaren as the absolute favorite for the first race. The tradition says that whoever wins Melbourne becomes champion at the end. When was the last time we started as absolute favorites?

[mwillems]

It sounds like weve got it in tbe bag

I would wait and see. It does look like we have the pace, but it's too early. Better to get excited by results than hope. It could well be close enough that new parts at Australia could change it. Who knows who has held bits back or even did a '24 Mclaren

Two weeks to go and I have to say, it's too long, I'm really looking forward to see what everyone has in their locker.

The paddock had a good idea of the order. But the paddock also got many things wrong last year, including even Mclarens position.

[Waz]

So pretty much everyone has Mclaren as the absolute favorite for the first race. The tradition says that whoever wins Melbourne becomes champion at the end. When was the last time we started as absolute favorites?

That hasn't held true since 2010 at least, even if you only count the races with Melbourne as season opener.

[Darth-Piekus]

2 weeks of waiting now and anxious about the first race. Seeing how the other teams are not satisfied with their cars while we are in a better position makes me anxious for everything to go right from the start.