2025 McLaren F1 Team

[Seanspeed]

Awesome job by the team again.
Great laps from both drivers but well done to Oscar in particular

Neither driver improved on their last lap and Max got within a quarter of a second when Mclaren are clearly ultra dominant here.

Looked to me like another under-performance from the Mclaren duo, given the incredible car advantage they have.

[mwillems]

its a full chassis dyno. You are running the new engine and gearbox, checking the installation, checking the cooling, gathering data. Loooking for any issues that in the old days could lose you a day in testing

We do that kind of work on a filming run normally and bar the Honda engine and its issue with oil and g forces, which the rolling road won't detect, we haven't had such issues, but maybe I'm mistaken.

I can see why Red Bull do as they develop engines.

Geo's right, you do take some convincing.

Oscar showing his true Prost today, chipping away with methodical precision. Very impressive to tip Lando out of P1 as he really looked supreme here. I guess the negatives will be out again saying Lando "bottled it" or some such nonsense. Lando was certainly sounding very deflated after that, if the shoe were on the other foot Oscar would have been philosophical, his mind balance is extraordinary for his status as a 25 year old in only his third F1 season. Great work by all the McLaren team, hope they can keep their strategic heads together tomorrow.

Only if I cant agree

[Slahinki]

Awesome job by the team again.
Great laps from both drivers but well done to Oscar in particular

Neither driver improved on their last lap and Max got within a quarter of a second when Mclaren are clearly ultra dominant here.

Looked to me like another under-performance from the Mclaren duo, given the incredible car advantage they have.

I honestly sort of agree. I also feel like there's been a trend lately of the McLaren boys not being able to improve on the second run in Q3. Still a good 1-2 though.

[mwillems]

Awesome job by the team again.
Great laps from both drivers but well done to Oscar in particular

Neither driver improved on their last lap and Max got within a quarter of a second when Mclaren are clearly ultra dominant here.

Looked to me like another under-performance from the Mclaren duo, given the incredible car advantage they have.

I actually think.its the other way round. The Red Bull is a very fast but very tricky car and Max is only intermittently able to get it set up right and get the best out of it.

Time will tell but I think he's had his last championship and he's peaked. His trajectory will be like Vettel now. Watch out for a dodgy haircut.

[rayden]

Awesome job by the team again.
Great laps from both drivers but well done to Oscar in particular

Neither driver improved on their last lap and Max got within a quarter of a second when Mclaren are clearly ultra dominant here.

Looked to me like another under-performance from the Mclaren duo, given the incredible car advantage they have.

I honestly sort of agree. I also feel like there's been a trend lately of the McLaren boys not being able to improve on the second run in Q3. Still a good 1-2 though.

They would not be routinely within a tenth of each other like this if they weren't close to the limit of the car.
It happens way too often.

They are making mistakes but they are the very small ones that are inevitable when pushing the car right to it's limit.

[BMMR61]

The truth is this simple and easy to see, thank you.

[mwillems]

Max is one of the best ever — and our guys aren’t. Most accept that, and we’re fine with it. Yet the likes of Seanspeed bang on about it as if it’s some sacred weapon of the gods, as if Max himself is infallible. He isn’t — and that’s exactly what my original (joking) post was referring to.

And since Red Bull imploded, the anti-McLaren posts have coincidentally multiplied.

I think Oscar has at least a tenth more pace in him. He isn’t as fast as Lando yet, but Lando still struggles with consistency in extracting the maximum every time. Both, though, are more than capable of ending their careers as notable drivers in the sport. And Lando has improved this season, today was a rarer drop since his upgrade.

What many don’t seem to notice is this: Oscar could win his first championship at 24 years old — the same age as Verstappen. The difference? Max is now in his 11th season with four WDCs on the trot, while Oscar is only in his third season. Max has had years of practice at the very front with cars on the edge, while Oscar is still learning fast.

So when I see these endless digs from Seanspeed, they just feel childish — a massive oversimplification. He clearly doesn’t like our drivers, and that’s fine.

We got that a long time ago.

[CjC]

Awesome job by the team again.
Great laps from both drivers but well done to Oscar in particular

Neither driver improved on their last lap and Max got within a quarter of a second when Mclaren are clearly ultra dominant here.

Looked to me like another under-performance from the Mclaren duo, given the incredible car advantage they have.

If both drivers are within 0.012 of each other for a front row lock out- that’s what the car was capable of.

Verstappen never looked more than 3 and a half tenths away from pole all session so to get within 2 and half- that’s a good lap- that’s why I acknowledged it

[CjC]

Max is one of the best ever — and our guys aren’t. Most accept that, and we’re fine with it. Yet the likes of Seanspeed bang on about it as if it’s some sacred weapon of the gods, as if Max himself is infallible. He isn’t — and that’s exactly what my original (joking) post was referring to.

And since Red Bull imploded, the anti-McLaren posts have coincidentally multiplied.

I think Oscar has at least a tenth more pace in him. He isn’t as fast as Lando yet, but Lando still struggles with consistency in extracting the maximum every time. Both, though, are more than capable of ending their careers as notable drivers in the sport. And Lando has improved this season, today was a rarer drop since his upgrade.

What many don’t seem to notice is this: Oscar could win his first championship at 24 years old — the same age as Verstappen. The difference? Max is now in his 11th season with four WDCs on the trot, while Oscar is only in his third season. Max has had years of practice at the very front with cars on the edge, while Oscar is still learning fast.

So when I see these endless digs from Seanspeed, they just feel childish — a massive oversimplification. He clearly doesn’t like our drivers, and that’s fine.

We got that a long time ago.

I’m not going to directly jump all over Seanspeed but my point to them and anyone else who thinks the boys under delivered yesterday- just take a moment to recall or research recent results. Take the 2023 season, the RB19 and Maximus Verstappenus are rightly hailed as one of the most successful partnerships of all time in F1. When they asked Horner which of the 21 race wins was the most successful he said probably the Bahrain gp ‘Max was just cruising there towards the end’ yet he won by 11.9 seconds from his team mate and 30.6 seconds to the next non-Red Bull in third- a rather ‘ultra’ dominant display wouldn’t you say?
A quick look at the qualifying gaps for that weekend and oh look! Max is on pole from his team mate by 0.138 and the next non-Red Bull is ‘only’ 0.292 away in third.
Did we hear/ read statements that Max underperformed in qualifying back then???

To quote Emag the McLaren drivers are getting whipped for ‘not winning hard enough’

[mwillems]

The big difference between this year and 2023 is that McLaren are running much faster in the FP sessions. Then the FP gaps gave everyone a more realistic picture— whereas now the picture looks different and not at all representative in the FPs. I’ve mentioned this before in the race threads and in here.

The problem is, people with a narrower view of the sport can’t see beyond that and just reduce it all to “pressure moments” or “lack of talent.” and can't see that the gap is an accurate one.

I don’t think either of our guys was particularly special in Q3 yesterday — both made mistakes, as do most drivers, including Max. Earlier this season we did see some underperformance in qualifying (mainly on Lando’s side), but that’s largely gone since he adapted and since the suspension tweak. Yesterday’s blip was just that: the first in a while, a Business-as-Usual kind of occurrence.

In fact, I don’t think Lando could have reliably gone quicker than Oscar earlier in the year. Oscar was generally getting the most out of the car without making too many errors.

And despite the car being tricky earlier on, and Lando taking a bit longer than we’d like to adapt, the reality is that we still smashed everyone’s back doors in.

[De Wet]

F1.com:

https://www.formula1.com/en/video/ghost ... 4728134435


Ghost car comparison.

[FittingMechanics]

Our guys do 4 laps that would each put them on pole and people come here and say they underperformed? Wow.

[mwillems]

I expect he does it to troll, my advice is blacklist and ignore from now on.

[FittingMechanics]

I expect he does it to troll, my advice is blacklist and ignore from now on.

Yeah, I know. It is an obvious flame bait.

[BMMR61]

I decided not to respond directly to the guy that comes in from other forums to aggravate the McLaren faithful with derogatory comments, it only dignifies the one dimensional style he has engaged in for years. If he were to engage in intelligent evidential analysis to support his views we may have good reason to "defend the faith" as it were. But he, like us, just has an opinion, and like they say, everyone has one of those.

I am slightly mystified by those here who are saying or implying that Lando fell short or made errors on his final qualifying efforts. I didn't see anything in the live timing, or the replay of the lap(s) to justify this, maybe I missed something. To me it would make plenty of sense to say it was another example where Oscar got every last bit out of tidying up his lap (including data analysis) and the two drivers virtually dead heated (twice) in Q3. Oscar improved on his Q2 by 0.3, Lando by 0.2, where's the big FAIL for Lando? His response afterwards I interpreted as "I put it out there and came up short by 0.012". Well done to both, and Max who delivered at crunch time as he usually does.