2025 McLaren F1 Team

[venkyhere]

And I don't know what is the problem to admit that now RedBull has the fastest car? Is not "moral relief" if Lando or Oscar are not winning the championship. I want to happen and I am sure it will. But I saw that a lot of people are praising "max resurrections" like he is winning the races in a Haas or Alpine. He is winning also cause has the best car after McLaren stood still for 7 races. When he hadn't a mega updated package every race he was finishing P9 in Hungary or 1 minute behind in Miami.

Redbull has the fastest car as shown in Monza/Baku ; Clearly it wasn't the fastest in Singapore, it's debatable whether it was the fastest in Austin. The point is, it's still an inconsistent car. Who are these 'lot of people' ? I am not one. A driver, no matter how talented he is, cannot drive faster than what the car can theoretically do. But the best drivers 'consistently' get really close to the theoretical laptime possible from the car. Please view my comments 'objectively', without wearing papaya tinted glasses. I guess everyone in this thread (apart from DarthPiekus, maybe) will agree that in terms of being consistent and mistake free, Max is better than Norris and Piastri. But then that disadvantage was more than offset by the Mclaren engg team providing both of them with a blockbuster car. Hence my statement that if one of their drivers don't win WDC, it's not a fault with the car, but with the drivers and race operations and the papaya orchard.

[mwillems]

And in some races Red Bull were faster on the Saturday but we had the better race car. Weve been better all season in race, on the whole.
It is the Saturdays that have harmed us in general and more so lately.

[f1isgood]

And I don't know what is the problem to admit that now RedBull has the fastest car? Is not "moral relief" if Lando or Oscar are not winning the championship. I want to happen and I am sure it will. But I saw that a lot of people are praising "max resurrections" like he is winning the races in a Haas or Alpine. He is winning also cause has the best car after McLaren stood still for 7 races. When he hadn't a mega updated package every race he was finishing P9 in Hungary or 1 minute behind in Miami.

Redbull has the fastest car as shown in Monza/Baku ; Clearly it wasn't the fastest in Singapore, it's debatable whether it was the fastest in Austin. The point is, it's still an inconsistent car. Who are these 'lot of people' ? I am not one. A driver, no matter how talented he is, cannot drive faster than what the car can theoretically do. But the best drivers 'consistently' get really close to the theoretical laptime possible from the car. Please view my comments 'objectively', without wearing papaya tinted glasses. I guess everyone in this thread (apart from DarthPiekus, maybe) will agree that in terms of being consistent and mistake free, Max is better than Norris and Piastri. But then that disadvantage was more than offset by the Mclaren engg team providing both of them with a blockbuster car. Hence my statement that if one of their drivers don't win WDC, it's not a fault with the car, but with the drivers and race operations and the papaya orchard.

I don't think it's clear cut Red Bull were the best car at Baku. It was a muddy weekend with both McLaren drivers failing to produce the goods at the right time.

[f1isgood]

And in some races Red Bull were faster on the Saturday but we had the better race car. Weve been better all season in race, on the whole.
It is the Saturdays that have harmed us in general and more so lately.

I think Imola and Monza are the only two races where Verstappen and Red Bull clearly had an advantage. Even then the advantage was nothing like what McLaren showed for basically every other race. Every track condition, hot or cold, the McLaren car was always there. At Singapore, McLaren's might have won with a better qualifying and Canada is the Mercedes outlier.

[Emag]

On average throughout the whole season, I think it's impossible to deny McLaren has been the outright best car, unless you're deluded. Since Monza though, things have been different. I don't think there's any significant advantage anymore. Especially at Monza, Max was never going to lose that race.

And season-wide I do keep track of some metrics at : https://f1insightshub.com/season_summary



RedBull, even on average throughout the entire season, has been the second best car and quite comfortably actually. Especially on qualifying.

The Performance gaps you see there are calculated by considering only the highest scoring driver of each session for each team, because I am trying to evaluate the peak performance of the car. An average of both drivers wouldn't reflect that.

For reference, Mercedes and Ferrari look quite a bit worse compared to McLaren (obviously) and RedBull :

[AR3-GP]

PIA still looks to be struggling.

[Darth-Piekus]

Tell me something Emag. Does that summary count qualifying performance on average from all year or is it from Australia till Monza?

[SilviuAgo]

PIA still looks to be struggling.

With current form to reach Q3 will be a real challange for him.

[SilviuAgo]

NOR P1
SAI +0.013
RUS +0.013
VER +0.036
LEC +0.060
HAD +0.063
Is "only FP3" but 6 teams in 0.063 )) that is something.

[Mcl_G10]

Yes but 2 soft runners in their.

Aside from the aborted first lap lando has looked very fast from the off. Others have built up over more laps. This is a good sign for me.
At this point it seems Oscars race is run this season. Still a chance for him to win it but he is really limping hard to the finish line. Both lando and max will outscore him at every race from here out unless he can sort himself out.

[Mcl_G10]

Beast lap lando

[Emag]

Will have to see with the telemetry later if Lando put it up a notch on the PU side, but that's one hell of a lap.

[Emag]

Tell me something Emag. Does that summary count qualifying performance on average from all year or is it from Australia till Monza?

It's everything. From Australia until the latest race. I update it after each grand prix.

[Darth-Piekus]

Is it accurate though? The qualifying performance surely must have changed since Monza.

[FittingMechanics]

Norris looks on it.

Still I expect Max to bounce back and have a good fight.

We need a great race, preferably 1-2.