2025 McLaren F1 Team

[selvam_e2002]

If Mclaren playing with Oscar then they will pay the prize in coming race. RB will be strong on the remaining race. Mclaren need two drivers to support each other to win the race agains Max with 3 wing man. RB can be do anything to win Max. If Mclaren loose this year, it is on the team.

[proteus]

I said yesterday too, but with hindsight, I still don’t think they should have pit Oscar a second time.

Max would have gone through no doubt, but I don’t think Ollie would have caught and overtaken him for 4th.

But Ollie doesnt stop if Oscar doesnt stop, neither does Russell, maybe not Kimi, as Mclaren made it obvious.

Oscars struggles to get past a Merc really gave little other options.

The car has very small gain with DRS and slipstream. They manage arround .4 gain on a straight. Merc of Russell did .5 - .6+ quite easily. So everytime Oscar was .6 or more behind, it was impossible to overtake. Norris had same issues before. In the clear air the car simply flies. But it is all in vain if any of the drivers start at the back of the leading pack.

[littlebigcat]

McLaren don’t need to beat Verstappen, they have already won.

At the start of the year Norris struggled with driving a car that had to be set up a certain way to get the maximum out of it. Piastri didn’t. Now it’s the opposite and the only way people can explain it is with convoluted conspiracy theories.

[michl420]

Pitting Piastri was acting not reacting for once and I think it was right, the medium was just not a good race tire.
Some say WDC for Piastri is over. Some say the exact same thing short time ago about Norris.
The same goes for VER. Nothing is won, everything can still be lost.
A last race that counts for everything is rarely a normal race, the mclaren supporters must know this at best.

[FittingMechanics]

They can fake it once.

Here McLaren first said box to overtake (which means do opposite of car ahead) but then they changes it to box box, meaning box regardless of car ahead.

Not sure why, maybe he was being undercut or realized he was losing too much time on mediums.

Well, I think "box to overtake" is a different animal. They now showed it four times this season and always faked, no matter what the car ahead is doing. It is an intentional fake, never intended to stop. By the rule this is a slam dunk penalty, but not really to judge.
I wonder which tires they bring out...is it even the correct set? McLaren is usually very careful with things, I wonder if they would drop the tire temp of the actual set to use on these fake stops.

No, box to overtake is not an intentional fake. It means "box opposite of the car ahead". They did use it a few times to try and dummy the other team into reacting, but they do it all the time without faking as well.

Is the following really that far fetched?

Brazil - Max 25pt. Lando 18pt
Vegas- Max 25pt. Lando 12pt
Qatar- Max 25pt. Lando 18pt
Abu - Max 25pt. Lando 18pt

No sprints included thats a 34 at swing for max with 36pts being the gap. Its not over for me.
Lando needs 1 more win and that won't be easy as redbull will be very strong for the remainder plus Max could get nasty and start trying to engineer dnf's by forcing off etc.

If Max wins the final 4 and our guys can't match him then he deserves to be a champion.

[FittingMechanics]

I said yesterday too, but with hindsight, I still don’t think they should have pit Oscar a second time.

Max would have gone through no doubt, but I don’t think Ollie would have caught and overtaken him for 4th.

Piastri usually doesn't like or do strategies that require a lot of tire preservation. This was his weakness these 3 seasons so I really doubt he would accept or do a strategy that gambled on him making it to the end on those mediums.

Piastri's mistake was losing places at the start and then being too hesitant to overtake Mercedes cars. This put him on this bad strategy as he was running in dirty air for most of the race.

[mwillems]

I said yesterday too, but with hindsight, I still don’t think they should have pit Oscar a second time.

Max would have gone through no doubt, but I don’t think Ollie would have caught and overtaken him for 4th.

I was thinking this during the race. I think there was more scope for a higher finish by staying out, but I was certain he wouldn't have finished lower than he did.

[FittingMechanics]

I said yesterday too, but with hindsight, I still don’t think they should have pit Oscar a second time.

Max would have gone through no doubt, but I don’t think Ollie would have caught and overtaken him for 4th.

I was thinking this during the race. I think there was more scope for a higher finish by staying out, but I was certain he wouldn't have finished lower than he did.

I always think this during races but Oscar just can't make these "tire whisperer" strategies work. This coupled with McLaren being super conservative on strategy means you get these type of calls.

[basti313]

No, box to overtake is not an intentional fake. It means "box opposite of the car ahead". They did use it a few times to try and dummy the other team into reacting, but they do it all the time without faking as well.

That is your interpretation and in my POV wrong. The car ahead never boxed, except for Lec in Hun. Still they never did the opposite. It is a pure fake call (that they should change as everyone knows).
Any examples where they really did the opposite except for Hun?

[venkyhere]

The reason McLaren were 'in a league of their own' in Mexico is because of three things :
1. Superior mechanical grip and ride quality in conjunction with not being too sensitive to ride height
2. heat management of tyres
3. Cooling of engine, intake and radiators (see how less they had to open the car)

The third factor is often not given enough importance. But it helps the downforce indirectly. Less openings on the side of the engine cover => less 'bad air' destroying the flow hitting the rear downforce structures => better utilization of the aero surfaces. Which in turn means better 'quality' downforce, especially in 'yaw' conditions => better preservation of tyres (on top of the already insane advantage of tyre temp maintenance).

The advantage will be lesser at sea level

Edit : now, with these three factors, analyze the performance of PIastri, how 'weak' he has become if he struggled the way he did behind Bearman and Antonelli/Russel, despite having a car that is the only car on the grid which can follow another car closely for a sustained duration.

[FittingMechanics]

No, box to overtake is not an intentional fake. It means "box opposite of the car ahead". They did use it a few times to try and dummy the other team into reacting, but they do it all the time without faking as well.

That is your interpretation and in my POV wrong. The car ahead never boxed, except for Lec in Hun. Still they never did the opposite. It is a pure fake call (that they should change as everyone knows).
Any examples where they really did the opposite except for Hun?

All the teams use this, it's not something specific. For example Ferrari talking about it in 2022. https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/ferrari- ... clerc.html

Here is a F1 article that mentions it as well https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... P4mRsXoGsB

Pretty much all undercut pitstops that McLaren do are started by calling "Box to overtake". It's to signal that if the car ahead pits first that you don't follow him in. Reason for the different naming is because they don't have time to react and cancel the pitstop if the car ahead pits right before you.

Sometimes McLaren tries to dummy the other car into pitting, but the terms they use are exactly the same.

[SilviuAgo]

To all the haters, the secret for the dominant win:



And two fun statistics:
- Two drivers have taken each of their first 10 wins at 10 different circuits. The first is Michael Schumacher, the second is Lando Norris!
- And now Lando has updated his previous record as the McLaren driver with most podiums in a season: 16. Old record before Lando: Alain Prost 14 - in 1988 (equaled by Oscar in 2025).

[SilviuAgo]

Nice one for the start. Perfect from Lando and really happy that all the discussion and drama about the run to T1 was overcome by his start and line to T1.
Also on f1tv before the race almost half o f the discussion was about the run to T1 and how Max from P5 has a perfect chance to be in front. Except James Hinchcliffe all the rest looks like DTS producers.

[diffuser]

They can fake it once.

Here McLaren first said box to overtake (which means do opposite of car ahead) but then they changes it to box box, meaning box regardless of car ahead.

Not sure why, maybe he was being undercut or realized he was losing too much time on mediums.

You know they don't leave the garage to make it look like they're pitting. They just stand there in the garage with all the equipment a ready. There is no rules on what you can and can't do in the garage.

[AR3-GP]

What I'm curious about is how Mclaren knew already on Friday that the soft tire was the one to do the race sim on. Isn't that odd?