2025 McLaren F1 Team

[FittingMechanics]

Monza mentioned was when Ricciardo got a victory of McLaren in a season where Norris was much faster overall, and wanted to attack Ricciardo for P1. Norris followed orders there. He followed orders in Hungary when he had much better pace as demonstrated by running away from Piastri, he could have easily said that Piastri needs to catch up.

This is how McLaren does thing, team comes first, sometimes that means you let a faster car through, sometimes it means you accept the car under threat goes to pits first, etc. This whole season with excessive "equality" got on my terms as the team should have prioritized team results and not equality.

[Darth-Piekus]

On the other hand Fitting isnt it better? The team will get the double and they will do it without showing any favoritism toward a driver and without having a car that was as dominating as Mclaren Honda of the 80s, the Ferrari of the 2000s, the Mercedes of the 2010s or the Red Bull of 2022 and 2023.

[Henk_v]

Hard to imagine other teams leaving too much of a margin on such an important parameter as ride height.

Then again. I can imagine plank wear is not something you can accurately predict. Tire stint length, driver style, track position, fuel load, driver mistakes , race pace, asphalt temperature, track debris, they can all have an effect.

Therefore maybe some teams experience that in extreme cases they have been to close for comfort to the limit, but I doubt thet are targeting anything near the limit.

Given this race was relatively uneventful with not where near an exreme set of circumstances that would push plank wear to the limit, they were not slightly off.

.12mm is 12% above the max when they should have finished with quite some margin. This was not a marginal mistake. They were off target by at least 25%, probably closer to 35%. That is a lot for a sport with 0,01% margins

[Henk_v]

Hard to imagine other teams leaving too much of a margin on such an important parameter as ride height.

Then again. I can imagine plank wear is not something you can accurately predict. Tire stint length, driver style, track position, fuel load, driver mistakes , race pace, asphalt temperature, track debris, they can all have an effect.

Therefore maybe some teams experience that in extreme cases they have been too close for comfort to the limit, but I doubt any sane race engineer would be targeting anything near the limit in nominal conditions.

Given this race was relatively uneventful with no where near an exreme set of circumstances that would push plank wear to the limit, they were not just slightly off.

.12mm is 12% above the max when they should have finished with quite some margin. This was not a marginal mistake. They were off target by at least 25%, probably closer to 35%. That is a lot for a sport with 0,01% margins

[aMessageToCharlie]

Does anyone have a PIA team radio transcript from the Vegas GP? I couldn't find any unfortunately.

Apparently the team did not ask Oscar to LICO in the last laps of the race as they did with Lando, even though both cars were facing the risk of being DQ'd for plank wear.

If true, that would be another one to amuse the fans on the long list of coincidences acting in Lando's favor after Monza, Singapore, Suspension Update and towing in qualy.

[TimW]

Does anyone have a PIA team radio transcript from the Vegas GP? I couldn't find any unfortunately.

Apparently the team did not ask Oscar to LICO in the last laps of the race as they did with Lando, even though both cars were facing the risk of being DQ'd for plank wear.

If true, that would be another one to amuse the fans on the long list of coincidences acting in Lando's favor after Monza, Singapore, Suspension Update and towing in qualy.

Lando did not lose anything by lifting, Oscar would have lost position to antonelli at least. Simple tradeoff of risk vs reward.

[Ben1980]

Does anyone have a PIA team radio transcript from the Vegas GP? I couldn't find any unfortunately.

Apparently the team did not ask Oscar to LICO in the last laps of the race as they did with Lando, even though both cars were facing the risk of being DQ'd for plank wear.

If true, that would be another one to amuse the fans on the long list of coincidences acting in Lando's favor after Monza, Singapore, Suspension Update and towing in qualy.

Someone posted the team radios on here i think. They were both asked to lico throughout, which isn't unusual its happened before.

There was no mention of Lando being asked to be as dramatic as he was.l though.

[aMessageToCharlie]

Piastri was also told on the last lap to “bring back the lift in five and 11”.

The Australian’s radio was much quieter than his teammate’s, but he was told by race engineer Tom Stallard on Lap 35: “More li-co (lift and coast) turn five when possible”.

On Lap 28, Piastri was told to take measures on four separate corners.

Piastri asked: “Do you want me to keep lifting at all into turn 17 or not?”

Stallard responded: “Into 17, yes, 11 yes, 10 only if you want it. Also li-co into five”.

[Ben1980]

https://www.mclaren.com/racing/formula- ... 5-articles

Sort of answers all tge question raised

[Slahinki]

https://www.mclaren.com/racing/formula- ... 5-articles

Sort of answers all tge question raised

Good information in there.

[ME4ME]

Were you surprised by the Stewards' decision?
We verified together with the technical delegate that the measurement of the skid thickness was correct. Even if the excessive wear is relatively minor and in only one location, (as it was 0.12 mm for Lando and 0.26mm for Oscar), the regulation is very clear that the rear skids need to be at least 9mm at the end of the race in every location. Unlike sporting or financial rules, there is no proportionality in the application of penalties for technical regulation infringements. The FIA itself has admitted that this lack of proportionality should be addressed in the future to ensure that minor and accidental technical infringements, with minimal or no performance benefits, do not lead to disproportionate consequences.

For the love of God, let a solid black and white case remain just that. Simple, easy to understand and almost everyone keeps to the rules. No need to create a grey-zone and add X-number of chapters to the FIA technical and sporting regulations trying to define "performance benefits" of Y-amount of thickness deficit.

[AR3-GP]

His narrative would be different if Red Bull had been DSQ’d.

[Ben1980]

His narrative would be different if Red Bull had been DSQ’d.

Formula one team in thinking about themselves shock.

[Farnborough]

Were you surprised by the Stewards' decision?
We verified together with the technical delegate that the measurement of the skid thickness was correct. Even if the excessive wear is relatively minor and in only one location, (as it was 0.12 mm for Lando and 0.26mm for Oscar), the regulation is very clear that the rear skids need to be at least 9mm at the end of the race in every location. Unlike sporting or financial rules, there is no proportionality in the application of penalties for technical regulation infringements. The FIA itself has admitted that this lack of proportionality should be addressed in the future to ensure that minor and accidental technical infringements, with minimal or no performance benefits, do not lead to disproportionate consequences.

For the love of God, let a solid black and white case remain just that. Simple, easy to understand and almost everyone keeps to the rules. No need to create a grey-zone and add X-number of chapters to the FIA technical and sporting regulations trying to define "performance benefits" of Y-amount of thickness deficit.

I agree with you on this, they're just making themselves look more silly the more they ask for clemency/mitigation/ rules consideration.

These are the rules, that's the result, the penalty is known before. Get over it McL.

In a sport where they are proud of finite accuracy, promoting themselves as high achieving in the field of performance engineering..... and they didn’t meet or stay above a hard and very well known limit. Come on, who are they aiming it at now ? It should have been intelligent conversation internally and leading up to each race, this one certainly with the points gap they had.

As someone else pointed out, ZB would have had a field day if it were RB. Many things come around to haunt the cocky position he's made public. They just need to wear this one and move on, its not dignified at all to offer those words in report.

[Ben1980]

Were you surprised by the Stewards' decision?
We verified together with the technical delegate that the measurement of the skid thickness was correct. Even if the excessive wear is relatively minor and in only one location, (as it was 0.12 mm for Lando and 0.26mm for Oscar), the regulation is very clear that the rear skids need to be at least 9mm at the end of the race in every location. Unlike sporting or financial rules, there is no proportionality in the application of penalties for technical regulation infringements. The FIA itself has admitted that this lack of proportionality should be addressed in the future to ensure that minor and accidental technical infringements, with minimal or no performance benefits, do not lead to disproportionate consequences.

For the love of God, let a solid black and white case remain just that. Simple, easy to understand and almost everyone keeps to the rules. No need to create a grey-zone and add X-number of chapters to the FIA technical and sporting regulations trying to define "performance benefits" of Y-amount of thickness deficit.

I agree with you on this, they're just making themselves look more silly the more they ask for clemency/mitigation/ rules consideration.

These are the rules, that's the result, the penalty is known before. Get over it McL.

In a sport where they are proud of finite accuracy, promoting themselves as high achieving in the field of performance engineering..... and they didn’t meet or stay above a hard and very well known limit. Come on, who are they aiming it at now ? It should have been intelligent conversation internally and leading up to each race, this one certainly with the points gap they had.

As someone else pointed out, ZB would have had a field day if it were RB. Many things come around to haunt the cocky position he's made public. They just need to wear this one and move on, its not dignified at all to offer those words in report.

Its funny though that 0.12mm or whatever is banged to rights, but Red Bull taking a nice new engine for sh%ts and giggles, no one has a bloody clue. ( not against RB just using an recent case)