2025 McLaren F1 Team

[F1NAC]

I feel most sorry for Oscar as he nailed the entire weekend trying to turn the championship around. He had been in a league of his own, doing everything he had to. Many are talking about Lando, but it was Oscar that lost out most yesterday. Realistically his championship is over by no fault of his own.

For Lando I do blame him. He should had followed Max into the pits.

Don’t get me wrong, i don’t want to defend this team in any way, but you can’t also ignore that dip in form after zandvoort.. if he loses the title it is mostly because of lack of his form in 2nd half. From 104+ to - 6 ( correct me if I’m wrong) behind Verstappen.

What are we talking about?

The only think that separates him from Norris that he has more that killer instinct when needed. But he will regret his performance in 2nd half

[Ben1980]

I feel most sorry for Oscar as he nailed the entire weekend trying to turn the championship around. He had been in a league of his own, doing everything he had to. Many are talking about Lando, but it was Oscar that lost out most yesterday. Realistically his championship is over by no fault of his own.

For Lando I do blame him. He should had followed Max into the pits.

Don’t get me wrong, i don’t want to defend this team in any way, but you can’t also ignore that dip in form after zandvoort.. if he loses the title it is mostly because of lack of his form in 2nd half. From 104+ to - 6 ( correct me if I’m wrong) behind Verstappen.

What are we talking about?

The only think that separates him from Norris that he has more that killer instinct when needed. But he will regret his performance in 2nd half

Oscar should have wrapped this up by now. 34points ahead, and the car more than capable of top 3 in the vast majority of tge races, as shown. He had it on a platter.

Lando underperformed at the start and still has his issues, but I'm not sure he ever had it in his hands until the end, and even then he's not blamed for Vegas and he's lost 2 points in Qatar through the team.

[SilviuAgo]

Just a reminder ))

[Gillian]

I feel most sorry for Oscar as he nailed the entire weekend trying to turn the championship around. He had been in a league of his own, doing everything he had to. Many are talking about Lando, but it was Oscar that lost out most yesterday. Realistically his championship is over by no fault of his own.

For Lando I do blame him. He should had followed Max into the pits.

Don’t get me wrong, i don’t want to defend this team in any way, but you can’t also ignore that dip in form after zandvoort.. if he loses the title it is mostly because of lack of his form in 2nd half. From 104+ to - 6 ( correct me if I’m wrong) behind Verstappen.

What are we talking about?

The only think that separates him from Norris that he has more that killer instinct when needed. But he will regret his performance in 2nd half

Indeed Piastri is better in w2w racing than Norris, more decisive it seems. He also seems to have more pace overall when the track suits him. Norris' pace seems more consistent over a season and he is just slightly faster in general. Norris on a bad day probably is faster than Piastri on a bad day, the former just seems to struggle a bit more when duelling.

Not much in it anyway, I would not say one deserves it more than the other.

And no worries boys, Norris will get a podium, no doubt.

[SilviuAgo]

I feel most sorry for Oscar as he nailed the entire weekend trying to turn the championship around. He had been in a league of his own, doing everything he had to. Many are talking about Lando, but it was Oscar that lost out most yesterday. Realistically his championship is over by no fault of his own.

For Lando I do blame him. He should had followed Max into the pits.

Don’t get me wrong, i don’t want to defend this team in any way, but you can’t also ignore that dip in form after zandvoort.. if he loses the title it is mostly because of lack of his form in 2nd half. From 104+ to - 6 ( correct me if I’m wrong) behind Verstappen.

What are we talking about?

The only think that separates him from Norris that he has more that killer instinct when needed. But he will regret his performance in 2nd half

Oscar should have wrapped this up by now. 34points ahead, and the car more than capable of top 3 in the vast majority of tge races, as shown. He had it on a platter.

Lando underperformed at the start and still has his issues, but I'm not sure he ever had it in his hands until the end, and even then he's not blamed for Vegas and he's lost 2 points in Qatar through the team.

If we look at some of the recent races, famous Monza (the source of Lando booos), Baku (with another magical 6seconds pitstop), Vegas and Qatar, the team screw his drivers like this:
Lando: +3p for Monza (P2 vs P3), -4p for Baku (P7 vs P5) -18p for Vegas (DSQ vs P2) and -3p for Qatar (P4 vs P3)
Oscar: -3p for Monza (P3 vs P2), -12p for Vegas (DSQ vs P4) and -7p for Qatar (P2 vs P1).
So a total of: -22p for Lando and, shocking, -22p for Oscar.

Papaya rules at his top.

[basti313]

That Stella interview - that was pure Sh%%housery. Playing the diplomat, talking about 'learning lessons' etc - pure BS.
ZacBrown was more forthcoming, he plainly said 'we messed up'. So did Norris and so did Piastri. Out of the four of them, Stella was only the guy attempting to 'bring some blame on bad luck'. It was pathetic to watch.

I think that is now a bit of a example, where the strong housekeeping in communication did not work anymore. Last week I highlighted the extremely good and clean communication. This week showed the limits:
- Driver comms suddenly lost their "coding" as things heated up. First they gave a usually coded message on understeer to Lando, once he started discussing they clearly said the tire temp is too high at the front.
- The post race interviews ended up being a set of phrases really without any useful information. Just waste of time.

Yeah I think they were expecting a few at least not to pit. Even 3-4 cars might have been enough to hold Max up.

I think that claim is nonsense. The crash was right behind Had. Everyone behind Had did not play any role to this, as everyone would have been out of a SC pit window for Oscar, Max and Lando. Oscar should even have stayed in front of Had, maybe Alo if they stayed out.

Same for the claim, that double stacking would have been a risk...there was a 2sec gap between all cars till Alo/Rus, which were close to each other, and Lando had a perfect 4sec gap to Oscar.

Stella seemed to indicate they were hoping for another safety car too which I think is a very dangerous game to play and...well so it happens they lost out.

I think also this does not make any sense. A very early SC after the first one would have just caused mayhem. Imagine a crash at the restart without red flag and 5 extra laps under SC....in the end they were only saved by the Alo train and with just two more SC laps that would not have worked out. Maybe in a 10lap fram before their first stop and 5 laps before the second stop a SC would have helped.

Gave up a pretty simple 1-2 - maybe Max with his pace could have undercut Lando. But Oscar was in a world of his in the race.

Seeing the Alo train: Oscar would have been gone, so P1 for Oscar. But Max could in any case have pitted once he cleared the Alo train. I do not see a chance for an undercut.

[matt_b]

I feel most sorry for Oscar as he nailed the entire weekend trying to turn the championship around. He had been in a league of his own, doing everything he had to. Many are talking about Lando, but it was Oscar that lost out most yesterday. Realistically his championship is over by no fault of his own.

For Lando I do blame him. He should had followed Max into the pits.

It was brutal for Oscar because he was about to take 10 points off Lando and 7 off Max, but where was this Oscar between Baku and Las Vegas? Yesterday was like the Pre-Baku Oscar but where was he for those 6 races. Its almost as confusing as McLaren not pitting on Lap 7 yesterday. Those races were so costly, not a single podium in that car between those races

[search]

I think that claim is nonsense. The crash was right behind Had. Everyone behind Had did not play any role to this, as everyone would have been out of a SC pit window for Oscar, Max and Lando. Oscar should even have stayed in front of Had, maybe Alo if they stayed out.

Verstappen from 2nd initially dropped behind* Ocon - 13th before everyone pitted - so this is not correct.

Nonetheless, pitting would have been the right call, of course, and an easy decision like this ("What do we do in case of an early SC?") should have been determined before the race already.

*edit: checking again, it was quite a large gas as well, so more cars could have gone through

[chrisc90]

There’s been many times when McLaren haven’t led the strategy calls for the race or been aggressive enough.

Most of the time they just follow what red bull has done if it’s not going a bit longer to extend the tyre stint life to have a shorter one at the end.

Their creativeness lacks a lot IMHO

[FittingMechanics]

Lando only effectively needs to be p4 with Oscar p2/3 in order to get the title.

All Oscar has to do is slow down and let Norris past.

Would be quite a taint on his 1st title for Norris though needing his team mate to get him it by dropping positions.

Straight fight to the death would be the best route with neither title contender backing down.

As tainted as Verstappen titles are with his teammates (and junior teammates in RB) moving away whenever he comes close to them.

[chrisc90]

Lando only effectively needs to be p4 with Oscar p2/3 in order to get the title.

All Oscar has to do is slow down and let Norris past.

Would be quite a taint on his 1st title for Norris though needing his team mate to get him it by dropping positions.

Straight fight to the death would be the best route with neither title contender backing down.

As tainted as Verstappen titles are with his teammates (and junior teammates in RB) moving away whenever he comes close to them.

Not entirely sure what your comment has to do with the context of my post in any remote sense.

[Badger]

Lando only effectively needs to be p4 with Oscar p2/3 in order to get the title.

All Oscar has to do is slow down and let Norris past.

Would be quite a taint on his 1st title for Norris though needing his team mate to get him it by dropping positions.

Straight fight to the death would be the best route with neither title contender backing down.

As tainted as Verstappen titles are with his teammates (and junior teammates in RB) moving away whenever he comes close to them.

You earn that right if you crush your teammates fast and early. You can’t expect the same courtesy when you let them stay in contention until the end.

I still expect Oscar to pull aside at the very end if he needs to, but if that happens oh boy will the narratives be fun.

[venkyhere]

If one of their drivers don't win the WDC, so be it - the blame is squarely on the drivers and race operations and pitwall and strategy etc... engineering have already delivered the car.

The only bone-to-pick I have is if one of the McLaren drivers DON'T win the WDC - because from the engineering side they have been given the best car of this entire ground effect era. And they have had to deal with only one other real contender, who has an inconsistent and 'peaky' car at his disposal, no matter how talented he is. Nobody can drive a car beyond it's theoretical limit, so it's not like Max is achieving something his car can't achieve (the phrase 'outdriving the car' actually means driving at 99.xx% of the theoretical limit). The Mclaren drivers & McLaren race operations can't 'excuse' themselves off blaming the machinery they have (which is far more consistent, far more predictable, with a large window of 'base performance'). The McL39 in it's worst setup is easily faster than atleast 6-7 teams with their cars in the best setup for any given track. So even if we discount for the talent gap, the gap in the equipment far exceeds the deficiency in talent of Norris&Piastri w.r.t Max.

That's why I said the McL39 is the 'car of the ground effect era' - it has no weakness, not just in relative terms to competition, but in absolute terms relative to the whole 4 years. It's a herculean task for other teams to get near it, and the only way some other car looks faster in a particular GP is because drivers/operations/car-setup has been suboptimal 'using' the McL39, in that particular race.

I kept saying that while the design engg team is a masterclass, the drivers and race-operations are faltering from time to time. And many of you guys jumped on me. While Norris upped his game and drove like a champion over the past month or so, this is a clear race-operations flop-show. Without long-run data, they went overtly pessimistic and chose higher ride height in AustinGP, and in Vegas, they went the other way - decided to slam it really low. The WCC is won, so as far as the company is concerned, they have no more skin in the game for 2025 season. But try explaining this to the drivers, both of them. They must be pulling their hair out.

I knew this thread will be like a live grenade has been thrown into an elevator. The team is inventing ways to screw their drivers, it's almost as if they intentionally don't want to win WDC and WCC is more than enough. They expected

I myself am surprised at the number of times I have criticized the 'execution of a race' by the team, all the above posts are post summer break, IIRC. It's painful to watch two talented drivers suffering mental agony like this. I guess it will 'toughen them up' , but the race team have faltered far too many times, many more than the individual mistakes by their two drivers. I think this might be the worst 'race-team' to win the constructor championship and the best 'design-engg-team' to win the constructor championship, both simultaneously.

[FittingMechanics]

I myself am surprised at the number of times I have criticized the 'execution of a race' by the team, all the above posts are post summer break, IIRC. It's painful to watch two talented drivers suffering mental agony like this. I guess it will 'toughen them up' , but the race team have faltered far too many times, many more than the individual mistakes by their two drivers. I think this might be the worst 'race-team' to win the constructor championship and the best 'design-engg-team' to win the constructor championship, both simultaneously.

I wish I kept a list of my strategy complaints in last two years. This has been going on for a long time, they are just unwilling to take any risk and even when they luck into a potentially beneficial situation they usually throw it away (like yesterday when Norris was holding up Verstappen).

Only time I can remember a good strategy call was that Norris one stopper that he lucked into because he was undercut.

[McL-H]

I feel most sorry for Oscar as he nailed the entire weekend trying to turn the championship around. He had been in a league of his own, doing everything he had to. Many are talking about Lando, but it was Oscar that lost out most yesterday. Realistically his championship is over by no fault of his own.

For Lando I do blame him. He should had followed Max into the pits.

It was brutal for Oscar because he was about to take 10 points off Lando and 7 off Max, but where was this Oscar between Baku and Las Vegas? Yesterday was like the Pre-Baku Oscar but where was he for those 6 races. Its almost as confusing as McLaren not pitting on Lap 7 yesterday. Those races were so costly, not a single podium in that car between those races

McLaren obviously changed something on their car that made Oscar lose confidence and that favoured Lando more. But it is my opinion that the best drivers extract the most out of their car in all conditions. That is what separates Alonso and Max from all the other drivers. Neither Piastri nor Norris are cut from that wood.

So yes, I can’t argue Piastri has himself to blame for the 2nd half of the season. But it is a real shame that when he got his --- together, the team threw his last hope away.