2025 McLaren F1 Team

[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.

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.

I don't think they changed anything. I just think Oscar came across a run of tracks he doesn't like. And then when he gets Qatar he is fine again. Nothing more than that.

[basti313]

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.

I don't think they changed anything. I just think Oscar came across a run of tracks he doesn't like. And then when he gets Qatar he is fine again. Nothing more than that.

Yes, I also think that grip levels make more sense. We saw the opposite with Perez and Bottas. Everytime on low grip tracks, they were quite good compared to the Nr1 driver.
Plus Oscar seems to struggle with wind a lot. All higher grip tracks where he was behind Lando had a lot of wind/gusts.

[WardenOfTheNorth]

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.

I don't think they changed anything. I just think Oscar came across a run of tracks he doesn't like. And then when he gets Qatar he is fine again. Nothing more than that.

I think it's more that Lando was, by his own admission, struggling with the car early in the season, which meant that Oscar looked like he'd made a jump in comparison. They changed the car which meant Lando was able to get more comfortable with it and his pace increased. Combine that with a run of tracks that Lando is historically strong on and you end up with the appearance of Oscar having a mare.

I could be wrong though.

[venkyhere]

Question :
Given that McLaren 'missed the bus' by not pitting in lap7, and that they were anyway going to pit in lap25, why did they not fit a soft in lap25 and run a full-blast 7/8 lap stint until lap32/33, and then fit a fresh M/H until end of race ? It would have given Piastri more 'time' to catch up Verstappen.
Is the above a viable strategy or a stupid one ?

[WardenOfTheNorth]

I wonder if George would let Lando pass and a fellow Britt get the WDC too.

I wonder whether he would move aide do so to stop Max "I'm going to put you in the wall" Verstappen winning it....

[WardenOfTheNorth]

Question :
Given that McLaren 'missed the bus' by not pitting in lap7, and that they were anyway going to pit in lap25, why did they not fit a soft in lap25 and run a full-blast 7/8 lap stint until lap32/33, and then fit a fresh M/H until end of race ? It would have given Piastri more 'time' to catch up Verstappen.
Is the above a viable strategy or a stupid one ?

Hindsight is wonderful, but I don't think it would have made any difference for Oscar.

I think it would have been worth trying for Lando though and could have helped him avoid Sainz and Kimi.

Mind you, I'm glad they didn't as I was really happy to see Carlos get another podium!!

[Emag]

Honestly, at this point I believe Max absolutely deserves the title with the season he has had. Brought back memories of watching Alonso in the 2010-2013 era.

On the other hand, McLaren not winning this WDC would be an absolute insult to the engineering department who conjured up this amazing car. The on-track operations have been so bad this year, it's unbelievable. So many crappy decisions. They've lost their drivers way too many points. This should have been a McLaren-only battle going into Abu Dhabi.

[Ben1980]

Question :
Given that McLaren 'missed the bus' by not pitting in lap7, and that they were anyway going to pit in lap25, why did they not fit a soft in lap25 and run a full-blast 7/8 lap stint until lap32/33, and then fit a fresh M/H until end of race ? It would have given Piastri more 'time' to catch up Verstappen.
Is the above a viable strategy or a stupid one ?

I think the intention was to do a soft run at the end. And 2 long mediums runs. But part way through the second set of mediums they realised the hard was better, so binned them earlier.

So many things they could have done better.

Though interestingly I read that Lando could have lost 4 places in the pits if they had stopped. So maybe it did work out for him!

[FittingMechanics]

Question :
Given that McLaren 'missed the bus' by not pitting in lap7, and that they were anyway going to pit in lap25, why did they not fit a soft in lap25 and run a full-blast 7/8 lap stint until lap32/33, and then fit a fresh M/H until end of race ? It would have given Piastri more 'time' to catch up Verstappen.
Is the above a viable strategy or a stupid one ?

I don't think that is viable. By putting on a soft you give away one advantage you have, that is that you can stay long in the middle stint and luck into a safety car or a VSC. If that happened, you would have a cheap pitstop and end up close behind Verstappen on new tires. Even if it doesn't happen during middle stint, you can still end up with better tires right behind Verstappen, if for example SC happened after your second stop.

To me, only better strategy would be if they took on hard tires in the middle stint. This would mean they can extend that stint to 25 lap limit, the tire would be more durable and then they would be able to capitalize in the last stint on softs (or mediums if SC is earlier). I think this was the big mistake as cars on hards were faster than McLaren on mediums, this is why ANT and SAI were ahead of them and why McLaren ditched their mediums earlier than needed.

They probably thought hard would be slower, that their middle medium stint would close the gap to Verstappen and then they can fight from P2/P3 and see if they can catch him. But the middle stint on mediums sucked, especially for Norris.

[chrisc90]

Question :
Given that McLaren 'missed the bus' by not pitting in lap7, and that they were anyway going to pit in lap25, why did they not fit a soft in lap25 and run a full-blast 7/8 lap stint until lap32/33, and then fit a fresh M/H until end of race ? It would have given Piastri more 'time' to catch up Verstappen.
Is the above a viable strategy or a stupid one ?

17s of a gap was just too much to over come. That would be close to 2.5s a lap faster than Max was doing. So you’d need to be in the high 20s to 21.5 to make that pay off.
More worrying is his engineer said he’d need to be doing 23’s if he wanted to try roll the dice with the tyres. This was already when Max was lapping in the high 23’s so it would have never worked.

I think what swayed it in the end was the hard was actually a good race tyre. A mandated stint meant that the tyres were never at risk of dropping off to allow anything like a Mercedes Barcelona scenario where Max needed to make the tyres to the end allowing for the extra lap time for Lewis to catch up and pass.

[Watto]

I wonder if George would let Lando pass and a fellow Britt get the WDC too.

I wonder whether he would move aide do so to stop Max "I'm going to put you in the wall" Verstappen winning it....

I think this is where it gets difficult I don't think Oscar is the type just to let Max past if he was all over him. But I do wonder if there is a deeply rooted part of him that just doesn't care much anymore where after a while that resolve just gives up

Honestly, at this point I believe Max absolutely deserves the title with the season he has had. Brought back memories of watching Alonso in the 2010-2013 era.

On the other hand, McLaren not winning this WDC would be an absolute insult to the engineering department who conjured up this amazing car. The on-track operations have been so bad this year, it's unbelievable. So many crappy decisions. They've lost their drivers way too many points. This should have been a McLaren-only battle going into Abu Dhabi.

I think that is pretty fair. If Max wins I think it probably goes down as his greatest WDC. Max shouldn't be anywhere near Lando/Oscar.


I think as much as McLaren have stuffed this up. IMO, there isn't a chance Max gives up the lead McLaren have with that car. Red Bull have started to get on top of it but its still very hit and miss - it is I think the big question mark for Max and RBR can they get the car to work at Abu Dhabi .

[venkyhere]

Question :
Given that McLaren 'missed the bus' by not pitting in lap7, and that they were anyway going to pit in lap25, why did they not fit a soft in lap25 and run a full-blast 7/8 lap stint until lap32/33, and then fit a fresh M/H until end of race ? It would have given Piastri more 'time' to catch up Verstappen.
Is the above a viable strategy or a stupid one ?

I think the intention was to do a soft run at the end. And 2 long mediums runs. But part way through the second set of mediums they realised the hard was better, so binned them earlier.

So many things they could have done better.

Though interestingly I read that Lando could have lost 4 places in the pits if they had stopped. So maybe it did work out for him!

Would 4 places be the equivalent of a 22 (or 25, what was it) second loss ?

[Farnborough]

Question :
Given that McLaren 'missed the bus' by not pitting in lap7, and that they were anyway going to pit in lap25, why did they not fit a soft in lap25 and run a full-blast 7/8 lap stint until lap32/33, and then fit a fresh M/H until end of race ? It would have given Piastri more 'time' to catch up Verstappen.
Is the above a viable strategy or a stupid one ?

I think the intention was to do a soft run at the end. And 2 long mediums runs. But part way through the second set of mediums they realised the hard was better, so binned them earlier.

So many things they could have done better.

Though interestingly I read that Lando could have lost 4 places in the pits if they had stopped. So maybe it did work out for him!

Would 4 places be the equivalent of a 22 (or 25, what was it) second loss ?

They should have put the softs on at first stop (after ballsing-up the SC call) then to "blow the doors off" it for as long as they could hang the pace together, then pit for medium to the end . Perhaps that would have got them to lap 35/37 and be more fluid in where their potential could be exploited.