2025 McLaren F1 Team

[Ben1980]

So is it game over for Oscar after the first stint basically? Like assuming Max does not get taken out....at that stage he will have to help Lando?

Hypothetical: Max p1, oscar p2 or 3, lando p4......does the team have Oscar give a position up for Lando to win?

Oscar is gone. He has to basically run away and hide if he wants a chance. But if he's 3rd and Lando 4th, he will surely pull over.

[bauc]

So is it game over for Oscar after the first stint basically? Like assuming Max does not get taken out....at that stage he will have to help Lando?

Hypothetical: Max p1, oscar p2 or 3, lando p4......does the team have Oscar give a position up for Lando to win?

Oscar is gone. He has to basically run away and hide if he wants a chance. But if he's 3rd and Lando 4th, he will surely pull over.

I hope you understand Oscar can't be at two positions at the same time

Just kidding, I know you do....

[basti313]

So is it game over for Oscar after the first stint basically? Like assuming Max does not get taken out....at that stage he will have to help Lando?

Hypothetical: Max p1, oscar p2 or 3, lando p4......does the team have Oscar give a position up for Lando to win?

Oscar is gone. He has to basically run away and hide if he wants a chance. But if he's 3rd and Lando 4th, he will surely pull over.

They can just call him for a late pitstop...they would just make a mockery of themselves and the "papaya rules" if they do not do the necessary thing to clinch WDC for one of the drivers. No matter what it costs.

[mwillems]

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.

They are definately willing to take risks, they quite ridiculously took a big risk yesterday.

[venkyhere]

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 ?

Guess it depends on who those 4 are. The Mclaren is not great at following, and overtaking was tough. Potential he was stuck in 7th for a long time. Especially on same tyres.

Oops ! I have held the view that the McLaren is the only car on the grid that can 'follow closely' because of the surplus front end grip they have with their magic front suspension. Suzuka, Singapore, Canada, Zandvoort, Austin etc come to mind where an McL39 is closely following either a sister car or someone else for large durations of a stint (may/may not be able to overtake) and still not needing to back-off-massively to protect the front tyres.

The reason myself and @Farnborough are even considering a short S tyre blast with 1-1.5s/lap delta between lap25 and lap32-33, is because it would enable easy pass over those '4 cars' (two/three actually - one/both Mercs, plus Sainz) at the first DRS attempt and still shave away 10-12 seconds off Max's laptime. Even if Max pushed in response, he would have suffered massive deg since he had to reach lap32 on his old mediums. In the end, we saw how his laptime started dropping because he encountered the dirty air from the blue flag Alpines for 4-5 laps. It would have atleast brought Piastri much closer behind him.

The only reason I can think of, as to why Mclaren didn't try something like this, is because after the 'oops' moment had passed, and they realized that they didn't have the pace delta that they thought they would, they were simply waiting for 'flexibility' that a late SC would offer.

Redbull did this exact thing - short S tyre bursts at mega pace to pressure the P1-P2 guys into driving faster with reduced tyre management - in Barcelona. The only reason it flopped was because there were one too many SCs and they ran out of tyres and had to fit the unsuitable H which no one else touched that day.

[chrisc90]

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

Guess it depends on who those 4 are. The Mclaren is not great at following, and overtaking was tough. Potential he was stuck in 7th for a long time. Especially on same tyres.

Oops ! I have held the view that the McLaren is the only car on the grid that can 'follow closely' because of the surplus front end grip they have with their magic front suspension. Suzuka, Singapore, Canada, Zandvoort, Austin etc come to mind where an McL39 is closely following either a sister car or someone else for large durations of a stint (may/may not be able to overtake) and still not needing to back-off-massively to protect the front tyres.

The reason myself and @Farnborough are even considering a short S tyre blast with 1-1.5s/lap delta between lap25 and lap32-33, is because it would enable easy pass over those '4 cars' (two/three actually - one/both Mercs, plus Sainz) at the first DRS attempt and still shave away 10-12 seconds off Max's laptime. Even if Max pushed in response, he would have suffered massive deg since he had to reach lap32 on his old mediums. In the end, we saw how his laptime started dropping because he encountered the dirty air from the blue flag Alpines for 4-5 laps. It would have atleast brought Piastri much closer behind him.

The only reason I can think of, as to why Mclaren didn't try something like this, is because after the 'oops' moment had passed, and they realized that they didn't have the pace delta that they thought they would, they were simply waiting for 'flexibility' that a late SC would offer.

Redbull did this exact thing - short S tyre bursts at mega pace to pressure the P1-P2 guys into driving faster with reduced tyre management - in Barcelona. The only reason it flopped was because there were one too many SCs and they ran out of tyres and had to fit the unsuitable H which no one else touched that day.

I really don’t think the tyres were the limitation here to be fair. (In my opinion)

This was always marked as a 1 stop race, so you would expect the medium and hard (don’t forget it’s the hardest compound in the range) would last more than 28/29 laps on average if you considered a equal stint length.

[FittingMechanics]

They are definately willing to take risks, they quite ridiculously took a big risk yesterday.

Doing nothing is not a real decision. They kept track position and hoped it would work in their favor. They did not take a risk. We may see with hindsight that their decision was very risky but at the time they didn't think so.

What they chose was the conservative choice. This is one constant of their strategy team.

[mwillems]

Hmmm not sure I agree that spurning a free stop is playing it safe.

[FittingMechanics]

Hmmm not sure I agree that spurning a free stop is playing it safe.

Not sure what are you trying to say. Do you want to say that they played it risky by staying out? For what reason would they do that, by staying out they gain nothing (except Norris P2) and vague notion of strategy flexibility.

Going to the pits was the risky choice, if half the field doesn't pit then you are stuck in midfield with no undercut opportunity. If you can't overtake you are done. Especially if Verstappen stays out and drives away.

Now, we can easily say they should have pit but at the time, they took a conservative choice. I can almost accept their call, it's not an easy thing, we saw Hamilton start the race on his own in a similar situation. My biggest gripe is other decisions where they never try and exploit their opportunities. Very often (early in the season) by not utilizing two cars to put Verstappen under pressure by differing strategies. In this race my major complaint is pitting Norris before Verstappen overtook him.

At least wait until VER overtakes. We could have had a red flag or a safety car few laps later. They threw that away and by pitting away made it easier for VER to win the race.

[mwillems]

Hmmm not sure I agree that spurning a free stop is playing it safe.

Not sure what are you trying to say. Do you want to say that they played it risky by staying out? For what reason would they do that, by staying out they gain nothing (except Norris P2) and vague notion of strategy flexibility.

Going to the pits was the risky choice, if half the field doesn't pit then you are stuck in midfield with no undercut opportunity. If you can't overtake you are done. Especially if Verstappen stays out and drives away.

Now, we can easily say they should have pit but at the time, they took a conservative choice.

Yeah, giving up 20s of time to stay out and lose the gap you had at the front, essentially start the race again on.old tyres and still have to make one more stop than others was rolling the dice.

Even if we were slowed down, its likely we'd have flown past many cars. But it was also highly unlikely others werent going to pit.

[FittingMechanics]

Yeah, giving up 20s of time to stay out and lose the gap you had at the front, essentially start the race again on.old tyres and still have to make one more stop than others was rolling the dice.

Even if we were slowed down, its likely we'd have flown past many cars. But it was also highly unlikely others werent going to pit.

If they took a risk, it had to be for a reason. What did they have to gain from taking that risk?

What was the reward? They were P1 and P3 and Verstappen was not threatening Piastri. Potential for 1-2? Is that worth the risk of staying out?

I'm willing to be they saw staying out as less risky option and then were broken when everyone pitted. With just 5 cars not pitting they may have pulled out 15 seconds or more on Verstappen and then closed him down at the end.

[mwillems]

I dont doubt they had a unique perspective.

But if they thought had the pace to overtake Max on track later in the race then they had the pace to get past the midfield that were on older tyres and to ensure max didnt get a 26s gap in the remaining 16 laps of the stint.

[mwillems]

It's such a no brainer, I repeat what I said yesterday, I believe they "kept it equal" by vetoing both stops because 1 driver would have had risk of getting stuck in his pit box. I firmly believe that yesterdays decision was to protect Lando at the cost of Oscars win. I don't buy into the nonsense earlier in the season, but I think they thought they had the pace for a 1-2 so they rolled the dice to protect Lando in that instant.

[venkyhere]

System of regimented market forces ensuring equality in outcome = kills human instinct that yearns for meritorious recognition.

System of free market forces ensuring equality in opportunity = encourages human instinct that yearns for meritorious recognition.

The forner is communism, the latter is capitalism. We know which of them has failed in the world.

which of them is closest to the philosophy behind "papaya rules" ?

[mwillems]

System of regimented market forces ensuring equality in outcome = kills human instinct that yearns for meritorious recognition.

System of free market forces ensuring equality in opportunity = encourages human instinct that yearns for meritorious recognition.

The forner is communism, the latter is capitalism. We know which of them has failed in the world.

which of them is closest to the philosophy behind "papaya rules" ?

This is hilariously muddled overreach and the analogy totally out of place.

It was either favouritism or it was hubris, but your post has almost as much drama as the safety car. Bar some one off moments which outside of optics weren't that contentious, the two drivers have been left to fight it out.