Vodafone McLaren Team 2012

[beelsebob]

The slightly sad thing is that if McLaren hadn't buggered so much up this season, Hamilton would be sat on around 320 points. That's more than he and button together have scored with cockups included...

[munudeges]

There's something very seriously wrong with this team, but I don't know what the answer is. It's either a blown engine, a dodgy gearbox, a broken roll-bar or a botched pitstop. They're capable of winning races but not having won a championship in such a long time tells you there is something wrong.

Like Raikkonen before him who got disillusioned I can understand why Hamilton wants to leave, but I doubt he'll find what he seeks.

[astracrazy]

It pains me to say it. But it's so blindingly obvious what McLaren needs to do to become a championship-winning team again. It's the execution that is giving McLaren headaches................

1) Design a car that is fast out of the box so McLaren doesn't have to play catch-up like it has done. (give up on 2012 and move on to the 2013 design, Ferrari and Red-Bull will be throwing the kitchen sink to the remaining races until the championships are decided.)
2) Reliability, can someone tell me why is McLaren still experiencing so many gearbox failures????( Martin Whitmarsh said it's a quality control issue and not a design issue. Maybe the gearbox design is too marginal and manufacturing is having a hard time producing the parts to spec.)
3) Pit-lane organisation (though the catastrophic failures have been largely cured, lightning-fast pit-stops have been few and far between in recent races.)

1) they more than had that this year. other years they've been just off but the cars have been good enough to fight for the title. either way they screw it up

2) its not just gearbox which is worry. hasn't the last two races been suspension/roll bar related for hamilton? if the quality control problem relates to all parts - oh dear. at the business end of the season as well. this has totally removed hamilton from the title fight (singapore was a turning point the rest have just added fuel to the fire)

3) pit stops seem the only thing to go forward, most of the other things seem to have gone backwards.

I can see why Hamilton has left. Mclaren at the moment just isn't the complete package and for different reasons hasn't been for years

[ell66]

I find it pretty frustrating when you here people say the MP4-27 has been the class of the field this year.
The red bull has easily been the class of the field, aside from monza I cant recall a race where they lacked pace, mclaren have had plenty...bahrain, valencia, monaco, silverstone, korea, suzuka....
I cant even recall a crushing victory aside from button in spa which was helped by the huge pile up and poor qually by vettel.
On top of this the mclaren tends to eat its tyres faster and is less reliable...

[raymondu999]

To be fair, in the dry it was probably the class of the field in the first two races. In quali it most certainly has still been the pacesetter, on average of the season. Take a look at my qualifying points thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13372

[Nando]

Mclaren was good in almost all races in Qualifying except the rainy ones due to the tires not getting any temp.

Australia completely superior (would have had a 1-2 had they not F´d it up)
Malaysia (would have won easily had it not rained)
China (penalty hurt them but pace was there)
Bahrain (1 tenth from pole, pit stop madness caused them to loose a lot of points)
Spain (superior in Qually, team madness made Hamilton start from the back, did a one stopper as well)
Monaco not on pace
Canada not fastest over a lap but the best tire management out of the Trio.
Valencia started 2nd can´t remember what happened in the race apart from Maldonado incident and tire wear letting GRO past.
Britain quickest in Q2, 3 seconds off pace in Q3.
Germany rain here too, tires out of window but in race had equal pace to the front runners.
Hungary completely superior in every way
Belgium completely superior in every way
Italy completely superior in every way
Singapore completely superior in every way, gearbox failure put an end to a certain win.
Japan3rd on the grid, Setup issue for Hamilton, potential 2nd row lockup, good race pace in race although inferior to RBR. Penalty as well.
Korea, inferior to Red Bull but could have probably catched Alonso while Button was the dark horse looking for a potential podium perhaps.


It´s no question they built a Championship winning car but the only reason they don´t lead the titles is because of their own team pretty much managed to tick off every single mistake you can do in Formula 1.
It has been an embarrassment frankly.

[raymondu999]

Malaysia (would have won easily had it not rained)

To be fair, there was only something like 16 laps of slick tyre running, and Lewis wasn't setting the world alight in p3 then - the Red Bulls were quicker than him, and the Perez/Alonso pair was quicker still. In any case I don't think we can conclusively say they were quicker in the dry race pace, though quali pace was certainly there.

China (penalty hurt them but pace was there)

Indeed. Without the gearbox penalty, or traffic, McLaren could've won, or perhaps even 1-2'ed the race. Had the pace.

Spain (superior in Qually, team madness made Hamilton start from the back, did a one stopper as well)

2-stopper. But yes, it was an easy victory. The worst one that got away IMO

Canada not fastest over a lap but the best tire management out of the Trio.

Best race pace rather. The McLaren was the only top car where the team knew from the start they couldn't do a 1-stop. Ferrari and Red Bull still had that option on the cards as their car was lighter on the tyres than the McLaren.

Hungary completely superior in every way

I agree. The Lotus looked (on the surface of the race) to be quicker, but looking at laptime data this doesn't stand up - the McLaren was quicker.

[Nando]

Yea sorry could be some small errors, just going from the top of my head.

Hungary was a clear example of managing tires for 90% of the lap and letting it all out in the last corner with a perfectly setup car to completely demolish everyone else out of it.
Was pretty funny to see all weekend how hooked up the car was through there, like a cannon.

After that it was pretty clear what Hamilton´s intentions were when leading. Create a cushion of 1-1,5s and simply stay there and run at the other guys pace and react to whatever issue that would arise.

Singapore we saw the same thing until the troubles started.

[ell66]

you guys are talking about qually pace, who cares if there within a tenth at bahrain but over a second off in race pace.
i still believe that the lotus was faster in hungary to, although not by much.

[raymondu999]

i still believe that the lotus was faster in hungary to, although not by much.

The data shows that when the Lotus was catching Lewis Lewis was cruising. He upped his pace once the Lotus got to him - the Lotus was not being held back.

Take a look at the race history chart:


It's clear that as the yellow line of Raikkonen, and the dotted grey line of Hamilton converge, the gradient of the line converges towards Raikkonen's line, and not towards Lewis. The Lotus just had their pace constant the whole through the last stint. Hamilton knew that he had the same pace, and given the difficulty of overtaking at Hungary, was just toying with Raikkonen.

[megasyxx]

I think they should scrap the equal driver crap, it would be the best option to use it if they are obviously the fastest ...like in 1988 or 1998.

[raymondu999]

I think next year there will be such a situation, even if only de facto.

[Banki]

I can't wait to see Martin Whitmarsh's opinion that our car was the fastest one because Button took the fastest lap and Hamilton was fast too...

[raymondu999]

McLaren WERE fast on the prime though. It was just the options that they were slow on.

[mzivtins]

I can't wait to see Martin Whitmarsh's opinion that our car was the fastest one because Button took the fastest lap and Hamilton was fast too...

That isn't opinion, its fact isn't it? Fastest lap, the car was the fastest car on the track all day by the measurement over 1 lap intervals over the entire race. Isn't that the whole point of measuring the fastest lap?

what a team would learn from this is that in those conditions, with those specific tyre compounds that the car is fastest, and on the other side, they really need to figure out why the performance dies.