2018 McLaren F1 Team - Renault

[bauc]

Probably back somewhere in the 72 pages in here it has been discussed, but are there opinions regarding the change of leadership with Big Ron out? my thoughts are the team has only gone sideways.

Interestingly, James Allen seems to think that the MCL33 is aerodynamically sound, said they could bridge the gap to Red Bull.
He seems very impressed with what they've put out. Mclaren have been running the softer compounds more than others. I doubt if it's about setting headline times. I feel they're opting to do things a bit differently. Next week should give a clearer picture.

Mclaren's tyre simulation showed that the hyper soft was the best tyre for the temps.

Also I can't remember where I read it (BBC maybe) but because of such cold temps the medium tyre was actually one of the fastest performance wise and having anything softer didn't really gain you anything.

I think it had to do with putting the innovative rear suspension arms with maximum grip and maximum load/stress, and you can do that in the corners with the softest tyre.

[GoranF1]

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/opin ... side-times

At McLaren the headline numbers looked good, with Stoffel Vandoorne second quickest on Thursday – but that was using the hyper-soft, a much quicker tyre than anyone else. He remained on this compound throughout his running and taking account of its performance boost puts the McLaren around 2sec off the Red Bull. However it’s believed to have been running in compromised form, possibly related to a problem with exhaust temperatures that brought a premature end to its Tuesday. If the engine was being run rich to control exhaust temperatures, it would cost significant performance. Fernando Alonso spent most of his time on the super-soft but wasn’t particularly fast either. A lot of question marks surround the MCL33 at the moment, but hopefully it will show its true potential if it can run in uncompromised form next week.

[DFX]

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/opin ... side-times

At McLaren the headline numbers looked good, with Stoffel Vandoorne second quickest on Thursday – but that was using the hyper-soft, a much quicker tyre than anyone else. He remained on this compound throughout his running and taking account of its performance boost puts the McLaren around 2sec off the Red Bull. However it’s believed to have been running in compromised form, possibly related to a problem with exhaust temperatures that brought a premature end to its Tuesday. If the engine was being run rich to control exhaust temperatures, it would cost significant performance. Fernando Alonso spent most of his time on the super-soft but wasn’t particularly fast either. A lot of question marks surround the MCL33 at the moment, but hopefully it will show its true potential if it can run in uncompromised form next week.

If we disregard that the author of the article tried to measure performance between the teams only by timings, we can see that he also put haas ahead of mclaren. Completely nonsense read.

The statment about tires are not correctly either. Softer compounds are easier to 'activate' but combine this with the low track temps and the higher working range temp needed to make those kind of compounds extract performance and you can make a case, like some here said, that mediuns and harder compounds were indeed better for the kind of conditions foun on track.

[GoranF1]

Confirmation Mclaren is 5th ATM.

[media]https://twitter.com/LeeMathurin/status/ ... 0382792707[/media]
[media]https://twitter.com/alo_pumpa/status/969563085714452486[/media]
[media]https://twitter.com/LeeMathurin/status/ ... 6863165442[/media]

[RonDennis]

Confirmation Mclaren is 5th ATM.

https://twitter.com/LeeMathurin/status/ ... 0382792707
https://twitter.com/alo_pumpa/status/969563085714452486
https://twitter.com/LeeMathurin/status/ ... 6863165442

Haha, you call that confirmation.

[the EDGE]

The ONLY confirmation of anything performance wise in F1 will come in 3 weeks time... what is so hard about waiting until then?

[trinidefender]

Confirmation Mclaren is 5th ATM.

https://twitter.com/LeeMathurin/status/ ... 0382792707
https://twitter.com/alo_pumpa/status/969563085714452486
https://twitter.com/LeeMathurin/status/ ... 6863165442

Confirmation by whom exactly?

[Del Boy]

I had my post on the Honda engine forum deleted earlier because it wasn't constructive and to be fair it probably wasn't. I've been a member of this forum for many years. I am a complete McLaren fan and worked at MTC for 4 years between 2006 and 2010. It's been a tough 3 years looking at them struggle with the Honda elastic band in the back. I have tried to keep away from the Honda engine forum since November 2017 because there are many Honda fanboy's saying how funny it will be when TR beat McLaren in this years championship. And to be fair I was slightly nervous of their predictions until yesterday. What a great sense of pride I felt to see the MCL33 at the top of the timesheets after 4 years of pain. Well done to the whole McLaren team, I will be getting up early to watch fly away races with some hope again and wearing my teamware with without feeling embarrassed. I'm looking forward to 2018 F1. Incidentally I'm off to Barcelona next Thurs and Fri to watch testing.
As for this forum and like Wazari I shall be retiring and just enjoying MY personal F1 experience. This used to be a great place to understand the secretive world of F1 spoilt by moderators and Honda

[kaepernickus]

Confirmation Mclaren is 5th ATM

Could you please stop with your doom and gloom posts based mostly on thin air?
First that useless "we are two seconds behind Fercedes", now this whole "analysis shows McLaren is only 5th"...

That was week one of winter testing run under extreme weather conditions. Nobody knows how much of their potential teams have shown up until now.

There's nothing but speculation right now. No proof, no anaylsis, no confirmations.

[nzjrs]

Confirmation Mclaren is 5th ATM

Could you please stop with your doom and gloom posts based mostly on thin air?

I recommend and enjoy using the 'Ignore User' feature.

For people that frequent the Honda/McLaren forums, I bet many people have the same 5 or so users ignored.

[GoranF1]

Confirmation Mclaren is 5th ATM

Could you please stop with your doom and gloom posts based mostly on thin air?
First that useless "we are two seconds behind Fercedes", now this whole "analysis shows McLaren is only 5th"...

That was week one of winter testing run under extreme weather conditions. Nobody knows how much of their potential teams have shown up until now.

There's nothing but speculation right now. No proof, no anaylsis, no confirmations.

Its more than 2 sec

[aral]

Some people seem to be getting a bit worked up about the team and its "position" after testing. Forget it, testing is no indication of race pace and remember, running was not in normal race conditions either. Nobody can gain any inference as to how a team or driver is doing based on these testing results. Yeah, it might be fun speculating...Van Doorne might even win the Melbourne GP.
but people coming up with unsubstantiated comments, need to ease off a bit. It can rile others. So please try and post sensible and constructive articles on the team, rather than antagonise others.

[zoroastar]

Confirmation Mclaren is 5th ATM

Could you please stop with your doom and gloom posts based mostly on thin air?

I recommend and enjoy using the 'Ignore User' feature.

For people that frequent the Honda/McLaren forums, I bet many people have the same 5 or so users ignored.

im a photographer and visit a lot of camera forums. just like here, there are fanatical trollers that create accounts only to visit competing camera brands site and argue about how their (sony) camera is better than my nikon or canon (who cares right?). as soon as one name is ignored, there are 2 more that pop up. its amazing how much time these people have on their hands. either that, or japanese companies know the affect of propaganda, and actually employ people to do this stuff. i suspect its a bit of both.
more on topic, if someone thinks they know that mclaren is 2 seconds behind anyone at this stage they are delusional. not to mention all the missing aero parts that will surely filter in from now until the end of march.

[GoranF1]

Bla bla bla

In other news..

https://www.mclaren.com/formula1/2018/t ... CNTest2018

[McG]

Confirmation Mclaren is 5th ATM

Could you please stop with your doom and gloom posts based mostly on thin air?

I recommend and enjoy using the 'Ignore User' feature.

For people that frequent the Honda/McLaren forums, I bet many people have the same 5 or so users ignored.

Thanks for this I didn't know there was an ignore feature. I'll have a look to find it.

Same people again posting nonsense. I want to enjoy this season and this year reading the forum while McLaren progress hopefully. The ignore feature will come in very handy.