2018 McLaren F1 Team - Renault

[mwillems]

https://imgur.com/a/odLIx

Watching the differences on BSPD3 and BEST SPEED the lowest margin by far its for Alonso. Weird to see so abnormal margin. Its like he wasn't opening DRS on the whole straight or something, which i don't believe to be the case.Maybe Deployment issue. OR maybe he is using more downforce than the others. At least on those runs. It seems he carries more speed in the corner , has a good traction out of it, he arrives on start finish line with higher speed than other Renault engine cars and then downforce/drag catches up and keep his top speed low.
I don't know, It just looks weird.
Any Ideas ??

could be working on the settup for a wet qualiying tomorrow?

It could be the case but people were saying the same thing about Top speed in Barcelona. The reaction to that suggesting a draggy car. However, hopefully it is just that the engine is turned down a lot and they don't want to let the cat out of the bag. Not sure about wet setup for qualifying, because you'll soon get mugged in a dry race with 3 DRS zones so theres no massive benefit.

Many years of watching McLaren and looking for an optimistic conclusion to some ugly facts, makes me think that the facts are just ugly and the car is draggy, but time will tell.

[dren]

You can compare the Mclaren to the other Renault cars. It now looks like the Mclaren is a good chassis but a bit draggy.

[mwillems]

If it turns out to be wet tomorrow, we will get a better of idea of how much mechanical grip the car has, and whether that rear suspension does the trick.

[mclaren111]

You can compare the Mclaren to the other Renault cars. It now looks like the Mclaren is a good chassis but a bit draggy.

Any ideas of what is causing the drag ?

FW & RW does not look overly "big" / high downforce ??

[Andres125sx]

It’s time to roll some heads. Starting with Boullier. 4th season with him as head of the racing team. 4th start with massive problems. He has to go.

what boulier said was "they addressed the problems". that was followed by headlines of "mclaren promises to have fixed problems of testing", later elavated to "mclaren swear to fans that they will never, ever have a problem in the history of the future world" by people in the comment sections.

That´s a perfect explanation about how media and internet create hypes

[adrianjordan]

i am happy for long runs pace ...for Q lap look like need some work .....i think we are 4th best team ....wet weekend maybe gives more chance for something better of p7 ...

I'd say Haas is the 4th best at the moment. Mclaren will be fighting Renault for 5th, then FI, then TR fighting Williams. Sauber a further 8 tenths to a second behind the midpack.

I'd tend to agree, but Haas have yet to prove they can develop a car through the season and I expect Mclaren and Renault to pass them by the European season. Then it's down to who does the better job of those two. Logic would suggest that Mclaren have a steeper learning curve with the PU and so have more potential gains, but we will have to wait and see!!

[Bisonas]

https://imgur.com/a/odLIx

Watching the differences on BSPD3 and BEST SPEED the lowest margin by far its for Alonso. Weird to see so abnormal margin. Its like he wasn't opening DRS on the whole straight or something, which i don't believe to be the case.Maybe Deployment issue. OR maybe he is using more downforce than the others. At least on those runs. It seems he carries more speed in the corner , has a good traction out of it, he arrives on start finish line with higher speed than other Renault engine cars and then downforce/drag catches up and keep his top speed low.
I don't know, It just looks weird.
Any Ideas ??

could be working on the settup for a wet qualiying tomorrow?

It could be the case but people were saying the same thing about Top speed in Barcelona. The reaction to that suggesting a draggy car. However, hopefully it is just that the engine is turned down a lot and they don't want to let the cat out of the bag. Not sure about wet setup for qualifying, because you'll soon get mugged in a dry race with 3 DRS zones so theres no massive benefit.

Many years of watching McLaren and looking for an optimistic conclusion to some ugly facts, makes me think that the facts are just ugly and the car is draggy, but time will tell.

But Vandoornes BSPD3 and BEST SPEED is almost identical with the RBs. They arrive on start finish line at same speed, and they have almost identical speed on the end of the straight. Only Alonso has the abnormality, that's why i was thinking if he was running more downforce for some reason on FP2.

[dren]

i am happy for long runs pace ...for Q lap look like need some work .....i think we are 4th best team ....wet weekend maybe gives more chance for something better of p7 ...

I'd say Haas is the 4th best at the moment. Mclaren will be fighting Renault for 5th, then FI, then TR fighting Williams. Sauber a further 8 tenths to a second behind the midpack.

I'd tend to agree, but Haas have yet to prove they can develop a car through the season and I expect Mclaren and Renault to pass them by the European season. Then it's down to who does the better job of those two. Logic would suggest that Mclaren have a steeper learning curve with the PU and so have more potential gains, but we will have to wait and see!!

Yes, I expect Haas to get jumped at some point during the season. I'd like to see them stay competitive, but they've had a hard time keeping up with developments through the season.

[Ground Effect]

I'd say Haas is the 4th best at the moment. Mclaren will be fighting Renault for 5th, then FI, then TR fighting Williams. Sauber a further 8 tenths to a second behind the midpack.

I'd tend to agree, but Haas have yet to prove they can develop a car through the season and I expect Mclaren and Renault to pass them by the European season. Then it's down to who does the better job of those two. Logic would suggest that Mclaren have a steeper learning curve with the PU and so have more potential gains, but we will have to wait and see!!

Yes, I expect Haas to get jumped at some point during the season. I'd like to see them stay competitive, but they've had a hard time keeping up with developments through the season.

Will they get jumped, Haas I mean. I remember before testing they said their target was to be maximum 0.5secs from the works team and under 1.0secs from the leading team. I hope I got it right. Fernando has said he's not surprised by their pace because it's a 2017 Ferrari copy. They may just follow that development path through out the year. Also worth noting is that there was practically no upgrade on the chassis for Melbourne.

[diffuser]

It’s time to roll some heads. Starting with Boullier. 4th season with him as head of the racing team. 4th start with massive problems. He has to go.

What "massive" problems? THey had a relatively trouble free running apart from a minor hiccup in FP1.

If anything, this confirms, they need one of those full chassis dynos. None of these problems would have occurred with one of those.

[the EDGE]

It’s time to roll some heads. Starting with Boullier. 4th season with him as head of the racing team. 4th start with massive problems. He has to go.

What "massive" problems? THey had a relatively trouble free running apart from a minor hiccup in FP1.

If anything, this confirms, they need one of those full chassis dynos. None of these problems would have occurred with one of those.

Yes I think that’s been evident for some time now, when you can’t freely test your car on the track an advantage like that is invaluable.

[makecry]

It’s time to roll some heads. Starting with Boullier. 4th season with him as head of the racing team. 4th start with massive problems. He has to go.

What "massive" problems? THey had a relatively trouble free running apart from a minor hiccup in FP1.

If anything, this confirms, they need one of those full chassis dynos. None of these problems would have occurred with one of those.

Agreed. Apparently,Honda put in one last year at Sakura and McLaren had shipped a chassis there for testing. It's a very big investment though, Ferrari spent like $50-60mil IIRC on getting one.

[mwillems]

could be working on the settup for a wet qualiying tomorrow?

It could be the case but people were saying the same thing about Top speed in Barcelona. The reaction to that suggesting a draggy car. However, hopefully it is just that the engine is turned down a lot and they don't want to let the cat out of the bag. Not sure about wet setup for qualifying, because you'll soon get mugged in a dry race with 3 DRS zones so theres no massive benefit.

Many years of watching McLaren and looking for an optimistic conclusion to some ugly facts, makes me think that the facts are just ugly and the car is draggy, but time will tell.

But Vandoornes BSPD3 and BEST SPEED is almost identical with the RBs. They arrive on start finish line at same speed, and they have almost identical speed on the end of the straight. Only Alonso has the abnormality, that's why i was thinking if he was running more downforce for some reason on FP2.

Ahh ok i thought they were both slower at the end of the straight. In that case in concur, its odd. But i doubt its a wet setup.

I guess we will find out what is really happening in a few hours.

[Maynard G. Krebs]

It’s time to roll some heads. Starting with Boullier. 4th season with him as head of the racing team. 4th start with massive problems. He has to go.

What "massive" problems? THey had a relatively trouble free running apart from a minor hiccup in FP1.

If anything, this confirms, they need one of those full chassis dynos. None of these problems would have occurred with one of those.

The point is, they've had more problems than anyone else. It's not like they are the only team to have to fit a new engine in their car this year. OK, so anybody can end up with a defective part, but McLaren has had (as far as we can tell) more problems than anyone else. Whose responsibility is that?
And Boullier's career: Some success when he first got into racing, then later a couple of years with Lotus when they had that bizarre exhaust system. Any other successes?
Something is wrong with this team. You just can't keep saying "next race, "next year", over and over.
Maybe there is such a thing as a curse and Alonso can't escape it. But if you don't believe that, then what do you fix?

[PhillipM]

And yet we've had multiple teams that are still running the same engine also have issues.

We also had a dozen naysayers claiming the sky was falling over a little bit of bubbled vinyl and yet the car's here and it's performance isn't bad considering.