2018 McLaren F1 Team - Renault

[RonDennis]

You have to wonder if the chassis isn't fundamentally flawed. Nobody knows when these problems started, but they were already aware at the start of the season that something didn't match. The pace of the car has never been good. The MCL32 certainly wasn't the best chassis on the grid, but it was decent, just look at the performance of several races at the end of the year.

The race pace of MCL33 has been very good. Bahrain, Alonso finished right behind Hulk despite running on harder tires for 40 out of 56(?) laps. China again, Hulk got a free pitstop and ALO lost out on safety car, Canada he was 0.15s faster than Hulk when they were in free air. Monaco again he had 4th fastest race pace, Baku wasn't really representative.

France was the first time they had very very shitty pace.

Well, we probably have different standards. I'm not impressed by the MCL33 and McLaren isn't either. Terrible pace in quali, poor pace in races. Getting lapped every race isn't something what I would call very good.

I fully agree with Benson.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/44590425

[McG]

Don't even know where to start after the dire performance in France. Depression, hopelessness, GP2 chassis.

I think McLaren will be settling on just being happy to still be in F1 for the next few years. There will be no podiums.

I don't like EB, ZB, SV, Renault or FA (but I have to respect his speed), and I'm not sure PP is doing much... maybe he made the 4th best chassis at some point... WOW. Personally I don't know what there is to like about McLaren now. The building? It's all blind faith now, but I'm atheist.

The only excuse can be that it's taking time for the engine to be integrated, which I would totally understand. When Alonso leaves they will be even worse but I would rather see other people leave before that.

/rant

[604gtir]

belive me, even they dont know what it is because balance is good.

they again had the worst top speed, lack of traction and overal grip. alonso looked to have understeer to snap over in the first sector several times, running wide etc...

Anyone know how much longer the wheelbase is this year and how they lengthened the wheelbase?

[F1Krof]

Man listening to Best of Team Radio (French GP). I was never a huge fan of Alonso, but I f'ing feel for him. What a driver and an absolute legend giving it all whilst in P13. Man, the situation is sad at the moment. I can't believe it. Imagine having Ham, Alo, Vet, Ver, Ric, Bot at the front!!!! FIREWORKS! Now that's how you make the sport more interesting. Jesus, I can't even look at Alonso without feeling utter remorse.

[BrunoH]

i have no ideia. One big thing might be the new suspension design but its not that alone.

another thing is they went from Honda, the lightest engine with the lowest COG according to what was said at the time.. that might have be an issue, however they then do not have a Balance problem... its very odd. so it should also not be this the cause.

they tried to fix the Drag issue that was clear from Testing, but then lost performance on the corners. Something they actualy had before the big update. very very strange.

HAving raced in Karts, when you have a balance issue, or limitations on the rear or front end, you know what is the limit factor. ( obviously we dont have aero Flow issues such as detach of flow etc ) but its really hard to find time and cornering speed when the balance is good. then this is a huge issue because you as a driver come back and say to the mechanics, the balance is good so. If this happens then you really do not know were to change in the setup!

obvioulsy they in F1 have tons more data, but when drivers come in such as Alonso and say , balance is good, then Stoffel also comes is and say the same, you have a hard time making changes because then it can be even worse. you are just guessing. first easy fix is put more wing front and rear so you dont mess with the balance but to try and have some more overal grip. however then this snowballs to lowest topspeed of the entire field. You know then and there there is an issue. just dont know were....

[makecry]

You have to wonder if the chassis isn't fundamentally flawed. Nobody knows when these problems started, but they were already aware at the start of the season that something didn't match. The pace of the car has never been good. The MCL32 certainly wasn't the best chassis on the grid, but it was decent, just look at the performance of several races at the end of the year.

The race pace of MCL33 has been very good. Bahrain, Alonso finished right behind Hulk despite running on harder tires for 40 out of 56(?) laps. China again, Hulk got a free pitstop and ALO lost out on safety car, Canada he was 0.15s faster than Hulk when they were in free air. Monaco again he had 4th fastest race pace, Baku wasn't really representative.

France was the first time they had very very shitty pace.

Well, we probably have different standards. I'm not impressed by the MCL33 and McLaren isn't either. Terrible pace in quali, poor pace in races. Getting lapped every race isn't something what I would call very good.

I fully agree with Benson.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/44590425

I am going by facts. That's all. MCL33 is a dog in qualifying but numbers and lap times show that it has had pace on par with Renault for more or less all races apart from Baku and France. "very good" is an exaggeration on my part , yes but it has had better race pace than the results show and if their quali pace was as good as their race pace, they would be in a much better state point wise.

[M840TR]

Some words of advice from Adrian Newey that could help Mclaren

1. Never let a financial guy take over the team. When he was at Leytonhouse they put a guy in charge of finance to run the team and easy to say it didn't go too well for them.



2. No press is best to avoid negative press. I think Eric might be a decent guy in the roll he plays (director of race operations) but man is he the worst when it comes to the camera. He should probably lay low for a while like Arrivabene does.



3. Stick to a design philosophy if it works.



And for those saying Peter Prodromou should be fired for their problems: Leytonhouse had probably the best car in 1988 but in 89 suffered wind tunnel correlation problems. After 12 months they found out the wind tunnel was defected. There might be a similar issue with the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne even if it is considered very high tech since Force India are suffering from it too (they use the same tunnel); only a speculation but not too far fetched.
When Newey came up with a solution after finding the problems he designed a new diffuser and front wing. By the next race in 1990 the Leytonhouse cars were on to finish 1st & 2nd in the race only to suffer from reliability problems and had one DNF but still separated the pair of Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna to finish second with a much slower engine. But by that time Newey was fired and went on to join Williams. The rest in history.

[mrluke]

Very apt quote from Newey, since the 2012 car Mclaren have been lost. Its no surprise that Mclaren are fighting with Renault this year, they were basically even with them last year.

It seems that each year they need to come up with some scapegoat / golden bullet that will magically fix the car, we had MAG then Whitmarsh then Ron and now Honda. I think the whole paddock knows that Mclaren have wider team culture issues that is going to require some pretty radical action to resolve, the only people that havent grasped this appears to be Mclaren.

[Edax]

i have no ideia. One big thing might be the new suspension design but its not that alone.

another thing is they went from Honda, the lightest engine with the lowest COG according to what was said at the time.. that might have be an issue, however they then do not have a Balance problem... its very odd. so it should also not be this the cause.

they tried to fix the Drag issue that was clear from Testing, but then lost performance on the corners. Something they actualy had before the big update. very very strange.

HAving raced in Karts, when you have a balance issue, or limitations on the rear or front end, you know what is the limit factor. ( obviously we dont have aero Flow issues such as detach of flow etc ) but its really hard to find time and cornering speed when the balance is good. then this is a huge issue because you as a driver come back and say to the mechanics, the balance is good so. If this happens then you really do not know were to change in the setup!

obvioulsy they in F1 have tons more data, but when drivers come in such as Alonso and say , balance is good, then Stoffel also comes is and say the same, you have a hard time making changes because then it can be even worse. you are just guessing. first easy fix is put more wing front and rear so you dont mess with the balance but to try and have some more overal grip. however then this snowballs to lowest topspeed of the entire field. You know then and there there is an issue. just dont know were....

It odd indeed. The last few years the cars had serious suspension issues. I mean it was clear to see especially trackside. The front was all over the place in heavy braking zones. They couldn't brake into the corner, the rear took ages to recover from an upset. That is going to hurt you double, at corner entry and exit.

This year I have not been able to see the care “life”, but it looks pretty stable. Not a lot of movement in the corners, not an exessive amount of steering input. the car seems to be just... slow.

I wonder whether they have not covered their instability problems with excessive amounts of downforce and thus drag.

[makecry]

i have no ideia. One big thing might be the new suspension design but its not that alone.

another thing is they went from Honda, the lightest engine with the lowest COG according to what was said at the time.. that might have be an issue, however they then do not have a Balance problem... its very odd. so it should also not be this the cause.

they tried to fix the Drag issue that was clear from Testing, but then lost performance on the corners. Something they actualy had before the big update. very very strange.

HAving raced in Karts, when you have a balance issue, or limitations on the rear or front end, you know what is the limit factor. ( obviously we dont have aero Flow issues such as detach of flow etc ) but its really hard to find time and cornering speed when the balance is good. then this is a huge issue because you as a driver come back and say to the mechanics, the balance is good so. If this happens then you really do not know were to change in the setup!

obvioulsy they in F1 have tons more data, but when drivers come in such as Alonso and say , balance is good, then Stoffel also comes is and say the same, you have a hard time making changes because then it can be even worse. you are just guessing. first easy fix is put more wing front and rear so you dont mess with the balance but to try and have some more overal grip. however then this snowballs to lowest topspeed of the entire field. You know then and there there is an issue. just dont know were....

It odd indeed. The last few years the cars had serious suspension issues. I mean it was clear to see especially trackside. The front was all over the place in heavy braking zones. They couldn't brake into the corner, the rear took ages to recover from an upset. That is going to hurt you double, at corner entry and exit.

This year I have not been able to see the care “life”, but it looks pretty stable. Not a lot of movement in the corners, not an exessive amount of steering input. the car seems to be just... slow.

I wonder whether they have not covered their instability problems with excessive amounts of downforce and thus drag.

That is just factually wrong. 2017 car had no such issues. That car was very good under braking and behaved very well on corner entry, you could see Alonso attacking the corners and even Martin Brundle said multiple times over the season how the car "changed direction very quickly" .Even the 2016 car was very good under braking and whatever issues the 2016 car had were addressed with the 2017 car. The 2018 car on the other hand had issues with corner entry, Stoffel said it in an interview. The quotes have been posted on reddit and the other forum.

[chepoi]

you will not gain anything when you hired the set of engineers from the mediocre lotus/caterham/minardi kinda like engineers..... simple....
did ya'll realised that the way mclaren carry the design of the car is like caterham? green livery year in year out..... we're orange..... caterham culture overcome the mclaren culture....the simplicity of the design exactly as aterham..the rate of development also quite the same like caterham...zac..... fire Eric Boullier... and hired the first class engineers from red bull racing, mercedes amg, ferrari...

McLaren have a resources like red bull but spending like caterham or minardi!!! what do you expect with that pace of development? to get on the podium? in your wildest dream you will never ever be on the podium!

[makecry]

you will not gain anything when you hired the set of engineers from the mediocre lotus/caterham/minardi kinda like engineers..... simple....
did ya'll realised that the way mclaren carry the design of the car is like caterham? green livery year in year out..... we're orange..... caterham culture overcome the mclaren culture....the simplicity of the design exactly as aterham..the rate of development also quite the same like caterham...zac..... fire Eric Boullier... and hired the first class engineers from red bull racing, mercedes amg, ferrari...

McLaren have a resources like red bull but spending like caterham or minardi!!!

Peter Prod was RedBull's F1 aero chief. lol.

[chepoi]

you will not gain anything when you hired the set of engineers from the mediocre lotus/caterham/minardi kinda like engineers..... simple....
did ya'll realised that the way mclaren carry the design of the car is like caterham? green livery year in year out..... we're orange..... caterham culture overcome the mclaren culture....the simplicity of the design exactly as aterham..the rate of development also quite the same like caterham...zac..... fire Eric Boullier... and hired the first class engineers from red bull racing, mercedes amg, ferrari...

McLaren have a resources like red bull but spending like caterham or minardi!!!

Peter Prod was RedBull's F1 aero chief. lol.

PP alone can't do anything if the engineers in the team mediocre.

[makecry]

you will not gain anything when you hired the set of engineers from the mediocre lotus/caterham/minardi kinda like engineers..... simple....
did ya'll realised that the way mclaren carry the design of the car is like caterham? green livery year in year out..... we're orange..... caterham culture overcome the mclaren culture....the simplicity of the design exactly as aterham..the rate of development also quite the same like caterham...zac..... fire Eric Boullier... and hired the first class engineers from red bull racing, mercedes amg, ferrari...

McLaren have a resources like red bull but spending like caterham or minardi!!!

Peter Prod was RedBull's F1 aero chief. lol.

PP alone can't do anything if the engineers in the team mediocre.

I agree but you said the car's design is like caterham and PP is significantly responsible for how the car looks like and he came from RedBull. You can't expect to be taken seriously when you make statements like that.

[techman]

there is no one even close to adrian newey. mclaren though bringing PP will make them a car like a redbull. lol redbull is the most efficient aero wise.