2018 McLaren F1 Team - Renault

[Juzh]

Alonso broke his, SV didn't, so either way Alonso would take a wing change, you wouldn't take two lots of penalties just so you could swap wings on both cars.
Vandoorne ended up on an old repaired wing after the start crash too.

I think vandoorne broke 3 FWs during practice sessions and they had no spares left. I could be wrong though, but i think I heard it mentioned on the sky broadcast.

[Ground Effect]

After yesterday's qualy, Alonso said on spanish TV that we still need to wait one more race. When asked what did he mean with that he just said sthg like "I don't know, just give the team more time". But he specifically said ONE more race, not some more races or some more time

Maybe all the stress is getting Fernando confused. Because Zak said in France that they can't do much during this triple header.

I understood he meant one more race of suffering. Upgrades after Silverstone, that is. But who knows?

Confirmation of what you mentioned. From the article below, looks like they believe they're making progress with finding a fix.

http://paddocktalk.com/news/html/story-321880.html

[dren]

The car seems to perform better with old or broken parts. The safety periods certainly helped out.

[diffuser]

They all had to run the same number of laps. McLaren didn't destroy it's tires, it deserved to finish ahead."FULL STOP".

Personal, I don't care about the Honda PUs. I'd be happy to NEVER talk about Honda again in this forum. I know techman comes in here and takes swipes at McLaren, so I swipe back. Simple.

I gave credit to Alonso, he did great. But that doesn't prove McLaren has a better car. A better strategy and driver perhaps, he also had less fights on the track before last couple of laps, a damaged floor on the STR, etc. You only need to look at Max vs Ricciardo tyre management to see that. The "FULL STOP" comment is a bit childish.

P.S.: Giving me "minus one" for my post with explanation >>"for destroying the tyres". nopes, one of them managed better.<< is pathetic too - not sure it was you though, but could have just written >>I don't like your post<<.

Wasn't me that dinged you.

I didn't say better car. I said "deserved to finish ahead".

[adrianjordan]

I do wonder whether Mclaren might not perform better with the season opening aero package until they get on top of their problems. If I was in the team I would at least be running it in FP1 to compare.

[diffuser]

The car seems to perform better with old or broken parts. The safety periods certainly helped out.

It's a low to medium df track. Going to an old spec wing wasn't a big deal. Plus they used the new top row. It was the lower wing that was from 2017. At Silverstone it would be a different story.

[Xero]

The car does seem to be kinder on it's tyres yet again, hence why we've seen a much improved race pace over qually. Hopefully the news that they now know the aero issues are true. If they can overcome them and fully understand their package it will bode well for input into next years car. The midfield is tighter than ever, if they find a chunk of performance the 2nd half of the season could look promising. Be interesting to see how they perform next week at Silverstone, the track should definitely see them higher up than they have been recently.

[diffuser]

The car does seem to be kinder on it's tyres yet again, hence why we've seen a much improved race pace over qually. Hopefully the news that they now know the aero issues are true. If they can overcome them and fully understand their package it will bode well for input into next years car. The midfield is tighter than ever, if they find a chunk of performance the 2nd half of the season could look promising. Be interesting to see how they perform next week at Silverstone, the track should definitely see them higher up than they have been recently.

That would be a welcome site.

[PhillipM]

It should, but unfortunately a lot of teams will be bringing upgrades at Silverstone, and we won't se what Mcl is shipping out early bar 3-4 new front wings

[Alonso Fan]

It's surprising that they ran out of the current spec FW but they had an old one available.

I assumed that they were going back to a part they were comfortable with last year to help solve their correlation issues.

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They didn't have it available. They flew the old 2017 spec in overnight.

All of the new specs were damaged on the high kerbs by both Alonso and Vandoorne running wide in practice and qualifying

[Xero]

I expect McLaren will have a few small updates to try out too though. FP1 will give a perfect opportunity to test out some rapid prototypes to confirm their understanding of the problem.

[RonDennis]

Maybe all the stress is getting Fernando confused. Because Zak said in France that they can't do much during this triple header.

I understood he meant one more race of suffering. Upgrades after Silverstone, that is. But who knows?

Confirmation of what you mentioned. From the article below, looks like they believe they're making progress with finding a fix.

http://paddocktalk.com/news/html/story-321880.html

That's probably why they were running new parts on Friday. Those aren't raceable yet, but according to the Spanish media they did do what McLaren expected them to do. Let's hope they can make some progress after Silverstone.

[Ground Effect]

I understood he meant one more race of suffering. Upgrades after Silverstone, that is. But who knows?

Confirmation of what you mentioned. From the article below, looks like they believe they're making progress with finding a fix.

http://paddocktalk.com/news/html/story-321880.html

That's probably why they were running new parts on Friday. Those aren't raceable yet, but according to the Spanish media they did do what McLaren expected them to do. Let's hope they can make some progress after Silverstone.

A couple of weeks back, it was reported that they expected to have updates for Monaco, Canada and Silverstone. Is the plan still on for the Silverstone updates, or the FP sessions will strictly about testing parts for future races, likely from Hungary?

[diffuser]

The car seems to perform better with old or broken parts. The safety periods certainly helped out.

They've only run with old or broken parts in races. You're mistaking better race than Quali pace for broken parts pace.

The difference is:
Quali - How fast you can go over one lap.
Race - Fastest average lap speed, including pit stops, your tires will let you go.

It's obvious McLaren have an edge over most of the midfield on tire life. This has surprised me to some extent. They lack top speed, so they tend to go faster in the corners to get the same lap time of others, which I presumed would consume the tires more. It's obviously alot more complicated than that. DF, the ability for the suspension to keep the largest contact patch on the pavement, corner speed and car length all factor in.

[diffuser]

Confirmation of what you mentioned. From the article below, looks like they believe they're making progress with finding a fix.

http://paddocktalk.com/news/html/story-321880.html

That's probably why they were running new parts on Friday. Those aren't raceable yet, but according to the Spanish media they did do what McLaren expected them to do. Let's hope they can make some progress after Silverstone.

A couple of weeks back, it was reported that they expected to have updates for Monaco, Canada and Silverstone. Is the plan still on for the Silverstone updates, or the FP sessions will strictly about testing parts for future races, likely from Hungary?

I suspect those updates are off.... it would all come down to what in the correlation was wrong and how that would effect the parts that they had scheduled to build for silverstone and how far into the build process they were. None of which we know.

We do know, the parts they tested that correlated in France will be ready for Germany/Hungry. That is 4-6 weeks from France and the standard lead time for producing Carbon fiber parts. What McLaren's capacity is for producing parts, could they produce other parts, is another unknown.