2018 McLaren F1 Team - Renault

[proteus]

Anybody know what the gear ratio issue is ? 8th not big enough Step between 7th and 8th too wide not wide enough ?

I can't even find onboards with speed on straights....

This gearbox issue was clear in Canada (i hope im not wrong about the circuit), where Alonso was in the slipstream of Leclerc with DRS active, catching him up, getting alongside but unable to overtake, jet the RPMs were maxed out the whole time. The main pain of Mclaren is its gearbox. Damn shame they miscalculated the ratios. And honestly, its silly that ratios are not allowed to be changed.

Not true. The 8th gear is long enough to hit 350+ kph. Alonso did so during q2 at Monza in Magnussen's slipstream. He couldn't overtake Leclerc because of bad corner exit, aero drag and high delta.

I wrote about Canada and not Monza. And if the drag would be the factor, then the revs would start to fall down again since the speed would decrease, but the speed was stationary and the revs were choking at the max limit. Ratios are track specific, so aparently they calculated them wrong in Canada.

[M840TR]

This gearbox issue was clear in Canada (i hope im not wrong about the circuit), where Alonso was in the slipstream of Leclerc with DRS active, catching him up, getting alongside but unable to overtake, jet the RPMs were maxed out the whole time. The main pain of Mclaren is its gearbox. Damn shame they miscalculated the ratios. And honestly, its silly that ratios are not allowed to be changed.

Not true. The 8th gear is long enough to hit 350+ kph. Alonso did so during q2 at Monza in Magnussen's slipstream. He couldn't overtake Leclerc because of bad corner exit, aero drag and high delta.

I wrote about Canada and not Monza. And if the drag would be the factor, then the revs would start to fall down again since the speed would decrease, but the speed was stationary and the revs were choking at the max limit. Ratios are track specific, so aparently they calculated them wrong in Canada.

They have the same gear ratios for the entire season...

I thought ratios are track specific. Apologies then. But still, in Canada the car was hitting the rev limit, and i dare to say that Mclaren with deployed DRS has less drag than Sauber without one.

[PhillipM]

I didn't see the Mclaren anywhere near 15krpm at Canada.

[diffuser]

I didn't see the Mclaren anywhere near 15krpm at Canada.

where you looking?

[M840TR]

Here's the video. Starts at 8:20. You can see from the rev counter on the steering wheel that it was nowhere near lock. The problem with gear ratios is probably that they're too long. Making the engine spend less time on peak power rev than ideal and thereby reducing overall performance. We've seen from Monza that hitting 350+ kph isn't a problem. This is just a speculation though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbjQ24F91EA

[PhillipM]

Okay, so, massive unsubstantiated theory about gear ratios turns out to be nothing to do with it and it's just a poor exit from the previous corner from Alonso.

Do we really need to do this again, we know how little gear ratio's matter with the parameters for these new engines because they have plenty of headroom to overspeed if they need to for a few seconds of overtake, without much in the way of extra stress.
The only thing short gear ratios would do is hurt their fuel efficiency a small amount at the very fastest tracks.

[GoranF1]

Pat Fry is a mistake.

Why?

Because GoranF1 says so. He's the specialist on this forum.

Because he was the weak link in last Mclaren era, weak link in Ferrari...where ever he comes the ship goes down.

[GoranF1]

Fry will stay when Key joins.

Lets hope not

[ALO_Power]

Also Ferrari used McLaren's rear wing endplate idea:

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/ferr ... a/3181017/

[diffuser]

They have the same gear ratios for the entire season...

I thought ratios are track specific. Apologies then. But still, in Canada the car was hitting the rev limit, and i dare to say that Mclaren with deployed DRS has less drag than Sauber without one.

It doesn't make sense to me. I can understand wrong gear ratios but not rev-limiter.
The F1 rev limit is like 15K but you're getting power drop off at ~ 11K cause you'd need more fuel flow that the F1 limits allow. So you're gonna struggle to get to that 15K.

Wrong Gear ratio
I can believe that the Renault PU power is at a lower RPM range than Honda PU, therefore, it struggles to get to the same speeds with the same gear ratio.

Top speed will vary depend on items like tow, straight slant, wind speed and direction..

[RonDennis]

Why?

Because GoranF1 says so. He's the specialist on this forum.

Because he was the weak link in last Mclaren era, weak link in Ferrari...where ever he comes the ship goes down.

Lol. McLaren switched yearly between Fry and Goss.

Pat Fry was responsible for the MP4-20 (Autosport's 2005 Racing Car Of The Year), MP4-22 (Autosport's 2007 Racing Car Of The Year) and the MP4-24 chassis.

Costa is also garbage according to you? Because he also left Ferrari and now works for Mercedes.

[flmkane]

Because GoranF1 says so. He's the specialist on this forum.

Because he was the weak link in last Mclaren era, weak link in Ferrari...where ever he comes the ship goes down.

Lol. McLaren switched yearly between Fry and Goss.

Pat Fry was responsible for the MP4-20 (Autosport's 2005 Racing Car Of The Year), MP4-22 (Autosport's 2007 Racing Car Of The Year) and the MP4-24 chassis.

Costa is also garbage according to you? Because he also left Ferrari and now works for Mercedes.

What did I just read?

Adrian Newey was the designer of the MP4-20, the MP4-22 was a derivative of the 21, which was an evolution of the 19, which itself was a debugged Mp4-18. In short they were all descended from the work of Adrian Newey.

And if you will recall, the MP4-24 chassis was utter garbage until the put a Double Diffuser in it. Even then it was only good in the hands of Hamilton.

Similarly, the Mp4-26 was pretty lackluster, and the Mp4-28 was the first of the current series of winless Mclaren F1 cars. Versus the 25 and 27, which were quick. The 27 was even quicker than the 2012 Red Bull RB-8 in many races. Guess which ones Fry was in charge of ? Not the good ones.

I sense much Cognitive Dissonance.

[Chicane]

Gearbox ratios are fixed for the season.

The 8th gear is tall enough to hit close to 350kph as demonstrated in Monza when Alonso overtook Magnussen in qualifying.

I feel the gear ratios are not perfectly optimized to the powerband of the Renault power unit. In F1 even a really small discrepancy can be costly as everything is optimized closed to perfection. Also since the gear ratios are fixed for the season, they are not perfectly aligned with every track layout anways but on top of that if the set of gear ratios is not optimized to the torque curve it can hurt acceleration.

May be the talked about extreme setup direction for low downforce tracks involves running an ultra low downforce settings which allows the car to pull relatively stronger in the top gear. In a nutshell it looks like the top gear is slightly taller and not shorter cos the car pulls higher speed when under tow from another car which wouldn't happen if thr car was bouncing off the revlimiter.

[Dipesh1995]

Adrian Newey was the designer of the MP4-20, the MP4-22 was a derivative of the 21, which was an evolution of the 19, which itself was a debugged Mp4-18. In short they were all descended from the work of Adrian Newey.

Correct, to an extent. However, the MP4-20 was the last truly Newey designed McLaren. Yes the subsequent cars up until MP4-23 were derivatives but they were developed without Newey under Fry, Goss and Lowe. Remember the first direct descendent from the MP4-20, the MP4-21, was winless.

And if you will recall, the MP4-24 chassis was utter garbage until the put a Double Diffuser in it. Even then it was only good in the hands of Hamilton.

Wrong. The MP4-24 remained a dog until the Germany upgrade package that consisted of more than just the double diffuser. The car already had a previous iteration of the double diffuser before Germany if I recall correctly. And suddenly, after Germany, it became the 2nd fastest car in most races behind the RB5 and the fastest in some. As for it only being good in Hamilton’s hands, Kovalainen was hardly any good in the championship-winning MP4-23 was he?

Similarly, the Mp4-26 was pretty lackluster, and the Mp4-28 was the first of the current series of winless Mclaren F1 cars. Versus the 25 and 27, which were quick. The 27 was even quicker than the 2012 Red Bull RB-8 in many races. Guess which ones Fry was in charge of ? Not the good ones.

Wrong again. The MP4-26 wasn’t lacklustre at all. Overall, it was the second fastest car throughout the season with it being the fastest at many races. Heck it won 6 races when it should’ve won 8 or 9 (Spain, Monaco, Korea to name but a few). I agree that the MP4-25 and MP4-27 were quick cars and should’ve Hamilton the WDC but for a number of events that occurred. And Fry wasn’t responsible for any McLaren after the MP4-25 as he had left the team in May 2010.

I sense much Cognitive Dissonance.

Wasn’t really needed was it? Instead of attempting to insult, maybe you should get your facts straight?

[GoranF1]

Because GoranF1 says so. He's the specialist on this forum.

Because he was the weak link in last Mclaren era, weak link in Ferrari...where ever he comes the ship goes down.

Lol. McLaren switched yearly between Fry and Goss.

Pat Fry was responsible for the MP4-20 (Autosport's 2005 Racing Car Of The Year), MP4-22 (Autosport's 2007 Racing Car Of The Year) and the MP4-24 chassis.

Costa is also garbage according to you? Because he also left Ferrari and now works for Mercedes.

You need to get your facts checked.
And yes Costa is same level as Fry.