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More details about McLaren's technical leadership changes are becoming public as it has now become clear that Toro Rosso's highly valued technical director, James Key, is set to join McLaren in the same role.
I think it's a barometer of McLaren's present F1 state.trinidefender wrote: ↑17 Nov 2018, 03:47I just heard news that the McLaren F1 tea.....ohhhhhh sorry, don't mean to disturb. I didn't realise that this was the indycar thread. Carry on.
If he wanted to be in F1 in 2020, he should have stayed in 2019... He also said he wouldn't be in f1 in 2021....If he signs in 2020 , he would have to sign for 3 years....
I get the feeling Renault still have an eye on Carlos in the long term, but I expect him to do at least 2 years with Mclaren. Even if Fernando does come back, 2021 is more of a possibility, at least in theory, because as far as I know, only LeClerc has a contract beyond 2020.diffuser wrote: ↑17 Nov 2018, 20:22If he wanted to be in F1 in 2020, he should have stayed in 2019... He also said he wouldn't be in f1 in 2021....If he signs in 2020 , he would have to sign for 3 years....
The top 3's story will not change. Renault's story will not change ....his best shot was with with McLaren. One of the 2 drivers would have to really bomb next year to allow him back in. I highly doubt Saints will. I'm not sure McLaren would be ready to give up on Lando after 1 bad year.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/46237953To compare Alonso and Schumacher, Stella conjures the idea of mapping the individual qualities that make up a racing driver - speed, wet-weather driving, technical feedback, intelligence, consistency, tyre sensitivity, adaptability, the ability to compute things beyond the immediate driving etc - as points around a centre, the further away from the centre, the more highly developed the skill.
He says: "If you take a circle of qualities, where Fernando is very high (in all of them) but potentially not the best in any of them, I think Michael was potentially the best in some of them, but in some others he was weaker than Fernando.
"So Michael's would be more like a star, whereas Fernando's is more like a perfect circle, but potentially not up to the excellence some of the drivers might have shown (in some of the areas)."
Stella uses examples from two areas - driving and technical feedback - to illustrate how two different approaches can lead to a similar end result.
"Michael was an attacking driver. He approached things from beyond the limit, back to the limit. Fernando is more from below the limit, to the limit.
"So for example, Michael's capacity to control the rear end and drive an oversteery car was just unbelievable. But sometimes this became his weakness. Because he drove a car so oversteery in free practice that when it came to qualifying, where you push that 1% more, he might have too much oversteer, or too much rear tyre degradation in the race.
"So with Michael, the engineers had to have an active role in trying to control his capacity and say: 'Michael, where are you doing this and where is the car doing that? We need more from the car and less from you.'
"Fernando understands his own limits better, and he is very good at understanding where he is contributing and where the car is contributing. He can prepare the car for the race very well thanks to this.
Another interesting difference is that Michael was very analytical and dialectical. We spent so much time speaking about the car.
"Fernando is a concise person. When he comes back to the pits, in the first three words of his feedback, he has said 95% of his point.
"With Michael, the technique was more about filtering the essence from the details. With Fernando, it is more using a lot of specific questions to build a detailed-enough picture from the essence.
"His sensitivity to the car is exceptional. It is just a matter of where you feel comfortable as a driver. He feels comfortable if he knows that we are attacking 90% of the problem."
And Stella gives one final insight into the level of Alonso's sensitivity to the car's behaviour, and adaptability, and the benefits that brings.
"With Fernando,when there is a problem, it tends to be spread over all the corners. Like, if there is too much oversteer, you see it is more or less everywhere. While some drivers may say understeer here, oversteer there.
"That is a matter of awareness. You can create your own understeer, for example. Like, if the car is a bit nervous, you don't commit to turn early enough, or to turn enough. So you delay the turn-in, and then you are always going to get an understeery car mid-corner.
"But not all drivers realise that this mid-corner balance is very much a result of what happens in the earlier 50m. And that's very tricky for an engineer, because if you only go with the driver, you get lost, because you keep going after the mid-corner understeer."
Fernando Alonso is predicting an upturn in performance for his McLaren team next season, believing the team have learned their lessons during a difficult period.
