McLaren MCL33

[ringo]

That 2012 car was not that great. It was like a supersonic fighter jet without avionics, depending too much on the driver to balance it on a knife edge to make it deliver lap time. This is what hamilton was doing with the car to get it to run at the front; hence why he was going over the limit many times to keep pace with redbull.
Button made this very same car look like a midfield car. So i disagree with the notion that somehow it was some top car that could be cruised, easy to drive, and manage gaps at the front. I agree though that it was one of the better mclarens in the past ten years.
I remember one of the cars that had a certain exhaust system fitted that Hamilton was able to get lap time out of at silverstone, but it wasn't drivable in Button's hands so they had to remove the update. It's these kinds of nonsense Mclaren keep repeating year in year out. They build a car that needs all the planets and their moons aligned with the driver under a shaman's trance for 300km to get a podium. This may be why Vandorne looked so mediocre this year, Alonso was balancing the marble on a spoon's back to get lap time out of it.

[M840TR]

That 2012 car was not that great. It was like a supersonic fighter jet without avionics, depending too much on the driver to balance it on a knife edge to make it deliver lap time. This is what hamilton was doing with the car to get it to run at the front; hence why he was going over the limit many times to keep pace with redbull.
Button made this very same car look like a midfield car. So i disagree with the notion that somehow it was some top car that could be cruised, easy to drive, and manage gaps at the front. I agree though that it was one of the better mclarens in the past ten years.
I remember one of the cars that had a certain exhaust system fitted that Hamilton was able to get lap time out of at silverstone, but it wasn't drivable in Button's hands so they had to remove the update. It's these kinds of nonsense Mclaren keep repeating year in year out. They build a car that needs all the planets and their moons aligned with the driver under a shaman's trance for 300km to get a podium. This may be why Vandorne looked so mediocre this year, Alonso was balancing the marble on a spoon's back to get lap time out of it.

I disagree. Button isn't very good over one lap, even according to himself, and the team managed to get several front row lock-outs like Australia, Malaysia and Monza. Button also got his only pole for Mclaren that year in Spa. So the car was fast but unreliable and the team kept making errors in pit-stops etc hence the advantage was wiped away.

[ringo]

You are ignoring how the car ran in the race. Most times Button was going backwards.
The red bull by far has been the best car over the four years the championships were won. Hamilton had a shout at it yes, but it wasn't his to lose, he was more the dark horse that year.

[gibells]

Not sure why we're arguing over one of their good cars, when the clear flaw they had was in completely redesigning a new car for the next year. That was the year they pushed for the silver bullet of the butterfly suspension (2013).

Following Red bull's ethos of evolution would have brought the gains, because they had amazingly developed the 2012 car into something that won 4 out of 5 of the last gp's. But as always they started with a completely clean sheet. And such were the flaws that they never won again.

[aral]

Please do not post on the historical past. Stick to the MCL 33, please. Off topic posts will be removed.

[Nonserviam85]

A very experienced aerodynamics engineer (who is not working in F1 anymore) told me in an casual chat that in his humble opinion McLaren's main issue is the shape of sidepods-bargeboards they are using because it does not work very well with the High-Rake concept. He was also questioning McL's decision of using a small inlet and not increasing the size of the inlet in order to reduce the size of the sidepods. Maybe the late PU change didn't allow them to optimize the cooling packaging this year and we might see a complete different design next year.

Funnily enough just a couple of weeks later this link confirms the view above...

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... cGYIW.html

[DarkAlman]

From an article published this morning:

Apparently, an aerodynamic problem produced too much drag on the car and the lack of ability to maintain downforce in corners were the main issues on the car. McLaren's executive chairman and shareholder Sheikh Mohammed bin Essa Al Khalifa confirmed the problem was permanent unless they completely changed the chassis.

I guess that settles that, and once again seems to confirm you can't trust anything that comes out of Boullier's mouth.
Just a question of what the exact cause was.

Apparently they didn't discover the full extent of the problem "until after the summer break."

"[Nothing would have fixed it. And had we discovered that in April we would have had a b-car. But it was too late," he told motorsport.

Tim Goss was let go in April. Which may imply he was sacked coinciding with a missed deadline.

[McHonda]

Or for a rookie error like messing up the gear ratios for the entire year. Or for a new rear suspension that failed miserably in of itself, (outside of any link to the bigger issue not discovered until after the break).

[PhillipM]

The gear ratio's certainly were not anywhere near Mclarens biggest problem, if at all, I don't know why people are fixated on them, at worst it made them run a little more fuel on high speed tracks.

[McHonda]

The gear ratio's certainly were not anywhere near Mclarens biggest problem, if at all, I don't know why people are fixated on them, at worst it made them run a little more fuel on high speed tracks.

Not their biggest problem of course but it just shouldn't happen to any team on the grid, its just a bit of daft cock-up to have to deal with at the best of times never mind when you know all eyes are going to be on you after the engine switch, which is probably why it sticks in the memory rather than because of the severity of the issue if you know what I mean.

[PhillipM]

If there's barely any difference in the ratios required, and the performance difference is tiny, why would you bother changing the gearset given you're using a hacked together box designed for the Honda anyway?
Much bigger issues and gains by spending the money elsewhere, especially when a new gearbox was already in the works.

[M840TR]

If there's barely any difference in the ratios required, and the performance difference is tiny, why would you bother changing the gearset given you're using a hacked together box designed for the Honda anyway?
Much bigger issues and gains by spending the money elsewhere, especially when a new gearbox was already in the works.

They might even have an entire new bell housing designed for next year given they revised the packaging.

[PhillipM]

There's a complete new gearbox, casing, bellhousing, gearset, pickup points, etc. 100%, they were working on that months back.

[charliesmithhd]

With all these changes what is a reasonable potistion for the team to aim for? P4? Maybe challenging Redbull if Honda are worse off than Renault?

[GPR-A]

There's a complete new gearbox, casing, bellhousing, gearset, pickup points, etc. 100%, they were working on that months back.

It most certainly was clear that they switched to next year's car long back and that made them move backwards for this year. There was no point in spending resources on this year's car when they realized that the car is not what they wanted to build. Hope they get it right right and I am optimistic that, the car would be a 4th place holder.