2019 Mclaren F1 Team - Renault

[SmallSoldier]

Yes but max would then be sitting behind sainz so hed be likely getting those same DRS zones for a back and forth tussle between the two.

We struggled to get close to the Renaults until they ran over each other and subsequently exploded. Lando kept Kimi behind, but the Alfa was right there with us, so I do t think there is much clear air in performance terms around McLaren. I know we had used tyres but this is a forgiving track with 3 DRS zones. It won't be like this elsewhere.

If we drop a few tenths in China we could easily be 13th or 14th on the grid with less of a chance to regain position.

Actually, Norris passed RIC during the race based on pace... And he matched Hulk’s pace for his last stint.

In regards to the fight with Kimi, Lando simply struggled more in the used set of Softs and his last stint wasn’t as good as the other too... But, to keep a car behind you that has the advantage of DRS for as long as Norris did it, is a very good sign for the team... I believe Kimi mentioned in the interview that the Mclaren simply had better traction coming out of the corners... We also don’t know what Norris had to do in terms of fuel saving by the end of the race, he definitely had to run harder at the beginning to get through the field, so it would be expected for him to have to coast during the end of the race.

I agree that in China or any other race at this point, it only takes a couple tenths to not make it into Q3... Probably the only “hope” some fans can have before the race is the fact that Mclaren put one car in Q3 at Melbourne, which in theory is a track doesn’t suit very well this package and had both in Bahrain, which even with the 3 DRS Zones, on paper isn’t a track that should suit the car as good as a proper high speed track.


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Nope, Norris was behind both Renaults at that point and Ric lost pace when he had his front wing squashed by Hulk.

Yes it is a good sign. But I said we had to fight for it, nothing said changes that. We are not outright ahead in midfield, if at all. We were on a track that likes us and forgave setbacks.

Of course Norris was behind both Renault’s, he was 15th by the end of lap 1... The fact that he was able to get behind both Renault’s (and at some point in within 2 seconds of Hulk) tells a very flattering story for both Norris and Mclaren... He did pass RIC after their collision, but watching the data on F1TV, Ric’s pace wasn’t hindered as much as one would think.

I don’t think that the team is at the front of midfield, I genuinely believe that the team are in the mix with Renault and that Haas is probably still ahead of the rest and just had an off day in Bahrain.

But I’m actually optimistic for China, if the car is running less downforce than the rest of the teams and still manages to be on the hunt, then that’s a good sign... It was said here that a new rear wing is on the works, who knows, we may see it in Testing tomorrow or Wednesday.


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[Ground Effect]

According to Carlos he was a DNF anyway due to a suspect gearbox.

If I were a McLaren fan I'd be worrying about my own teams troubled engine and gearbox making it to the end in China.

Maybe Mansour Ojjeh will end up sacking Zak Brown now that James Key has arrived. Or just keep him around for marketing officer.

I don't get what you have against Zak Brown. He isn't an engineer, he says this openly. He is a business man with many commercial connections and additionally is/was an amateur racer and car enthusiast.

Zak was brought in to:
1. Raise funds for a team that commercially wasn't earning as much through sponsorship compared to what it used to (at least compared to other teams).
2. Put the right people in place to get the job done.

What metric would you like to use to try to prove the point that he hasn't done either?

He has and is seeming to use his many commercial connections to bring in sponsorship money.

His recent hires of high profile engineers bodes well for the future of the technical department.

Which saw Ron Dennis unceremoniously ousted from McLaren and Honda contract ended, loss of face and free PUs, all for what? One temporary year of mediocrity with Renault right when Honda engine was becoming good? It took dumping Honda to realize how pretty she could be and how overweight yourself has become. Ron Dennis had a 10year plan with Honda that could have bore fruit but knee jerk reactions and some pretty rude cultural comments and disrespectfulness ended a vision of a man who led McLaren through good times and bad. Need I say more?

First of all, get the facts straight.
Ron Dennis didn't sign Honda, it was Martin Whitmarsh, Ron Dennis ousted Whitmarsh and took over the running of the team under the condition that he would bring in investors to buy out the other shareholders over a period of time. The Honda partnership failed largely because of Ron Dennis. He refused Honda supplying Red Bull or any other team, which hampered development and data gathering. After he left, McLaren had secured a deal with Sauber to run Honda engines in 2018, but the deal fell through after Monisha was kicked out. Ron Dennis was probably the least liked person in F1, such that the FIA would not give any concessions to McLaren to aid the development of Honda, Bernie Ecclestone has revealed this, saying how much the FIA assisted Ferrari between 2014 & 2015.
Ron Dennis didn't have a plan for Honda to aid development at all, he was just happy with the financial aspects.
The association with Honda didn't work out, nobody can do anything about that. McLaren are on the rebuild and doing what they have to and it appears they are doing it right. They lost $100M but yesterday overtook a Red Bull on pure pace, when last did that happen? Honda have moved on, McLaren have moved on, I think you should too.

[geogate]

Which saw Ron Dennis unceremoniously ousted from McLaren and Honda contract ended, loss of face and free PUs, all for what? One temporary year of mediocrity with Renault right when Honda engine was becoming good? It took dumping Honda to realize how pretty she could be and how overweight yourself has become. Ron Dennis had a 10year plan with Honda that could have bore fruit but knee jerk reactions and some pretty rude cultural comments and disrespectfulness ended a vision of a man who led McLaren through good times and bad. Need I say more?

you know all that came from the shareholders, right?
the relationship with Honda was broken beyond repair - it was the right decission and the shareholders knew what it meant

[proteus]

According to Carlos he was a DNF anyway due to a suspect gearbox.

If I were a McLaren fan I'd be worrying about my own teams troubled engine and gearbox making it to the end in China.

Maybe Mansour Ojjeh will end up sacking Zak Brown now that James Key has arrived. Or just keep him around for marketing officer.

I can see for a mile why you are raging and ranting so much. Why do you bother and why do you feel the need to trash this thread?

[dr_cooke]

According to Carlos he was a DNF anyway due to a suspect gearbox.

If I were a McLaren fan I'd be worrying about my own teams troubled engine and gearbox making it to the end in China.

Maybe Mansour Ojjeh will end up sacking Zak Brown now that James Key has arrived. Or just keep him around for marketing officer.

I can see for a mile why you are raging and ranting so much. Why do you bother and why do you feel the need to trash this thread?

IMHO and just seeing it from outside, Zack is doing quite a good job as a Manager, and not under easy circumstances. He’s kept the team going, found enough funding, taken some very difficult decisions and seems to be hiring quite good people.

[SmallSoldier]

According to Carlos he was a DNF anyway due to a suspect gearbox.

If I were a McLaren fan I'd be worrying about my own teams troubled engine and gearbox making it to the end in China.

Maybe Mansour Ojjeh will end up sacking Zak Brown now that James Key has arrived. Or just keep him around for marketing officer.

I can see for a mile why you are raging and ranting so much. Why do you bother and why do you feel the need to trash this thread?

IMHO and just seeing it from outside, Zack is doing quite a good job as a Manager, and not under easy circumstances. He’s kept the team going, found enough funding, taken some very difficult decisions and seems to be hiring quite good people.

The results at the end will be the ones that evaluate Zack’s performance... And I agree with you, he came into a team that had a very tough situation in his hands... A broken relationship with Honda, morale at it’s lowest point, lack of on track performance and what seems to be communication issues in within the departments.

Rebuilding a team / company isn’t an easy task... He has made the moves expected of him, released those who’s performance seem to be subpar or the ones that simply weren’t helping with morale (like Eric)... He then went out to look for good candidates for those positions and the hiring of both Key and Seidl seem to be just that... He aknowledged that he wasn’t the one to run the “racing team” and Seidl will take care of thing from that point on (we shouldn’t be hearing from Zak a lot moving forward).


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[FittingMechanics]

I can see that lot of people are still hesitant to "believe". I am not doubting, McLaren is obviously in "high midfield", fighting for the 4th spot. Honestly I'd say McLaren is 4th team right now, when taking into account qualifying and race. Haas looks faster in qualy but slower in race. Renault is other way around. McLaren is good enough both in qualy and race, with a bit better luck with Sainz, situation would look even better.

Let's go back to preseason testing, in testing, when you looked at long runs and when you looked at qualy runs, McLaren had obviously good pace. I will ignore journalists who struggled to accept this due to being burned by slow McLaren in past years, but when you analysed data without subjectivity, McLaren looked good. Guy at F1Metrics showed this with his data driven analysis. - https://f1metrics.wordpress.com/2019/03 ... -analysis/


If we look at this analysis, so far it looks spot on. Perhaps there was slight mixup in Australia where Mercedes was much better than predicted, but the rest of the teams look spot on. Haas's large variability explains why sometimes they look lighting fast, and then next day they are "amazingly slow". Renault looks decent but still needs a bit more. Only major difference that I can tell is that Alfa looks a bit faster in Kimi's hands then the analysis showed. All in all, f1metrics showed what data driven analysis can do.

To me, McLaren looks to be a strong candidate for 4th spot, especially if they can keep pushing the development. From what Norris said, they decided to "tone back the car" for the start of the season, make it simpler than previous years and then to build on that. This to me means they are no where near the end of potential of the car, and should have plenty of opportunity to build on this.

In Australia, a rookie qualifies P7, is unlucky/hesitant to pass in the race and finishes in the midfield. In Bahrain, both cars are in Q3, Sainz P7 (less than a tenth from Verstappen/P5), Sainz gets a puncture while overtaking RBR! and Norris gets bumped and drops to P15 only to fight back to P6!!! These kind of things are not luck, car has serious pace.

Very optimistic for the season. I'm quite confident that McLaren will soon be undisputed 4th team. I'm hoping they can continue with this trajectory. Elsewhere on the grid, I am not convinced by Red Bull. Their drivers are already bashing the car, calling it hard to drive, can't get the setup right, both Verstappen and Gasly did this. I feel that when the drivers are that negative about the car, it's going to be hard for them to resolve all the issues.They will probably still stay 3rd best team, but it could mean that they have harder time getting both cars there if they have even slight issues. Gasly showed that he had major issues fighting back through the field, something that both Hulkenberg and Norris managed to do much better than Gasly in RBR. This could open up the possibilities for the midfield teams to fight for P5/P6 or even higher positions if there are retirements in top teams. Should be a fun season.

[SmallSoldier]

I can see that lot of people are still hesitant to "believe". I am not doubting, McLaren is obviously in "high midfield", fighting for the 4th spot. Honestly I'd say McLaren is 4th team right now, when taking into account qualifying and race. Haas looks faster in qualy but slower in race. Renault is other way around. McLaren is good enough both in qualy and race, with a bit better luck with Sainz, situation would look even better.

Let's go back to preseason testing, in testing, when you looked at long runs and when you looked at qualy runs, McLaren had obviously good pace. I will ignore journalists who struggled to accept this due to being burned by slow McLaren in past years, but when you analysed data without subjectivity, McLaren looked good. Guy at F1Metrics showed this with his data driven analysis.


If we look at this analysis, so far it looks spot on. Perhaps there was slight mixup in Australia where Mercedes was much better than predicted, but the rest of the teams look spot on. Haas's large variability explains why sometimes they look lighting fast, and then next day they are "amazingly slow". Renault looks decent but still needs a bit more. Only major difference that I can tell is that Alfa looks a bit faster in Kimi's hands then the analysis showed. All in all, f1metrics showed what data driven analysis can do.

To me, McLaren looks to be a strong candidate for 4th spot, especially if they can keep pushing the development. From what Norris said, they decided to "tone back the car" for the start of the season, make it simpler than previous years and then to build on that. This to me means they are no where near the end of potential of the car, and should have plenty of opportunity to build on this.

In Australia, a rookie qualifies P7, is unlucky/hesitant to pass in the race and finishes in the midfield. In Bahrain, both cars are in Q3, Sainz P7 (less than a tenth from Verstappen/P5), Sainz gets a puncture while overtaking RBR! and Norris gets bumped and drops to P15 only to fight back to P6!!! These kind of things are not luck, car has serious pace.

Very optimistic for the season. I'm quite confident that McLaren will soon be undisputed 4th team. I'm hoping they can continue with this trajectory. Elsewhere on the grid, I am not convinced by Red Bull. Their drivers are already bashing the car, calling it hard to drive, can't get the setup right, both Verstappen and Gasly did this. I feel that when the drivers are that negative about the car, it's going to be hard for them to resolve all the issues.They will probably still stay 3rd best team, but it could mean that they have harder time getting both cars there if they have even slight issues. Gasly showed that he had major issues fighting back through the field, something that both Hulkenberg and Norris managed to do much better than Gasly in RBR. This could open up the possibilities for the midfield teams to fight for P5/P6 or even higher positions if there are retirements in top teams. Should be a fun season.

Good analysis and I have a tendency to agree... At the same time, it is only 2 races and a lot of races ahead to really understand where we are... By the end of Barcelona, we will have a more clear picture of where the team is.

I have always thought that it is more important how you finish than how you start (Mclaren’s 2018 season is a perfect example of this)... The team needs to continue to keep their head down, continue to work on development and if they do, they could finish the year very strong, which will be a huge improvement from before and more importantly a great starting point towards 2020... If the team manages to get closer to the top 3 and hopefully clear the midfield, that would be fantastic.

I’m just enjoying this start... Doesn’t seem fictional like last year (results were more related to luck than pace)... I’ll admit that the one race that I’m really looking forward is Baku... Because if the speed is there, we could be in for a great scoring potential opportunity.


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[FittingMechanics]

Good analysis and I have a tendency to agree... At the same time, it is only 2 races and a lot of races ahead to really understand where we are... By the end of Barcelona, we will have a more clear picture of where the team is.

I have always thought that it is more important how you finish than how you start (Mclaren’s 2018 season is a perfect example of this)... The team needs to continue to keep their head down, continue to work on development and if they do, they could finish the year very strong, which will be a huge improvement from before and more importantly a great starting point towards 2020... If the team manages to get closer to the top 3 and hopefully clear the midfield, that would be fantastic.

I’m just enjoying this start... Doesn’t seem fictional like last year (results were more related to luck than pace)... I’ll admit that the one race that I’m really looking forward is Baku... Because if the speed is there, we could be in for a great scoring potential opportunity.


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Sure thing, it's only two races, but you have to take it all into account. If you take into account pre season testing trends, first race and this second race it starts to look like pace and not luck. I mean just look at the race yesterday, we start P7 and P9, after the first lap Norris is P15, usually this means it's over, maybe just maybe we can get to P10, but instead he goes on a rampage, passing Albon, Kvyat, Gasly, Perez, Magnussen, Kimi and Ricciardo, all on track on same strategy (except Ricciardo). It wasn't luck, it wasn't massive amounts of retirements or VSC/SC lucky break. It was pace from a rookie who was consistently slower than Sainz throughout the weekend. Pace is here, hopefully it keeps up and even better, improves through development. For sure we can feel vindicated that our trust in preseason testing pace was not unfounded. Team is handling this very maturely, going step by step and improving.

I am a fan of McLaren and I believe.

[Macklaren]

While I would love to agree with all of the above and believe McL is the 4th fastest team with the potential to challenge for 3rd, keep in mind that both Aus and Bahrain throw up unusual results. Recall STR's 4th place finish last year that was nowhere indicative of their real position in the field through the season.

Let's see what it looks like by Spain first and then Canada.

[FittingMechanics]

While I would love to agree with all of the above and believe McL is the 4th fastest team with the potential to challenge for 3rd, keep in mind that both Aus and Bahrain throw up unusual results. Recall STR's 4th place finish last year that was nowhere indicative of their real position in the field through the season.

Let's see what it looks like by Spain first and then Canada.

Thank you, but let's remember that in that race both RBRs were DNFs alongside a single Ferrari. That would have put STR at P7. STR last year had an abysmal Melbourne and only Gasly's outlier in Bahrain. Hard to compare it to McLaren who not only had decent qualy/race pace in both cases, but also in Bahrain Norris fought back through the field to finish P6. I feel this needs to be reiterated as it's much harder to overtake people and finish high then it is to start high and manage to keep them behind.

I understand that people are still hesitant, we've been burned before, but it looks very promising.

[M840TR]

I can see that lot of people are still hesitant to "believe". I am not doubting, McLaren is obviously in "high midfield", fighting for the 4th spot. Honestly I'd say McLaren is 4th team right now, when taking into account qualifying and race. Haas looks faster in qualy but slower in race. Renault is other way around. McLaren is good enough both in qualy and race, with a bit better luck with Sainz, situation would look even better.

Let's go back to preseason testing, in testing, when you looked at long runs and when you looked at qualy runs, McLaren had obviously good pace. I will ignore journalists who struggled to accept this due to being burned by slow McLaren in past years, but when you analysed data without subjectivity, McLaren looked good. Guy at F1Metrics showed this with his data driven analysis. - https://f1metrics.wordpress.com/2019/03 ... -analysis/
https://f1metrics.files.wordpress.com/2 ... .png?w=640

If we look at this analysis, so far it looks spot on. Perhaps there was slight mixup in Australia where Mercedes was much better than predicted, but the rest of the teams look spot on. Haas's large variability explains why sometimes they look lighting fast, and then next day they are "amazingly slow". Renault looks decent but still needs a bit more. Only major difference that I can tell is that Alfa looks a bit faster in Kimi's hands then the analysis showed. All in all, f1metrics showed what data driven analysis can do.

To me, McLaren looks to be a strong candidate for 4th spot, especially if they can keep pushing the development. From what Norris said, they decided to "tone back the car" for the start of the season, make it simpler than previous years and then to build on that. This to me means they are no where near the end of potential of the car, and should have plenty of opportunity to build on this.

In Australia, a rookie qualifies P7, is unlucky/hesitant to pass in the race and finishes in the midfield. In Bahrain, both cars are in Q3, Sainz P7 (less than a tenth from Verstappen/P5), Sainz gets a puncture while overtaking RBR! and Norris gets bumped and drops to P15 only to fight back to P6!!! These kind of things are not luck, car has serious pace.

Very optimistic for the season. I'm quite confident that McLaren will soon be undisputed 4th team. I'm hoping they can continue with this trajectory. Elsewhere on the grid, I am not convinced by Red Bull. Their drivers are already bashing the car, calling it hard to drive, can't get the setup right, both Verstappen and Gasly did this. I feel that when the drivers are that negative about the car, it's going to be hard for them to resolve all the issues.They will probably still stay 3rd best team, but it could mean that they have harder time getting both cars there if they have even slight issues. Gasly showed that he had major issues fighting back through the field, something that both Hulkenberg and Norris managed to do much better than Gasly in RBR. This could open up the possibilities for the midfield teams to fight for P5/P6 or even higher positions if there are retirements in top teams. Should be a fun season.

Don't count them out yet. They reportedly have a big upgrade scheduled for China which should put them clear of the midfield.

[mwillems]

Actually, Norris passed RIC during the race based on pace... And he matched Hulk’s pace for his last stint.

In regards to the fight with Kimi, Lando simply struggled more in the used set of Softs and his last stint wasn’t as good as the other too... But, to keep a car behind you that has the advantage of DRS for as long as Norris did it, is a very good sign for the team... I believe Kimi mentioned in the interview that the Mclaren simply had better traction coming out of the corners... We also don’t know what Norris had to do in terms of fuel saving by the end of the race, he definitely had to run harder at the beginning to get through the field, so it would be expected for him to have to coast during the end of the race.

I agree that in China or any other race at this point, it only takes a couple tenths to not make it into Q3... Probably the only “hope” some fans can have before the race is the fact that Mclaren put one car in Q3 at Melbourne, which in theory is a track doesn’t suit very well this package and had both in Bahrain, which even with the 3 DRS Zones, on paper isn’t a track that should suit the car as good as a proper high speed track.


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Nope, Norris was behind both Renaults at that point and Ric lost pace when he had his front wing squashed by Hulk.

Yes it is a good sign. But I said we had to fight for it, nothing said changes that. We are not outright ahead in midfield, if at all. We were on a track that likes us and forgave setbacks.

Of course Norris was behind both Renault’s, he was 15th by the end of lap 1... The fact that he was able to get behind both Renault’s (and at some point in within 2 seconds of Hulk) tells a very flattering story for both Norris and Mclaren... He did pass RIC after their collision, but watching the data on F1TV, Ric’s pace wasn’t hindered as much as one would think.

I don’t think that the team is at the front of midfield, I genuinely believe that the team are in the mix with Renault and that Haas is probably still ahead of the rest and just had an off day in Bahrain.

But I’m actually optimistic for China, if the car is running less downforce than the rest of the teams and still manages to be on the hunt, then that’s a good sign... It was said here that a new rear wing is on the works, who knows, we may see it in Testing tomorrow or Wednesday.


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He kept up with Hulk, remember Hulk started some way back due to poor Qualy. Ric had a poor strategy and that is why he came through behind Hulk, not because Mclaren were much faster. We simply weren't beating Renault on pace by much at all. Hulk started 17th and would have finished ahead of Lando had his engine not gone.

I'm not dissing Mclaren, it's a very good car, but Hulks achievement bettered Lando in a car that is supposedly slower. We were probably a bit faster, but not by a margin that lets me think we are leaders, just cos we did well on a track that might just suit the car.

[ollandos]

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

THERE is onboard from max ...at the crash moment with sainz /......sainz it was a full car and more infront on normal racing line ...you can see mercedes for that in front it was on same line ...and max trying turn on more speed ...with no way to take that corner on that speed ...max car going straight at the apex towards sainz car ...i dont know how avoid penalty ....1000% max fault ...mclaren it was 1.5 car length in front ....unbelievable move from max unbelievable desision from racing directror.....

[ollandos]

unbelievable guys look at this ...max breaking after the crash after the corner....and he use all track width....unbelievable unacceptable .....