[ 2020 ] Mclaren F1 Team - Renault

[Darth-Piekus]

In the end going with either Honda or Renault was a mistake and should have stayed with Mercedes. The best hybrid engine of the 2010s and the most reliable.

[ScottR267]

In the end going with either Honda or Renault was a mistake and should have stayed with Mercedes. The best hybrid engine of the 2010s and the most reliable.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, however I still think switching to Honda and gaining works status was the right thing to do, albeit it never worked out! Majority of people did not envisage the way it turned out but that’s life. McLaren would have obviously wanted the Mercedes engine after ditching Honda however for numerous reasons couldn’t make it work therefore had to take the Renault engine if they were insistent on leaving Honda.

[JordanMugen]

In the end going with either Honda or Renault was a mistake and should have stayed with Mercedes. The best hybrid engine of the 2010s and the most reliable.

Mercedes refused to supply Red Bull, so why should McLaren have expected an ongoing power unit supply given the clear divorce between Mercedes-Benz and McLaren? Williams certainly did not receive an ongoing BMW power unit supply after their divorce!

Mercedes after all are very selective with their customers, they seem to prefer compliant & underfunded customers like Lotus, Williams or Manor -- customers like Red Bull or McLaren that could pay on time however are told to go away and that they are unwanted.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, however I still think switching to Honda and gaining works status was the right thing to do, albeit it never worked out!

McLaren should have approved second and third supplies for Red Bull and Toro Rosso ASAP... It would have allowed Honda to enhance their development greatly, even if the free works supply would be transferred to Red Bull instead and McLaren would pay for the power units.

[diffuser]

Realistically the odds of Ron coming back are really long and we've beaten the subject to death at least 4 times over. I wish PZ would stop reviving it.

If Dennis would return to Formula One with a revived Project Four team that would great... The more teams on the F1 grid the better.

However, with respect to McLaren, Dennis seems irrelevant, especially given Brown (or someone else?) deliberately decided to drop the MP4 chassis name and replace it with MCL.

Brown has done a great job of putting brands on the side of the race car, even if it has taken PMI arch-rival BAT to come in and buy the space and then onsell it.. a far cry from "Marlboro Project Four".

Personally, I am not sure Key is a clear improvement on Fry given the superb performance of Fry's 2019 McLaren, but McLaren were determined that Key and not Fry would be the technical director... so I dunno.

PS. Barnard's McLaren MP4/1... what a car!
https://primotipo.files.wordpress.com/2 ... =768&h=514

All this talk about Fry got me to notice that Fernando and Fry went to Ferrari at the same tim. Fernando is now following him to Renault. Probably a coincidence but still factual.

[Emag]

I doubt Pat and Alonso have any sort of relationship together. IIRC, Pat used to blame the drivers for not extracting the full pace of the car in 2012 and Alonso didn't like that statement at all.

[diffuser]

I doubt Pat and Alonso have any sort of relationship together. IIRC, Pat used to blame the drivers for not extracting the full pace of the car in 2012 and Alonso didn't like that statement at all.

Sometimes that kind of talk is motivational. The driver is not suppose to like it.
Still if Fernando was the problem some people say he is, you'd think PF would have stopped it. Think it is further proof he's not.

Anyways, off topic.

[Andres125sx]

I doubt Pat and Alonso have any sort of relationship together. IIRC, Pat used to blame the drivers for not extracting the full pace of the car in 2012 and Alonso didn't like that statement at all.

Not sure about that, I remember Ferrari stating more than once that Alonso frequently outperformed their most optimistic predictions

[McFAN]

Lando on Sky Sports.

Speaking to Sky Sports News at the McLaren's Woking Technology Centre ahead of the forthcoming Silverstone d1ouble-header, Norris spoke with optimism about their prospects of remaining a threat behind the current top two.

"We can definitely fight for it," said Norris, in an interview with Craig Slater.

"It's hard to say. The first two races of the season were extremely good. Overachieving in some ways and beating a lot of cars that were quicker than us. End of, they were quicker than us - but we did a better job in terms of strategy and racing and not crashing and not getting penalties. We overachieved and we did better than our pace shows.

"[Hungary] was a bit more of a realistic outlook on results - maybe not so much on my side because I did the mistake at the start and put myself in a worse position than I should have been - but I think we've got a very good opportunity to fight for it this year.

"Last year that was the top three gone and then everyone else [was fighting for fourth]. Now we have a better opportunity to be there and fight and maybe swing it back and forth.

McLaren qualified as the fifth-quickest team last time out in Hungary and a realistic Norris acknowledged: "I don't think we have a car that we can just say 'yeah, we are going to be third or we can challenge second or first even'.

"We are still a long way from that, but we are in that position where we can say we are going to fight for it [third].

https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433 ... ment-in-f1

[Bill]

Albon is not a good benchmark to use Max is that Rbr chassis is a handful to drive.sector 1 in Hungary is not pure straight it has a hairpin and a slow corner .
To quote Marko" The dog is in the aerodynamics " is clear Rbr chassis is lacking all these talk of pu is pointless in the grand scheme of things. Honda invested lots of money last they were expecting a championship fight Redbull should deliver.Redbull mentally doesn't look like a team ready to fight for championship the four champs they won got into their head any slight pace shortfall is immediately blamed on pu without even proper analysis.

[Ground Effect]

Interesting comments from James Key, suggesting no nasty surprises with the MCL35 so far...

“We have come away from the first triple-header recognising similar strengths and weaknesses in the car from those  we saw back at testing in Barcelona. This is good because it allows us to keep our priorities for development consistent with what we had previously planned.”

“The British Grand Prix will see a continued evolution of the MCL35 with some developments that will be tested over the coming race weekend. We’ve got a unique challenge in balancing upgrades for this year while ensuring our 2021 car is moving ahead in parallel, as the only team to be changing engine partners between 2020 and 2021, our design work and planning for next year is more critical than for others.”

More info in the Race Preview

https://www.mclaren.com/racing/2020/bri ... w-britain/

[McG]

You Zack Brown worshippers! Bring back Uncle Ron so we can start winning again!

Big fan of Ron but he is the main reason Mclaren are in Sh*t... His Ego got the better of him...

Zak is leading Mclaren very well by putting the right people in the right jobs... That's what good leaders do...

Yes he was responsible for the slump in performance along with/because of Honda. But in the end he didn't get to see out is plan fully.

McLaren finished "only" 4th last year and will be lucky to get 4th this year it looks like so people need to ask are McLaren are better right now than what Ron had planned...
He had a massive investment/takeover lined up from Chinese investors. Would those Chinese investors have pumped even more money into the team than what the Saudis have? Maybe. That's probably why Ron proposed it. And remember the Saudis have actually been very forthcoming with cash so Ron must have seen that the Chinese were willing to spend. The rumours back then were that they were also going to fund a new technology centre as well... So probably a new wind tunnel too. So McLaren would probably already have their new wind tunnel.

People complain about the lack of sponsors on the car back then but the budget was still very healthy and with massive investment planned it could have been a great story.

Looking at Red Bull now though with Honda we can see that Ron's plan was never going to win a championship. Would Honda have been better off accepting more technical help from McLaren like they ended up doing with other people anyway? Who knows. But I don't think anyone would would have beat Mercedes apart from maybe if VAG had been F1 for a while leading up to the hybrid engines. Hell even Ferrari had to cheat to catch up with them a bit.

One more thing that I wouldn't underestimate Ron being able to do was to reorganise the team like Brown has done. Ron is a proven genius but Brown has done a great job and if Brown can build a team that can win championships he can get as much respect as Ron some day.

[Darth-Piekus]

Dont take it very far friend. The team is gonna be ready in a span of two to three years. Last year though we were comfortably 4th best even taking a podium. This year I don't know where we will finish but we can finish from third to 5th so I would wait the final verdict and see all the development before claim where we end.

[_cerber1]

[Macklaren]

Team Silverstone update is interesting. Sounds like they will be testing a lot of parts this weekend and next but no real confirmation of bolting on a big package as expected?

https://www.mclaren.com/racing/2020/bri ... w-britain/

[Darth-Piekus]

What if they were bringing update after update each race and were testing them and they are gonna go with the best combo this GP?