2021 Mclaren F1 Team

[Xero]

Seems that's just the pace this weekend. We're looking no better than 5th fastest car, so minor points fight with Alpine and Aston is the reality.

The long runs may be more revealing as to our relative pace.

They will be. The team have been vocal in the build up about race pace being much stronger than 1 lap pace, as we saw in Bahrain. Tough place to overtake, but the extended DRS zone should help.

[Emag]

To be honest they seem miles off the pace here in general, it is not just limited to 1 lap pace.

[MrGapes]

Yeah I think even in comparison to last years pace relative to the competitors, they seem quite off pace....

[McFAN]

From Mark Hughes.
Quite lengthy but illuminating

"The McLaren continues to be a front-limited car and Bahrain is a heavily rear-limited circuit - thereby not heavily punishing the car's weakness. The Ferrari appears to be a better-balanced car which, on the soft tyres in qualifying allowed Leclerc to produce that special lap, getting the Ferrari rotated early into the corners in a way that would likely have been impossible with the McLaren.

A car with a weaker front end, such as the McLaren, will tend to understeer more on the grippiest soft tyres used in qualifying (the grip of all four corners is increased, but by more at the rear than the front). Hence qualifying probably showed the McLaren in its least flattering light relative to the Ferrari (though even in qualifying it still wouldn't be punished as hard here as on a more typical front-limited circuit).

This weekend we move onto Imola which is an even more power-sensitive track than Sakhir and which again defines the key limitation as the rear of the car, not the front. So we might well see a very similar comparison between the orange car and the red one, though passing at Imola is usually more difficult than at Bahrain and so the advantage of qualifying ahead is potentially greater."

Source https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/32420 ... rt-of-2021

[Herr_Koos]

Double post

[Herr_Koos]

From Mark Hughes.
Quite lengthy but illuminating

"The McLaren continues to be a front-limited car and Bahrain is a heavily rear-limited circuit - thereby not heavily punishing the car's weakness. The Ferrari appears to be a better-balanced car which, on the soft tyres in qualifying allowed Leclerc to produce that special lap, getting the Ferrari rotated early into the corners in a way that would likely have been impossible with the McLaren.

A car with a weaker front end, such as the McLaren, will tend to understeer more on the grippiest soft tyres used in qualifying (the grip of all four corners is increased, but by more at the rear than the front). Hence qualifying probably showed the McLaren in its least flattering light relative to the Ferrari (though even in qualifying it still wouldn't be punished as hard here as on a more typical front-limited circuit).

This weekend we move onto Imola which is an even more power-sensitive track than Sakhir and which again defines the key limitation as the rear of the car, not the front. So we might well see a very similar comparison between the orange car and the red one, though passing at Imola is usually more difficult than at Bahrain and so the advantage of qualifying ahead is potentially greater."

Source https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/32420 ... rt-of-2021

They look anything but comparable at the moment.

[_cerber1]

The racing pace is just as terrible, we will not be able to fight here with Ferrari and AT.

From Toni Sokolov

[Emag]

Let's see what they'll say in the post practice reactions, but it really seems they are not in the fight at all at the moment. Can't afford to have these big fluctuations from track to track if they want to challenge for 3rd. You could lose 1-2 tenths due to the track not favoring the car, but nearly a second is excessive.

[SmallSoldier]

Seems that's just the pace this weekend. We're looking no better than 5th fastest car, so minor points fight with Alpine and Aston is the reality.

A little early to throw the towel... It is still only practice.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[f1rules]

and for the what year still frontend limited, and every year they have focus on fixing it, but nothing is achived, if ferrari will pass mcl this year it will be a dissapointment and simply not good enough from mclaren, they had maybe the biggest scope for gains this year

[Emag]

Seems that's just the pace this weekend. We're looking no better than 5th fastest car, so minor points fight with Alpine and Aston is the reality.

A little early to throw the towel... It is still only practice.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Eh, you can still take some indications from practice. And those indications are not good at all.

[mclaren111]

and for the what year still frontend limited, and every year they have focus on fixing it, but nothing is achived, if ferrari will pass mcl this year it will be a dissapointment and simply not good enough from mclaren, they had maybe the biggest scope for gains this year

Disagree... All our tokens was spend on the rear with new PU related items...

The understeer could not be addressed with token system... It's damage limitation on tracks like these...

[Emag]

and for the what year still frontend limited, and every year they have focus on fixing it, but nothing is achived, if ferrari will pass mcl this year it will be a dissapointment and simply not good enough from mclaren, they had maybe the biggest scope for gains this year

I somewhat agree. But being behind Ferrari is not shameful in any way in my opinion, because Ferrari was miles ahead of McLaren in 2019 before they were penalized for their power unit. Ferrari had the most to gain from 2020-2021 and they have done a good job.

What's disappointing is that they are being outpaced by AlphaTauri. A second hand team that exists only for RedBull to provide seats to their junior drivers (and advertise RedBull's clothing brand). You could argue that every other midfield car has been outpaced by AlphaTauri as well, but as a team that has been making huge investments ( not only financial ) for a couple of years now, it is very upsetting that McLaren have been unable to pull clear of such teams.

[Xero]

A little early to throw the towel... It is still only practice.

Not being pessimistic, just keeping it realistic. There is plenty of tangible evidence you can gather from a practice session to build a representative picture. McLaren do often find some extra pace over Friday night, but the race pace just isn't quite there either this weekend. Hopefully they can at least close the gap to make Ferrari and AT work for it. Anything can happen in the race!

and for the what year still frontend limited, and every year they have focus on fixing it, but nothing is achived, if ferrari will pass mcl this year it will be a dissapointment and simply not good enough from mclaren, they had maybe the biggest scope for gains this year

Not sure I agree with having the biggest scope for gains. McLaren's hands were tied to spending their tokens on the PU, I'd argue they had the least scope. The Merc PU will have been a gain for sure, but I'm sure they would have preferred to spend those tokens on a new front suspension setup with it being the car's biggest weakness. It's geometry kinematics rather than aero.

[SmallSoldier]

Seems that's just the pace this weekend. We're looking no better than 5th fastest car, so minor points fight with Alpine and Aston is the reality.

A little early to throw the towel... It is still only practice.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Eh, you can still take some indications from practice. And those indications are not good at all.

Indeed, but without knowing the run plan, fuel loads and engine modes... You really can’t tell... Fuel loads amount for a considerable amount of lap time.

As an example of how deceiving practice sessions can be, in Bahrain Mclaren not only was in within a tenth of Red Bull after FP2, but the likes of Alpine were 7 tenths and AT 6 tenths from Mclaren... By the time Qualifying happened, The gap to Red Bull was a second and to Alpine only 3 tenths and AT out qualified Mclaren... That’s why I mean is too early.

Does it look great? I agree it doesn’t look great, but I don’t think we should panic just yet.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk