2021 Mclaren F1 Team

[Hammerfist]

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.

They probably would have been better off keeping the renault power unit when all things considered. It would have provided more continuity to the project and allow them to focus on chassis/aero, which is what i believe defines the pecking order in todays f1. I questioned the move to Merc myself. I never saw it as a game changer. Minimal gains in a straight line maybe and better reliability for sure but you have to rethink your whole aero philosophy with no complete freedom to do so with these token rules. Not worth it.

[Ground Effect]

Let’s see the practice report and get a sense of how the overall feeling is with the team.

[Xero]

They probably would have been better off keeping the renault power unit when all things considered. It would have provided more continuity to the project and allow them to focus on chassis/aero, which is what i believe defines the pecking order in todays f1. I questioned the move to Merc myself. I never saw it as a game changer. Minimal gains in a straight line maybe and better reliability for sure but you have to rethink your whole aero philosophy with no complete freedom to do so with these token rules. Not worth it.

The Merc deployment in race trim is still very much class of the field, so I think there's a worthwhile benefit long term.

The plan was for the Merc PU to come in with the all new car regulations, but with the COVID delay it kind of messed everything up. I think it's on record that McLaren tried to stay with Renault for this season, but Cyril Abiteboul being Cyril Abiteboul refused.

On the plus side, they get a year of Merc experience for 2022, plus the suspension changes bring McLaren a massive reset opportunity on their weakness.

[Emag]

They don't sound pessimistic in the practice report, but I guess it depends on what sort of expectations they had for this weekend. Let's see if it gets any better tomorrow.

[SmallSoldier]

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.

The team doesn’t seem to be too concerned about it based on the Free Practice report.

I understand the feeling when we don’t see the team at the upper portion of the midfield during practice, but just as I wasn’t overly optimistic after practice in Bahrain, I’m not overly pessimistic after practice in Imola.

FP3 may give us a better idea of where the team is when they turn the PU up and run a low fuel lap.


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[SmallSoldier]

They probably would have been better off keeping the renault power unit when all things considered. It would have provided more continuity to the project and allow them to focus on chassis/aero, which is what i believe defines the pecking order in todays f1. I questioned the move to Merc myself. I never saw it as a game changer. Minimal gains in a straight line maybe and better reliability for sure but you have to rethink your whole aero philosophy with no complete freedom to do so with these token rules. Not worth it.

The Merc deployment in race trim is still very much class of the field, so I think there's a worthwhile benefit long term.

The plan was for the Merc PU to come in with the all new car regulations, but with the COVID delay it kind of messed everything up. I think it's on record that McLaren tried to stay with Renault for this season, but Cyril Abiteboul being Cyril Abiteboul refused.

On the plus side, they get a year of Merc experience for 2022, plus the suspension changes bring McLaren a massive reset opportunity on their weakness.

Even when the Merc move may have hindered the team a bit in terms of improving the car by not been able to use Tokens to work on the front suspension for example, I believe that not only the gains from the PU are probably larger than the potential gains from a new suspension, from a long term perspective it was the right move to make it happen sooner.

As you well state, it gives the team a full year to get to grips to the Merc PU, understand cooling requirements, packaging issues and potential benefits looking into the future.

If Mclaren finishes P3 - P5 this season it will be worth it... Even with the ability to use Tokens, the gap to Merc / RBR was too large to cover in one winter.


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[genarro]

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.

They probably would have been better off keeping the renault power unit when all things considered. It would have provided more continuity to the project and allow them to focus on chassis/aero, which is what i believe defines the pecking order in todays f1. I questioned the move to Merc myself. I never saw it as a game changer. Minimal gains in a straight line maybe and better reliability for sure but you have to rethink your whole aero philosophy with no complete freedom to do so with these token rules. Not worth it.

Dude cmon the team are looking at the bigger picture. They are shooting for the 2022 rules change that should have come this year. The tolkens system was implemented later then McLaren decided to switch to merc power unit. We will have one year more to know the merc engine and will be able to focus on the aero/chassis side of 2022.

[mwillems]

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.

They probably would have been better off keeping the renault power unit when all things considered. It would have provided more continuity to the project and allow them to focus on chassis/aero, which is what i believe defines the pecking order in todays f1. I questioned the move to Merc myself. I never saw it as a game changer. Minimal gains in a straight line maybe and better reliability for sure but you have to rethink your whole aero philosophy with no complete freedom to do so with these token rules. Not worth it.

With only 2 development tokens per team, bar Mclaren, they managed to get more changes into their cars than almost everyone. I think this was the best time to change engine as it did not impact normal development much and because it did not eat into the new 2022 reg development, and that it brought about tangible benefits including lower fuel usage and better packaging.

If we used tokens all we'd be able to do is focus on one area, and I suspect that changing the way the front end handles would involve changing more more structurally than just the front end, and so we might not have really been able to address it fully this winter in any case, and we don't appear to have a weakness like that one still, it's the main thorn in our side. Push that aside and the car is still a fair improvement on last year, more than you'd imagine we can do with 2 tokens and a thirstier and chunkier Renault engine.

Let's ignore today and see what happens tomorrow in Qualy. Overtaking is harder in the race but we will still get our opportunities, particularly if we are fast in a straight line still, which I imagine we will be.

[f1rules]

Agree completely, they got the best pu and on top of that a pu that is much better to package, resulting in a far more agressive aero with huge undercut and an agressive sidepod ramp, they even, if understood correctly, sacrified a bit last year by introducing a nose that was developed/intended for this years car.Yes they did some compromises, but still, in my opinion they gained far more then they could with two tokens spend elsewhere. For that reason it is also a bit dissapointing that the jump in performance is not bigger, but lets see, still early days. I think the team definitly expected to fight for third no matter what they said. It striked me after the last gp how eager they where to mention that they where 3rd fastets in the race, i almost got the sensation it was a bit to comfort themselves after a little bit dissapointing qual, not the actual qual but had all teams incl perez and tauri performed they would have been further down in qual, so it was important to point out their good position in the race

[_cerber1]

In Friday's report, although the team admits some lag behind the rivals, they refer more to external conditions, red flags, reduced training, and communication problems. There are no specific problems with the chassis.

[Macklaren]

There are also some reports that the Merc engines were massively turned down due to some PU recalibration being done (some other threads have suggested a big software update/fix coming this weekend)

[CjC]

That would be nice if it’s true.
I too was down beat after having a glance at the time sheet but after analysing the sessions I don’t think it’s quite as bad as it first looked. Ok we I don’t think there’s another P4 in the race for us but it’ll be like last season where we just pick up however many points at each race.
P3 in the constructors will be a lot harder this season as Ferraris driver pairing is far more reliable than the other driver pairings Mclaren have competed against over the last 2 seasons

[Xero]

The team doesn’t seem to be too concerned about it based on the Free Practice report.

FP3 may give us a better idea of where the team is when they turn the PU up and run a low fuel lap.

Yep, the report just reaffirmed their comments going into the race. Downplayed their expectations a little bit, and that they had work to do between sessions over night. I've no doubt they'll improve the car for tomorrow, they almost always do. Just seems they're looking for a bit more than we thought this weekend.

Even when the Merc move may have hindered the team a bit in terms of improving the car by not been able to use Tokens to work on the front suspension for example, I believe that not only the gains from the PU are probably larger than the potential gains from a new suspension, from a long term perspective it was the right move to make it happen sooner.

As you well state, it gives the team a full year to get to grips to the Merc PU, understand cooling requirements, packaging issues and potential benefits looking into the future.

If Mclaren finishes P3 - P5 this season it will be worth it... Even with the ability to use Tokens, the gap to Merc / RBR was too large to cover in one winter.

I agree, the Merc PU move over new front suspension was the right call. They made it work last year, and with only 1 year left in these regulations it did seem like an unnecessary use of resources.

I think P5 would disappoint them, but a solid P4 would be seen as a success and keep the motivation up for 2022.

[Hammerfist]

They probably would have been better off keeping the renault power unit when all things considered. It would have provided more continuity to the project and allow them to focus on chassis/aero, which is what i believe defines the pecking order in todays f1. I questioned the move to Merc myself. I never saw it as a game changer. Minimal gains in a straight line maybe and better reliability for sure but you have to rethink your whole aero philosophy with no complete freedom to do so with these token rules. Not worth it.

The Merc deployment in race trim is still very much class of the field, so I think there's a worthwhile benefit long term.

The plan was for the Merc PU to come in with the all new car regulations, but with the COVID delay it kind of messed everything up. I think it's on record that McLaren tried to stay with Renault for this season, but Cyril Abiteboul being Cyril Abiteboul refused.

On the plus side, they get a year of Merc experience for 2022, plus the suspension changes bring McLaren a massive reset opportunity on their weakness.

Merc deployment still class of the field? Thats not the latest i heard. They were clipping like crazy in bahrain and the honda deployment was reportedly better over there. At the end of the day does the merc pu help aston martin and williams compared to their competitors? I sure as hell cant see it. I think too many people dont realize that engine convergence is pretty much here and the pu is not as important as it was say 2-3 years ago.

[mwillems]

That would be nice if it’s true.
I too was down beat after having a glance at the time sheet but after analysing the sessions I don’t think it’s quite as bad as it first looked. Ok we I don’t think there’s another P4 in the race for us but it’ll be like last season where we just pick up however many points at each race.
P3 in the constructors will be a lot harder this season as Ferraris driver pairing is far more reliable than the other driver pairings Mclaren have competed against over the last 2 seasons

The driver lineup of the red car is great, but the improvement in the car is huge. The engine is close to the front again in qualy, but I have feeling it has to carry some extra fuel that weighs it down come race day. But the chassis is better, the aero is better, the engine is better and the drivers are better.

3rd will be tough but if we get it, its because we earned it, again.