2018 McLaren F1 Team - Renault

[Redragon]

Well obviously is just the first test and final conclusions can't be made but I don't think @GoranF1 is far from reality
So far it is what we all knew or expected 1. Mercedes 2. Ferrari 3. Redbull 4 or 5 Renault or Mclaren.
It looks like the 4th would be depending on what Renault is gonna do to determining if Mclaren is 4th or 5th
By reading Sky analysis, BBC and other main media from the first week all coincide around the same terms.
So it is not to crazy to say Mclaren is 5th at this stage

[DiogoBrand]

I had my post on the Honda engine forum deleted earlier because it wasn't constructive and to be fair it probably wasn't. I've been a member of this forum for many years. I am a complete McLaren fan and worked at MTC for 4 years between 2006 and 2010. It's been a tough 3 years looking at them struggle with the Honda elastic band in the back. I have tried to keep away from the Honda engine forum since November 2017 because there are many Honda fanboy's saying how funny it will be when TR beat McLaren in this years championship. And to be fair I was slightly nervous of their predictions until yesterday. What a great sense of pride I felt to see the MCL33 at the top of the timesheets after 4 years of pain. Well done to the whole McLaren team, I will be getting up early to watch fly away races with some hope again and wearing my teamware with without feeling embarrassed. I'm looking forward to 2018 F1. Incidentally I'm off to Barcelona next Thurs and Fri to watch testing.
As for this forum and like Wazari I shall be retiring and just enjoying MY personal F1 experience. This used to be a great place to understand the secretive world of F1 spoilt by moderators and Honda

To be honest I think the McLaren Honda parnership joined the two most annoying types of fans in F1: McLaren's and Honda's. I'm a McLaren fan myself, and I'm also a fan of Honda's history, but McLaren wasn't anything great before Honda, and Honda was clearly not able to deliver, so seeing McLaren's fans blaming Honda for not fighting for the championship, while Honda fans, somehow thought that the Power Unit was good (where?!) and McLaren just had a bad car was just a pain in the ass. Not to mention people that said McLaren had the best chassis in the grid.
And now people just seem to have lost all memory. In 2016 McLaren and Honda showed clear signs of improvement, but it was average at best. But this year Honda shows some improvement and suddenly people think they have the best engine in the world, which is clearly not the case.

So this year will be a good year in this sense: McLaren's fans will finally see that their chassis isn't the world-beater that some people thought it was, and Honda fans will see that, despite the improvement, their power unit is still the worst of the grid, and we shall have some peace.

Sorry for the completely off-topic post, I just had to vent my frustration a bit.

[Singabule]

Agree, MCL currently only 5th best, very close to renault works. Thats massive improvement from both team.

[alexa]

I think even 5th is questionable, because we don't know how the williams and Force India will perform,don't forget they have the best engine.At the moment MC will have to fight to get in to Q3.I know it's just testing,but you can't ignore the fact that track times are not promising.According to James Key last years Honda engine was not that far from Renault's,but RB was very far from MC,all that indicates that chassis was not as good as we thought,and neither is now.

[Chicane]

We have seen how Pirelli tires perform so differently under different temperatures. What we had in first test was a scenario where the temperatures were so low that even Pirelli have commented that the running is not representative to assess tire performance. James Allison has said these low temperatures make the times totally unrepresentative.

Teams themselves have said they are using first preseason test to understand the car and have not run their cars in anger. Cyril Abiteboul has stated how they are running conservatively in the first test to sign off parts for Melbourne spec power unit. Race simulations in the second test will give us some idea as to the competitiveness of the cars till then it is a game of who can guess better.

[Ground Effect]

I think even 5th is questionable, because we don't know how the williams and Force India will perform,don't forget they have the best engine.At the moment MC will have to fight to get in to Q3.I know it's just testing,but you can't ignore the fact that track times are not promising.According to James Key last years Honda engine was not that far from Renault's,but RB was very far from MC,all that indicates that chassis was not as good as we thought,and neither is now.

I think we have to appreciate that this is a new PU for Mclaren, so their program would differ from RB and the works team. There would be a lot of checks on the PU and likely the suspension that had to be redesigned. Which is most likely why they were going for the softer compounds. I don't think they're panicking or worried at this stage.
Referring back to James Allen, on his blog a user expressed worry and wondered he was optimistic, even after looking at the times in comparison with the other teams. He said engineering and aero people in the "ecosystem" admire the detail on that car and that it's a real statement by Peter Prodromou.
He also said Mercedes look too strong, then it's Ferrari, but he could see RB Vs Mclaren becoming a thing.

[r101]

I do not think we have enough data to analyze McLaren's speed right now. They themselves said that the car that shows up in Australia will be totally different to this test mule. I think they are testing some specific areas like engine implementation, suspension, front wing..

[alexa]

That's correct , but it's not like they gonna gain a second in Melbourne.

[Avocado]

None of you guys know how fast they really are and you're making silly assumptions. 5th is questionable? Battling for Q3? This is hilarious.

[proteus]

Aparently Zak Brown has his eyes in the direction of Williams sponsors. This means the competitoon will be fierce between these two teams on the circuit and off it as well.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

That's correct , but it's not like they gonna gain a second in Melbourne.

What is the benchmark to say, it is going to be half a second, one second or 5 seconds?
-In 2017 Australian GP, Alonso did a 1m25.425 in Q2. He was 3.3 seconds behind Lewis, who got the pole.
-On speed trap, Alonso was down by 9 kph, compared to Lewis.
-In 2017 Abu Dhabi GP, Alonso did a 1m38.636 in Q2. He was 2.4 seconds behind Bottas, who got the pole. This was on a power circuit, where Vettel was behind Bottas by 4 tenths!
-On speed trap, Alonso was down by 14 kph, compared to Lewis.
That to me shows, though Honda improved through the season, but it did not contribute to the change in pace difference from Australia to Abu Dhabi. It's purely, the chassis of McLaren. That's 9 tenths gain compared to the leaders!

All the top teams most likely made 1-1.5 seconds gain through the 2017 season.
So, MCL32 (2017 car) if takes part in Melbourne qualifying now, the ultimate time would be around 1m24.0xx.
Ideally, based on past history, they should be able to make another 1-1.5 seconds gain through the winter (chassis regulations still being immature, should then be more).
So, MCL33 should be able to do 1m22.5xx, with the Honda engine from Abu Dhabi.

Now we need to see, what time would MCL33 does in Melbourne, WITH RENAULT engine. That to me would be reference. Whatever they do in Barcelona testing, is totally irrelevant.

[Alonso Fan]

That's correct , but it's not like they gonna gain a second in Melbourne.

You never know. Call me an optimist but they currently basically have last years car. Applying all the updates that the worked on over the winter at once and it could well be worth over a second, just like everyone else is expected to gain similar amounts over the winter

[Ground Effect]

Aparently Zak Brown has his eyes in the direction of Williams sponsors. This means the competitoon will be fierce between these two teams on the circuit and off it as well.

That's really intriguing. Any chance you could expand on that, which sponsors specifically?

[GoranF1]

Aparently Zak Brown has his eyes in the direction of Williams sponsors. This means the competitoon will be fierce between these two teams on the circuit and off it as well.

That's really intriguing. Any chance you could expand on that, which sponsors specifically?

Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin

[Ground Effect]

Don't know if that was a joke, but