2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

[LionsHeart]

Aaaanyway... I started the evening saying that FP2 isn't representative and we should wait, and yet I still got drawn in, though the only point I make is that there is much more evidence than a little bit of data in FP2. We may well be faster on the high speeds tomorrow and on Sunday and I won't argue that it can't or won't happen, but there is way more to consider than some Silo'd data from FP2. I do like a bit of devil's advocate.

I do think we will be closer to Ferrari than before and might be able to battle them. Lionsheart has promised to buy me a Mclaren 675 if I'm right, and I will give him 675 rubles if I am wrong, which seems very fair to me.

I didn't promise, don't lie.

And I'm judging by race pace, not qualifying. But I’m still very glad that McLaren is closer to the leaders. I hope the race pace will be high.

[Tomsky]

[Tomsky]

[mwillems]

Aaaanyway... I started the evening saying that FP2 isn't representative and we should wait, and yet I still got drawn in, though the only point I make is that there is much more evidence than a little bit of data in FP2. We may well be faster on the high speeds tomorrow and on Sunday and I won't argue that it can't or won't happen, but there is way more to consider than some Silo'd data from FP2. I do like a bit of devil's advocate.

I do think we will be closer to Ferrari than before and might be able to battle them. Lionsheart has promised to buy me a Mclaren 675 if I'm right, and I will give him 675 rubles if I am wrong, which seems very fair to me.

I didn't promise, don't lie.

And I'm judging by race pace, not qualifying. But I’m still very glad that McLaren is closer to the leaders. I hope the race pace will be high.

We've gone from 8kph faster to 2kph slower and minor gains in that high speed section, echoing exactly what I was saying earlier about the extreme liklihood that Ferrari had performance in hand. That kind of top speed advantage in FP2 was never likely. But we seem to have found a setup that has got huge gains through 9 and 10. This looks exciting for the race where I think we will be more competitive.

I'm thinking a podium is very possible.

I'm still seeing what looks like clipping at the end of the straights in the telemetry, was this the case?

[LionsHeart]

Aaaanyway... I started the evening saying that FP2 isn't representative and we should wait, and yet I still got drawn in, though the only point I make is that there is much more evidence than a little bit of data in FP2. We may well be faster on the high speeds tomorrow and on Sunday and I won't argue that it can't or won't happen, but there is way more to consider than some Silo'd data from FP2. I do like a bit of devil's advocate.

I do think we will be closer to Ferrari than before and might be able to battle them. Lionsheart has promised to buy me a Mclaren 675 if I'm right, and I will give him 675 rubles if I am wrong, which seems very fair to me.

I didn't promise, don't lie.

And I'm judging by race pace, not qualifying. But I’m still very glad that McLaren is closer to the leaders. I hope the race pace will be high.

We've gone from 8kph faster to 2kph slower and minor gains in that high speed section, echoing exactly what I was saying earlier about the extreme liklihood that Ferrari had performance in hand. That kind of top speed advantage in FP2 was never likely. But we seem to have found a setup that has got huge gains through 9 and 10. This looks exciting for the race where I think we will be more competitive.

I'm thinking a podium is very possible.

I'm still seeing what looks like clipping at the end of the straights in the telemetry, was this the case?

To be honest, as before Friday's practice session, which I already wrote, I was surprised that the team immediately drove with the rear wing at moderate downforce. By the way, in training 3, Lando still went with the Bahrain wing. Therefore, the maximum speeds and overall pace are not bad. But how will things be in turns 3 and 13? Regarding the early decrease in speed before braking: you and I have already discussed this. Perhaps it's how the team uses the hybrid component. We should collect more information about this. Again, if the race pace is high, I will be very pleased. But so far Ferrari looks consistently stronger and faster.

It will be all the more interesting what the team can achieve in Suzuka and then in Miami or Imola when the big update package arrives. For now I remain realistic.

And I’ll add one more thing: right now it’s clear that McLaren has become the 3rd most powerful car without any ifs.

[mwillems]

I didn't promise, don't lie.

And I'm judging by race pace, not qualifying. But I’m still very glad that McLaren is closer to the leaders. I hope the race pace will be high.

We've gone from 8kph faster to 2kph slower and minor gains in that high speed section, echoing exactly what I was saying earlier about the extreme liklihood that Ferrari had performance in hand. That kind of top speed advantage in FP2 was never likely. But we seem to have found a setup that has got huge gains through 9 and 10. This looks exciting for the race where I think we will be more competitive.

I'm thinking a podium is very possible.

I'm still seeing what looks like clipping at the end of the straights in the telemetry, was this the case?

To be honest, as before Friday's practice session, which I already wrote, I was surprised that the team immediately drove with the rear wing at moderate downforce. By the way, in training 3, Lando still went with the Bahrain wing. Therefore, the maximum speeds and overall pace are not bad. But how will things be in turns 3 and 13? Regarding the early decrease in speed before braking: you and I have already discussed this. Perhaps it's how the team uses the hybrid component. We should collect more information about this. Again, if the race pace is high, I will be very pleased. But so far Ferrari looks consistently stronger and faster.

It will be all the more interesting what the team can achieve in Suzuka and then in Miami or Imola when the big update package arrives. For now I remain realistic.

Speed difference between piastri and Norris is small though. I think way too much is being made of the contribution of the rear wing on our top speed, since today the Bahrain vs Jeddah comparison showed minor changes to speed, I think this makes clear the wing isn't the source of the issue.

Yes, turn 3 was awful. Imagine if we could deal with that corner. 9 and 10 was wonderful, it's been a long time since a team has been so much better there.

[LionsHeart]

We've gone from 8kph faster to 2kph slower and minor gains in that high speed section, echoing exactly what I was saying earlier about the extreme liklihood that Ferrari had performance in hand. That kind of top speed advantage in FP2 was never likely. But we seem to have found a setup that has got huge gains through 9 and 10. This looks exciting for the race where I think we will be more competitive.

I'm thinking a podium is very possible.

I'm still seeing what looks like clipping at the end of the straights in the telemetry, was this the case?

To be honest, as before Friday's practice session, which I already wrote, I was surprised that the team immediately drove with the rear wing at moderate downforce. By the way, in training 3, Lando still went with the Bahrain wing. Therefore, the maximum speeds and overall pace are not bad. But how will things be in turns 3 and 13? Regarding the early decrease in speed before braking: you and I have already discussed this. Perhaps it's how the team uses the hybrid component. We should collect more information about this. Again, if the race pace is high, I will be very pleased. But so far Ferrari looks consistently stronger and faster.

It will be all the more interesting what the team can achieve in Suzuka and then in Miami or Imola when the big update package arrives. For now I remain realistic.

Speed difference between piastri and Norris is small though. I think way too much is being made of the contribution of the rear wing on our top speed, since today the Bahrain vs Jeddah comparison showed minor changes to speed, I think this makes clear the wing isn't the source of the issue.

Yes, turn 3 was awful. Imagine if we could deal with that corner. 9 and 10 was wonderful, it's been a long time since a team has been so much better there.

The difference will not be significant in terms of maximum speed. Because there are enough zones where you can open DRS. Another thing is how much time could be gained in slow turns. The larger rear wing should give more stability on corner entry. I was even sure that Lando would stay with this choice, but by qualifying he was back to Friday's specification. I read from Pirelli that there will be problems with tire granulation at Albert Park. Let's see how the teams deal with this in the race. Because this will also affect the pure tempo.

Mwillems, to be honest, I’m very glad that the team brought two options for the rear wing and chose the less loaded one. I hope this will open a window of opportunity in terms of defense on straight sections. I also hope that in this case the floor creates enough downforce to feel comfortable in corners.

[Dafnalina]

Penalty for Pérez! We start p3 and p5!

[mwillems]

To be honest, as before Friday's practice session, which I already wrote, I was surprised that the team immediately drove with the rear wing at moderate downforce. By the way, in training 3, Lando still went with the Bahrain wing. Therefore, the maximum speeds and overall pace are not bad. But how will things be in turns 3 and 13? Regarding the early decrease in speed before braking: you and I have already discussed this. Perhaps it's how the team uses the hybrid component. We should collect more information about this. Again, if the race pace is high, I will be very pleased. But so far Ferrari looks consistently stronger and faster.

It will be all the more interesting what the team can achieve in Suzuka and then in Miami or Imola when the big update package arrives. For now I remain realistic.

Speed difference between piastri and Norris is small though. I think way too much is being made of the contribution of the rear wing on our top speed, since today the Bahrain vs Jeddah comparison showed minor changes to speed, I think this makes clear the wing isn't the source of the issue.

Yes, turn 3 was awful. Imagine if we could deal with that corner. 9 and 10 was wonderful, it's been a long time since a team has been so much better there.

The difference will not be significant in terms of maximum speed. Because there are enough zones where you can open DRS. Another thing is how much time could be gained in slow turns. The larger rear wing should give more stability on corner entry. I was even sure that Lando would stay with this choice, but by qualifying he was back to Friday's specification. I read from Pirelli that there will be problems with tire granulation at Albert Park. Let's see how the teams deal with this in the race. Because this will also affect the pure tempo.

Mwillems, to be honest, I’m very glad that the team brought two options for the rear wing and chose the less loaded one. I hope this will open a window of opportunity in terms of defense on straight sections. I also hope that in this case the floor creates enough downforce to feel comfortable in corners.

Totally agree that the wing was a benefit, just don't think it is a big differentiator in our top speed issues. But this track has more time with DRS open on the straights so it does change the effect of the wing somewhat as the DRS opens very early here, apart from on the third DRS zone.

I'm going to have a look at the telemetry properly and see what it looks like, but from a quick look we still saw a slow drop off of speed in that third DRS zone (which is more like Jeddas long straight) where others maintained speed or got faster, I really want to see what is happening with deployment here. This is part of the issue we have seen so far at the end of a long straight and it isn't just DRS, but that is part of it.

[mwillems]

Bahrain vs Jeddah Wing

• Rear Wing has little effect on top speed

• Rear wing has a little benefit in the high speed section, the Mclaren is fast in it's own right here

• Biggest benefits found in slower corners where a loaded wing helps the cars aero in those corners

Fundamentally this is a good car. Fixing the slow speed corners will help the top speed of the car also and an update here will see us competing with RB, since part of our issue at the first 2 tracks is the tricky corners leading to the long straights. With this gone we will get better exits and more speed. Though there is still clearly work to do on DRS efficiency, but I do think that this is in part deployment. It's the only reason I can think that we are dropping off like we are.

Bear in mind that the third (Err, second I think I mean?) DRS zone is a long curved run up to the DRS zone with plenty of time with DRS closed first getting our speed up (Like long straights with DRS that have previously punished us),and this time we only really suffer when we run out of electrical energy. Before that, with DRS open, we were very close to Ferrari.



It's not the rear wing folks.

[Darth-Piekus]

As I expected we would be almost on par with Ferrari here and much closer to Red Bull than Jeddah. In general this years car is a much better base. Im now waiting to see what the first upgrades will bring cause if they repeat last year we might see a victory contender.

[Vanja #66]

Norris only used Bahrain wing in FP3 and was 4-5kmh slower on every straight. No improvements in corners and only losses on straights of 4 tenths in total. Jeddah wing is a very good and efficient wing, no doubt I spoke too soon in Bahrain, McLaren did improve on drag in the winter - if they are smart and keep the Jeddah wing as baseline mid-level wing

[Dafnalina]

Did Lando use the Bahrain wing in quali?

[mwillems]

Norris only used Bahrain wing in FP3 and was 4-5kmh slower on every straight. No improvements in corners and only losses on straights of 4 tenths in total. Jeddah wing is a very good and efficient wing, no doubt I spoke too soon in Bahrain, McLaren did improve on drag in the winter - if they are smart and keep the Jeddah wing as baseline mid-level wing

https://i.ibb.co/1TjVrYx/aus-fp3-mcl.jpg

4-5kph with that setup.... best to use the Qualy setup as that was the one that offered the right balance

But you can see the point, the diffence with this wing is much bigger in the slower corners than the straights. In fact, more wing in FP3 didn't help us much more in the slower corners vs Qualy's bigger wing, we just needed a wing that was getting sufficient load that the aero was working properly, after that the floor could do it's job better. I really do not think this is a rear wing issue but the loading at the front of the car enabling the car to condition and use the airlfow.

The rear wing is the most visible consequence to the increase of wing at the front, and it naturally draws a lot of attention. Doesn't mean we didn't need more traction at front and rear, just that it is the floor that is not operating properly in these situations due to airflow preceding it. I may turn out to be wrong, and I'm clearly going up against the creme de la creme now, but I don't think I am

[Emag]

The exit out of T10 is absolutely mighty against the Ferrari and Lando is matching Max there. There is a lift compromising T9, but the gains on T10 are worthwhile (almost 0.3 on Carlos). Then it's a bit of a bummer the car loses out on the slow corners in the end, but that's the situation at the moment.