richard_leeds wrote:I don't know if it is due to the team structure, but they do seem to try a gimmick every year in recent years. That must disrupt evolutionary development. While the top teams progressively evolve their cars, McLaren routinely declare there is little scope for evolution and start afresh.
2008 - WDC
2009 - oh oh
2010 - F duct
2011 - U pods
2012 - Coanda
2013 - Pull rod front
Of course, the F-duct and Coanda Exhausts were immediately copied up and down the grid. As was the J-damper after that idea was stolen - I mean to say, was discovered inadvertently in a way that was nothing whatsoever like the Stepney thing.
One could argue that McLaren's worst problems have been when they've opted to develop their prior cars as opposed to change. In '09, they missed the boat on both the double diffuser and the front wing. In '11, they missed the boat on the exhaust blown diffuser (arguable, since they
did have two designs, both of which worked absolute wonders on paper). In '12, they missed the boat on the higher front nose.
In my mind, McLaren's woes seem to be that they are often too slow to understand/copy what the other teams have done, while the other teams have readily copied/improved upon McLaren's innovations.
I think they suffer a bit from Not Invented Here Syndrome; and contrary to the common wisdom on McLaren, I think they are often painfully slow at adapting and developing their designs. Particularly given their resources.
My gut feeling is that they only tend to introduce designs when they think they have the perfect solution, which are often too far developed by the time they hit the track. That is, they take the designs too far before proving them on the car, so when they don't work, it's a nightmare for them to reconstruct why. Of course, if they do work, then they're golden.