McL-H wrote: ↑08 Jul 2022, 23:55
Thanks for your comment and the clarification you try to gave from your experience and perspective. It has made some things make more sense to me. If Mercedes have created a knowledge gap over us during the past 10 years, making them progress more, shouldn’t we be prioritising taking that knowledge away from them? Buy people away from Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari? Or have we already been doing that? I think if other teams have more knowledgeable personnel than us, we should replace ours with theirs. Do you agree?
Also, I think you make a great case for the increased lead times on the wind tunnel, and surely replacing one within a structure in place will take more time than building from scratch. Agreed. But don’t you think you can speed up the build time by directing more funds to it, instead of leaking away your cash to secondary racing series? Especially since Zak keeps telling us that the wind tunnel will be our Hail Mary. That doesn’t make sense to me, while I do understand the move to add secondary racing series to the racing department.
Btw, McLaren and F1 would be nowhere without the fans. Although I cannot buy their cars, I have purchased for thousands of euros in merchandise to support the team and have been to many races to support them. As fans, I think we definitely have something to demand back from the team. And although I cannot demand championships, I do expect that they try to in order for them to be worth my time and money (that is my investment). Do they have to listen? No. But without the fans, they wouldn’t be here today.
Regarding the knowledge gap build, you have to keep in mind that the knowledge base isn’t necessarily in one or two individuals… In principal, I do agree that it would make sense to try to poach talent when spotted… McLaren hiring Key is an example of the Team doing that, but the challenge becomes in regards to who you actually poach and whether those individuals (because you would need more than just one) will provide the results you expect, for example Paddy Lowe, someone that was considered a key part of Mercedes, lead a very successful team during his tenure there and simply flopped hard once he made the move to Williams… Furthermore, the knowledge gap built through the years is also a function of the amount of people the teams have, the budgets that the top 3 managed during the hybrid era, not only allowed them to have top talent, but also a large amount of it… In addition it also depends on whether those individuals want to make a move themselves… It isn’t clear cut and it could be a very expensive exercise… I’m sure the Team is constantly looking at the market for potential talent.
But the gap is not only in terms of the individuals, it is also the tools they have at their disposal… Better tools (from computational power, designing software, manufacturing equipment, testing equipment, the simulator, the wind tunnel, etc) all play a role and compound themselves to create a gap… The Team has been investing in renewing their tools, we hear a lot about the Simulator and Wind Tunnel because those 2 are big items, but there is a lot more that is been updated that goes below the radar and it’s not a cheap investment by any means.
In regards to speeding up the Wind Tunnel, sometimes you just can’t throw money at things and expect them to happen faster, specially with something as complex and technologically driven like a new Wind Tunnel… It is not been build by the Team, it is a combination of different vendors, contractors and engineers that have to deliver and they have timelines to make it happen… Unluckily, the current environment just makes it that much harder… An example of something that I’m currently going through, we have invested several million in a new piece of equipment to automate one of our manufacturing process, the project is not only delayed now, but we are running above budget because of increases in Freight, Raw Materials and Wages… We have had to change vendors a couple of times because they would arbitrarily increase their initial budgets and try to hold us hostages, making us lose time while we source a new company to deal with (and making our lawyers that much wealthy in the mean time)… Even if money could speed things up, then the question becomes one of return over investment… How much more to speed the project how much time? Are you going to throw 10 more million to gain a couple of months? Is it worthy? (Just a random number by the way).
The fan base is of course critical to McLaren and the Team is at the forefront in terms of fan engagement… But you may need to analyze a bit what you think you are owed by the Team itself… You have bought their merchandise because you want to be associated with the Team, wearing it with pride (hopefully not only when the team is winning)… But it doesn’t give you any right whatsoever to make any kind of “demand”… You can criticize them, you can cheer them or boo them, you can stop buying their merchandise or simply stop “investing” time watching them, you can feel disappointed and let down… But there is a huge gap between been a fan and enjoying watching the team race and feeling that you are entitled to something in return for your support… The Team appreciates the fans, they engage with them, generate content and in the last few years managed to get the fans closer to the Team, that’s what they can do for the fans…
There are only 2 groups that can “demand” anything from the team… The shareholders and the sponsors… For the rest of us, we need to decide if we stick around when the times are rough (like the last decade) or either stop watching F1 or find someone else to cheer for… I hate the current state of affairs, it isn’t pleasing to watch the team qualify P15 and P16, but I won’t stop supporting them because of it… I didn’t become a McLaren fan because they were winning and won’t stop been one because they aren’t doing it anymore… Nor am I a fan of a particular driver and will change teams when that driver moves somewhere else.
again?
