mwillems wrote: ↑24 Sep 2021, 08:43
SmallSoldier wrote: ↑23 Sep 2021, 19:05
I respect your point of view in regards to ditching this season in order to try and get the best potential start to the following one, it is a valid argument and one that other teams seem to have follow.
My take on the situation is the following:
A) During the exploration / concept phase of the 2022 car, there are no parts been manufactured, the amount of resources used in this phase is relatively low since it’s probably an small group that first needs to agree on the architecture of the car from a mechanical point of view, there isn’t a lot of aerodynamic work yet during this phase, you are looking at potential influence of big surfaces, but you can’t correlate them together without knowing what the architecture is… What is the core of your design team doing at this point? What is the manufacturing team doing at this point?… Those are working on parts for the 2021 car while they are waiting on parts for 2022 to work on.
B) From the article, I also take that most of the parts we’ve seeing coming for the MCL35M were signed off several months ago, which means that the critical resource for the 2022 car was working on next year’s car… While they had a team (mainly production and validation) still focus on the 2021 car.
C) Even though from a probability perspective, the more time you spend in the 2022 car should give you the biggest chance of success next year, the reality is that it may very well not be the case… The team that has apparently spent the most amount of time looking at 2022 is Haas, I don’t think that there is an expectation for them to win the WCC next year… Throwing away 2021 without assurance that it would spell success in 2022 is something that I wouldn’t advice… Furthermore and Key mentions this as well, we were competing in 2021 and it is important for the Team, the Sponsors and Investors that they have the best possible outcome out of the season, ultimately the results from last season and this one are opening up negotiations for better deals with Sponsors for the car, which creates financial stability, additional resources for investment and an stable platform to build upon… For a brand as McLarenF1 to continue to show progress was critical for their long term success (even if that implies not fighting at the front next season)… Maybe one of the reasons why Zak and Andreas keep talking about mounting a fight for WCC as early as 2023 (at which point the rest of the investments in the necessary hardware will be online)… I can see a different point of view from a Fan perspective, since those numbers (financial) behind the scene aren’t at the forefront of the decisions we would make.
D) I tend to believe that the “brain trust” inside the McLaren Team is quiet strong and that decisions such as this (extend focus in 2021 beyond what the competitors may be doing) wasn’t done on a wimp and backed up by sufficient data in regards to pro’s and con’s of doing so… They have a capable team in place and so far the progress showed during the last 3 seasons is proof of that… At this stage, I tend to support their decision based on what we are seeing on track and can only hope that the team will have a strong 2022 season also… Like I said before, I believe that there is a lot of validity to the counter argument, but I have no reasons (nor data) to think that the Team’s thought process and decision in regards to when and how much to focus on 2022 is the wrong one or suboptimal.
Again I do fully respect your opinion but personally hold differently.
Regarding A) and B) We know from the teams statements running up to Silverstone and Hungary and from this one that design continued well after the January sign off and design carried on up until the summer, albeit in a reducing amount
Regarding C, as you acknowledge the probability is that the more time we spend on the 22 car the better 22 might be. But then it goes on to only make a comparison between 21 and 22. But the comparison should be between 22 and the seasons afterwards, versus the rewards of 21. Because what we do for the 22 car is the platform for everything afterwards too. 2021 is a standalone year now and will not benefit 2022.
We were never going to finish lower than 4th this year, it was evident after a few races, so the team have gone all in on the fight with Ferrari for 3rd. I cannot get on board with that. On a Risk reward for this year, there was little risk and little reward for stopping or continuing development, when looking at the outcome of the '21 championship. There is however a bigger risk and reward to the outcome of 22 and the seasons afterwards.
Was it worth sacrificing work on the 22 car to get 3rd instead of 4th? I don't think so. And to use your own logic, there is
no assurance of getting 3rd and that the time spent on the 21 car had any benefit at all. If we finish 4th this year, then you'd say it was a waste of resources. You cannot argue that the work on next years car is ever going to be a waste of resources.
Ferrari know that next year is when they need to beat us, and every year after it. The team, Sainz and Leclerc have said that this year is not important to them like other seasons were - something they started saying when they realised it was either 3rd or 4th. So forget HAAS, we are up against Ferrari, Merc and RB and we have the added threat of Renault, Aston Martin, Alpha Tauri and I think Williams too.
We are going to get to '22 and, to quote some gentleman from a fine movie, we may find that "this sh*t just got real"
Obviously I don't know what will happen in '22, I just wanted to end that with a quote from
Bad Boys 2.
(Because of rains obviously)
