This forum contains threads to discuss teams themselves. Anything not technical about the cars, including restructuring, performances etc belongs here.
Lando slowed down in the last laps, how did Ocon manage to catch up with him at the finish line?
I think he paid the price for his fastest lap early on in the stint. They are always saying how you need to be careful with how you bring the tires into a stint and so the Mediums dropped off badly vs Ocon's hards in the last 5 or so laps. I don't believe an issue was mentioned of any kind, just the tyre deg.
yep, all the drivers that stuck the mediums on in the last stint had a major fall off in tyres performance near the end, they all lost 1-2 seconds a lap.
Hello, i am a registered new member to the site but a long long time lurker. I just love the technical information and insights from this site and im glad its here for us as fans because otherwise there is very little that f1 as a whole provides to armchair fans in a technical capacity other than hyperbole and the basic info.
Anyway. I happen to have a friend that i work with who is a friend of an employee of mclaren. My work friend likes f1 but is overall very clueless with all techincalities so his information to me often very lazy and generalised. Anyway this guy that my workfriend is friends with is part of the team that travels over to germany to use toyotas wind tunnel. I believe he is some kind of test driver although i am yet to verify this.
Fingers crosses i can provide some insight over time and bits of info here and there. I must admit that the early information i am hearing is not particularly good.
If what i have said is not deemed appropriate for whatever reason then i apologise and was all intended in good faith. Thanks
More good news out of the team. Not solely relying on the big infrastructure projects to propel them forwards but also recognising they need further staff expertise.
After Aston Martin’s’ recruitment drive, good to see McLaren isn’t falling behind
Great to hear, I just feel this should have been done a season or 2 ago. The low speed issues that never seemed to go away should have pointed to the need for fresh aero and engineering eyes. But like they say, better late than never.
Sooner, faster is always better… But are we forgetting that the Team didn’t have sponsors back in 2018? That it was pretty close to going under from a financial stand point? Unluckily, when you are in recovery mode, you have to prioritize where and how you spend your income and looking back I don’t think the thought process was wrong… Hire competent leadership (Seidl, Key for example), hire good drivers (Lando, Sainz, Ric (I know, this one didn’t panned out, but the thought process during the hiring was the right one), stabilize the Team financially so that there would be a next season and focus on understanding your gaps (in infrastructure and talent)… It is a process and with limit resources you can’t go after all of them at the same time… Throw Covid in the middle of that process and I don’t think the job has been half bad.
I agree they had to prioritise, but I believe they did not prioritise properly. They have had enough money for side activities like Indy, Xtreme E, FE and ESports. It must have cost them a fortune to set up those teams or take over the existing infrastructures. They could had prioritised their F1 activities, using that funds to sign better engineers. They did not. And like has already been said, Stroll did purchase the talent he could get and McLaren can now pick up the leftovers.
Now if binotto is indeed shown the door at ferrari we should go for him as new tech dir
I agree with this. If Binotto is shown the door at Ferrari, McLaren should not hesitate and make sure they get him as replacement to Key. Not only does he have all the knowledge from Ferrari that he would bring to the team, I believe Key has had his chances and has been very unconvincing at it. Binotto is a great engineer and has proven himself to be able to steer a team into the right direction technical-wise. He would be a great asset to the team.
Now if binotto is indeed shown the door at ferrari we should go for him as new tech dir
I agree with this. If Binotto is shown the door at Ferrari, McLaren should not hesitate and make sure they get him as replacement to Key. Not only does he have all the knowledge from Ferrari that he would bring to the team, I believe Key has had his chances and has been very unconvincing at it. Binotto is a great engineer and has proven himself to be able to steer a team into the right direction technical-wise. He would be a great asset to the team.
Why an either/or? Both are very useful and could no doubt work together, possibly one at the works the other at the track? I think both are to men
Edit, yeah, I forgot the cost cap
When arguing with a fool, be sure the other person is not doing the same thing.
I don't want to put everything on James Key. The brake issue is not something I would directly attribute to him. If not for that then we might have had 4th, as we'd have brought upgrades much earlier, been a little faster over the whole year and possibly had one more upgrade to bring, so to be honest I think we would have had fourth.
It's also not James Keys fault that Daniel couldn't bring the points home. if we'd had another driver in and around Lando we would have been clear 4th fastest team.
And if these two disasters hadn't struck then perhaps we'd be fighting for (but probably losing) 3rd.
But I am interested to see what the team produce next year, the chance for excuses are running out and if we don't get results in '23 then I'd not be against a new design team in time for the new tunnel.
Binotto will be rehomed in Ferrari and will be around to tap up next year if needed, if indeed he'd consider leaving the Ferrari family. and I can't see him going to another team.
Don’t think Binotto is the answer here.
I think Key and co deserve a chance to show what they can do given proper facilities. All in all, this season was meh 🫤 for us but at least we are still punching
Tomorrow Oscar will drive the MCL36, will we be able to compare his laps with Lando? Or will there be other tires?
they are testing the 2023 tyres I believe, both Lando and Piastri will drive, but I assume they will be testing a large range of tyre specifications, the lap times won't really be comparable because one will do a day session, and the other a night.
