2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[mwillems]

It'll pass. The drama only comes from those who pay attention to it.

[Emag]

Honestly, the beginning of last season was probably worse. Even though the brake issues in Bahrain lowered expectations a bit, the form in Barcelona still gave some hope. And then McLaren showed up in Bahrain with a car that was dead last in race trim. So that was rough.

At least this year, we know what to expect, so I am just gonna let them do their thing until Baku and enjoy the battles at front, with Fernando possibly joining in at the sharp end of the field again after so many years.

[mclaren111]

Honestly, the beginning of last season was probably worse. Even though the brake issues in Bahrain lowered expectations a bit, the form in Barcelona still gave some hope. And then McLaren showed up in Bahrain with a car that was dead last in race trim. So that was rough.

At least this year, we know what to expect, so I am just gonna let them do their thing until Baku and enjoy the battles at front, with Fernando possibly joining in at the sharp end of the field again after so many years.

[Ground Effect]

Q2 for Oscar, Lando squeezes it into Q3

[Seerix]

I am curious about AM performance compared to McLaren. AM infrastructure is still not completed I think, so in case they built a car much faster than MCL60 our 'excuses' sort of lose their meaning/weight.

AM rent Mercedes’ state of the art wind tunnel

Ah, I was not aware thanks. They really have money to spend I guess since they are building a new one.

[SmallSoldier]

Part of me wants the car to be fast in Bahrain just so I can hear what Will Buxton (pretty much all the Pundits) have to say after the race after making the entire pre season testing unbearable.

They won’t say or admit to nothing… Same as in 2019, McLaren was placed anywhere between 7th -9th by all the “pundits” after testing… We know how that season ended.

[organic]

Most of the predictions seem to be what is the prediction for Bahrain, not the season as a whole.

If the predictions were about the entire year I'm confident almost all of the 'pundits' would have McLaren in 6th or higher

[Capharol]

Part of me wants the car to be fast in Bahrain just so I can hear what Will Buxton (pretty much all the Pundits) have to say after the race after making the entire pre season testing unbearable.

They won’t say or admit to nothing… Same as in 2019, McLaren was placed anywhere between 7th -9th by all the “pundits” after testing… We know how that season ended.

When the team came in 3rd it would understand this, but they ended up 5th and now they are putting last by almost all pundits

[SmallSoldier]

I am curious about AM performance compared to McLaren. AM infrastructure is still not completed I think, so in case they built a car much faster than MCL60 our 'excuses' sort of lose their meaning/weight.

Yes and no… 3 things to consider:

A) Even though Aston Martin is a in a similar situation to McLaren in terms of building infrastructure, they use Mercedes Wind Tunnel (which up to date compared to the Toyota one), therefore better quality of data

B) Aston Martin finished the season 7th, therefore they have had more CFD / Wind Tunnel time.

C) Aston Martin started work on their 2023 car earlier, since they weren’t in a particular battle (McLaren was fighting with Alpine for P4) they had the luxury of switching focus towards 2023 earlier than McLaren, who not only kept developing in order to keep up the fight, but was also late in it’s development due to the front brake issues at the start of the year.

The above aren’t excuses, but considering those 3 things it wouldn’t be surprising that they have jumped McLaren in the pecking order.

[SmallSoldier]

Terminate the contract of a talented driver because of a will to win and one outburst where he makes his feelings known?

Not getting drawn into this because it might not be true like I said.
Telling the team he’s not happy is one thing but throwing toys is another.

If you had a tradesman working at your house and he started kicking your bins about and had a tantrum - would you ask him to work for you again?

You weren’t sarcastic? I totally misread your comment

[SmallSoldier]

Terminate the contract of a talented driver because of a will to win and one outburst where he makes his feelings known?

I personally feel that Buxton should be accountable for inciting some instability.
The twitter frenzy on this creates a real problem for the team and it's not the first time Buxton runs his tongue for clicks. He did backtrack later and suggest it "might have been playful", but the damage is done.

He's done McLaren, Lando and F1 no favours with this toxic gossip.

He just adds to the entertainment… And yes, their jobs (pundits, journalists, etc) is to create “clicks” or better said “engagement”… The problem isn’t Buxton per se, is the fans looking for anything they can use to create or add drama

[SmallSoldier]

[genarro]

Terminate the contract of a talented driver because of a will to win and one outburst where he makes his feelings known?

I personally feel that Buxton should be accountable for inciting some instability.
The twitter frenzy on this creates a real problem for the team and it's not the first time Buxton runs his tongue for clicks. He did backtrack later and suggest it "might have been playful", but the damage is done.

He's done McLaren, Lando and F1 no favours with this toxic gossip.

He just adds to the entertainment… And yes, their jobs (pundits, journalists, etc) is to create “clicks” or better said “engagement”… The problem isn’t Buxton per se, is the fans looking for anything they can use to create or add drama

F1 has become a an american soapopera glittershow.. Just llok at drive to survive. Im a lifelong f1 and mclaren fan and i couldnt look at more than 15 minutes. And unfortunately it attracted a lot of new age fans that want DTS everywhere they look..

Gone are the days of admiring engineering at its best..

Anyway im going to stay true to my team no matter what and will watch every race hoping for a good result

[ValeVida46]

Terminate the contract of a talented driver because of a will to win and one outburst where he makes his feelings known?

I personally feel that Buxton should be accountable for inciting some instability.
The twitter frenzy on this creates a real problem for the team and it's not the first time Buxton runs his tongue for clicks. He did backtrack later and suggest it "might have been playful", but the damage is done.

He's done McLaren, Lando and F1 no favours with this toxic gossip.

He just adds to the entertainment… And yes, their jobs (pundits, journalists, etc) is to create “clicks” or better said “engagement”… The problem isn’t Buxton per se, is the fans looking for anything they can use to create or add drama

When it comes to destabilising a team and a driver, wouldn't you say that's a line crossed?
I'd disagree that it's the fans or that it adds to entertainment.
Journalists are incumbent to provide information responsibly. What's happened here is a failing of responsible journalism which actually ended up in him backtracking suggesting it "playful" which is the opposite of his sensationalist bombshell.

To the detriment of McLaren and it's driver.

[SmallSoldier]

I personally feel that Buxton should be accountable for inciting some instability.
The twitter frenzy on this creates a real problem for the team and it's not the first time Buxton runs his tongue for clicks. He did backtrack later and suggest it "might have been playful", but the damage is done.

He's done McLaren, Lando and F1 no favours with this toxic gossip.

He just adds to the entertainment… And yes, their jobs (pundits, journalists, etc) is to create “clicks” or better said “engagement”… The problem isn’t Buxton per se, is the fans looking for anything they can use to create or add drama

F1 has become a an american soapopera glittershow.. Just llok at drive to survive. Im a lifelong f1 and mclaren fan and i couldnt look at more than 15 minutes. And unfortunately it attracted a lot of new age fans that want DTS everywhere they look..

Gone are the days of admiring engineering at its best..

Anyway im going to stay true to my team no matter what and will watch every race hoping for a good result

That’s a good attitude… I’m glad that the sport has gained more popularity, it is good for the Teams and for the long term sustainability of the sport… Yes, the DTS fans are different than most that like the Technical side of the sport, but luckily we have places like this (F1Technical) to discuss what (the minority of fans like us) enjoy