Poll Should McLaren abandon 2013 development for 2014 car?

Should McLaren abandon 2013 development for 2014 car?

  • Yes

    Votes: 28 68.3%
  • No

    Votes: 5 12.2%
  • Yes but No but Yes but No but Yes but No but Yes but No but

    Votes: 5 12.2%
  • Who cares

    Votes: 3 7.3%

  • Total voters
    41

Greenlantern101

Super Hero And All Round Good Guy
Contributor
No points in Canada on actual pace, no weather, safety cars or incidents to blame.
Its very early but maybe thats the point. Should Mclaren go 100% on the 2014 car NOW before everyone else. Bottom line is they can't win this year. Is it time for a bold decision?
 
There really are major problems at McLaren, being consistently outperformed by Force India is not a good sign, this years car is almost as bad as the MP4-24 from 2009, the question is, is Button as good a driver to develop a car as Hamilton is, this isn't a knocking Button post, but while Hamilton was able to drag the 2009 McLaren car from the back to points and race wins while Kovaliainen was in the middle, Button hasn't really shown this year that he can drag McLaren towards the front of the grid
 
They have no chance of winning the Championship, next years car will be completely different than the current car, there's really no good reason not to focus on next years car.
 
This year appears to be a lost cause. Concentrating on next years car would be a great idea. I am also no fan of Button- he has always been been more steady than fast. McLaren need to bring a hot shoe on board to build the team around and design next years car accordingly.
 
Well, I am not sure about the assessment of Button, and the comparison to 2009 is not really viable, as that was a very different proposition, which in my opinion flattered the McLarens somewhat.

Personally, however, I would suggest that the first thing they need to do is to understand how the car this season got to be so bad, otherwise, the same thing could happen next year, which would be an issue.

It may be that they need to bolster the technical department a bit, maybe some aggressive recruitment, but I cannot help but think the shadow of Ron weighs heavy at Woking.
 
Red Bull seen to have built a car that can be aggressive on the current Pirelli tyres yet make them last a tad better than the competition. Button has this gentle on the tyres reputation which doesn't appear to work with the tyre. Lewis has taken his more flexible driving style to Mercedes and I think that has enabled them to pull more out of the car/tyre combination.

Meanwhile, back at McLaren, Jenson's requirements have probably meant that their car development went in the wrong direction in order to suit his so-called smooth style. I don't think it is a coincidence that last season, in the races when Jenson struggled and Lewis prevailed, Jenson complained about not being able to get the heat in the tyres to switch them on leading to excessive wear and degradation.

Fernando and Kimi take the same kind of flexibility of style to Ferrari and Lotus respectively which is why I think McLaren need to maybe have a look at adapting their car (dare I say this?) toward Sergio Perez.
 
Would you keep either of them for 2014? Can't remember the last time McLaren dumped both drivers.

Anyway, back on topic, they need to keep developing this years car as the technical rules, apart from the engine, are still very similar and they need to make the Battleship Potemkin work to ensure next years is good.
 
Fenderman

I think it has a lot to do with the temperature too. When there's a high track temperature Button's smooth style works better (as far as conserving tyres is concerned) while Hamilton's more agressive driving style is better suited to tracks where the track temperature isn't very high (ie today).

I'm not sure at what tracks Button had trouble last year so I have no idea how sound this theory is, just throwing it out there.
 
Brogan Sorry I should have been more specific. I was thinking in terms of further development of this years car if there is any. For their 2014 contender they've got a total head-scratcher of a problem if indeed it is due to their driver line up.
 
There's no point in trying to develop a new car if they don't understand what went wrong with current one, and like others have said the aerodynamic differences for 2014 are fairly minor.
 
Well it's obviously Button's fault isn't it, there is absolutely no possibility of there being any other explanation for it, I'd sack the bastard myself....
 
EJ said that McLaren have a strange system in that one team designs and develops the current car and a totally different team work on the next year's car, and there is little or no cross-over between the two teams.

If he is right, it could explain why last year's quite good car turned into this year's nightmare.
 
There will be significant differences in design with regard to the aerodynamics due to the difference in size and shape of the area occupied by the power units and the turbo's. That will influence the design of the rear (i.e; the engine cover and shape of the "coke-bottle"). In addition, the power delivery characteristics will be different with more torque expected relative to horsepower, which will have an influence on traction and mechanical grip. How the tyres will cope with that will be a complete unknown until the tyres are matched up with a 2014 spec' car. A lot will have been done in the simulators but as the reaction to test-gate illustrates it's when the cars hit the track that the real data will come in.

The question for McLaren, with regard to abandoning this year's car, is around whether or not the savings in development costs outweigh the loss of prize fund money if they can't improve their championship position by the end of the season.
 
One has to assume the data used in the simulator was used to design this years car and either McLaren thought it was right or just ignored that they were building a pup. If the former (as I doubt the latter) they could do with working on this years car to recalibrate the simulator.
 
The difference between fifth and sixth in the championship, which is probably what we're talking about, is in the region of 8-12m dollars. For a team of McLaren's spend, not a huge proportion.

I think the changes for next year are big enough for it to be advantageous to throw full resource behind them, and use the rest of the season as a test to try to get their calibration sorted out. Evidently whatever they thought would work to improve the car has had negligible effect.
 
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