Current McLaren

Arguably one of the big teams in Formula One but lately they don't seem to be able to get the basics right.
Some of their strategy and decisions in the last few years has left more than a few observers scratching their heads.

Just a few for starters:

• Leaving Kimi out on a badly flat-spotted tyre, resulting in it exploding on the last lap.
• Leaving Hamilton out on tyres so badly worn they were down to the canvas; Bridgestone themselves demanded that McLaren bring him in and McLaren refused, keeping him out for a few more laps. That decision arguably cost Hamilton the first rookie WDC and is one which will haunt him and McLaren for the rest of their days.
• Not sending Button and Hamilton out to get banker laps in during Q1.
• Sending Hamilton out on used tyres in Q3, with rain forecast, meaning it would be impossible to set a fast lap time on his second attempt on new tyres.

Their major updates seem to send them further down the grid, instead of challenging for pole positions and wins. As the season progresses they tend to get worse before getting better, by which time it is generally too late.

It's often said of them "write them off at your peril", but is this necessarily true?

The last time they won the WCC was in 1998 and their last WDC was 2008, before that 1999.
Their days of regularly winning championships seem to be well and truly behind them.

It's all well and good coming up with reasons why they haven't won championships.
The fact remains though, they have won just one WDC in the last 12 years.

So where to now for McLaren?

(I wrote this in rather a hurry so I will flesh it out when I have more time.)

 

[ZakspeedYakspeed]

During the British GP ... as they were dragging Sergio's car back into the pit to retIre I noticed a small TAG sponsors logo on the body work ... had me dreaming of 1984 to 1987 ...

 

[The Artist.....]

ZakspeedYakspeed

McLaren have had TAG sponsorship on their cars all through the 1980s, 90s and 2000s....

 

[FB]

Isn't Mansour Ojjeh one of the Directors of McLaren?

 

[downforce]

Sounds like they have begun on 2014 in earnest http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/108704

I just hope its early enough

 

[Mephistopheles]

Naive or extremely clever?

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/108802

Not running the race drivers gives McLaren more opportunity to work on the car without restriction but, it gives the race drivers no opportunity to get to know the tyres until FP1 in Hungary...

 

[RasputinLives]

Already arguing this one on the YDT test thread. Stupid team.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Oh right I just thought it was a McLaren thing so I posted it here..

 

[Il_leone]

I saw Top Gear the other day and the Mclaren MP4-12C when did they build this car by the way

 

[Mephistopheles]

The design was first shown in 2009 and the car was launched in 2011, and I want one....

 

[Il_leone]

so that explains why they were never truly competitive and consistent then if resources are spent elsewhere

 

[Mephistopheles]

Well if a garage team wants to turn itself into a manufacturing team then resources are going to be compromised, at least in the short term anyway..

 

[The Artist.....]

Il_leone Mephistopheles

My understanding has always been that the Mp4-12c has not removed any sources from the race team. - Mclaren's f1 team is a separate entity from the road car manufacturer, under the overall umbrella of McLaren international. Ron Dennis has been running the overall umbrella company.....

 

[Road of Bones]

They built an entirely new factory next door to the MTC (The McLaren Applied Technology Centre) in order to build the road cars - and they've built at least a couple of decent race cars since 2009. I don't think you can attribute their current misfortunes to making road cars as well. Jeremy Clarkson's assertion that when Ferrari make a great road car their race cars are rubbish does not automatically translate to McLaren here, I believe. McLaren's current plight is more to do with them trying to be revolutionary rather than evolutionary in the design of this year's car (and getting it badly wrong).

 

[Il_leone]

that depends if they got new investment outside the company or simply split their current finance

You still transfer or take away engineers from the F1 Team to concentrate on the road car

 

[Josh]

Yeah... Or you just hire new ones.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Interestingly, they were talking about this after a recent race on TV, the trouble is I can't remember if it was sky or the beeb but it just shows that it's a widely held opinion across the board.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Well the money has to come from somewhere McLaren may have deep pockets but their funds aren't unlimited...

 

[cider_and_toast]

It's hard to put a finger on why teams slump so badly from time to time. The greater the slump the more difficult it can be to explain. For instance, it's very unusual for a team to go from a winning car to not even making it onto a podium (so far) the following season.

This years Mclaren is just sloth like slow. Reliability isn't the big issue which has let the team down quite often in the past. Yes they've lost a quick driver in Hamilton but Button and Perez are better drivers than the car makes them look. There must be a number of factors at play to contribute to the down turn in performance.

 

[FB]

The last time McLaren had a "down turn" Marlboro stepped in and got some bloke called Ron Dennis to "merge" McLaren with his Project 4 racing team. I wonder if Ron is looking over his shoulder?

 

[RasputinLives]

No. Last time they had a 'downturn' they signed up Peaugeot engines and went even further downward.