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.)

 

[Quintessentially]

Okay I'll write a letter to Lewis and ask him if he wouldn't mind "Sorting things out." for McLaren as it is obvious he is the only person on the planet who can, he'll probably say no though, which is a shame, as it would probably only take him a half hour or so, I'll even dog sit Roscoe for him....

Just ask him to post his set up data that's all. We know JB likes those

 

[F1ang-o]

And by the way, this.
At past the midpoint of the 2009 season with todays scoring system Lewis would have been sitting on 22 points 161 points behind the leader Jenson Button's tally of 183...

So best not casting aspersions based on that little factoid....

In 2009 Macca had a real dog of a car....
At the beginning of the year.....Aust? Lewis dragged that car up to fourth, in the pouring rain, behind a safety car, a few laps from the end of the race. Trulli in 3rd position , went off on an excursion & returned to the track behind Lewis. Someone at Mclaren told Lewis he had to give the place back,This turned out to be incorrect, & McLaren tried to get the place back. They then lied to the FIA, Lewis said was he was just doing as instructed by the team. Dave Ryan got sacked/ 5yrs ban?
This was the start of Whitmarsh as Team Principal, Lewis was robbed of a podium position, then hung out to dry, field day for his haters.
Jenson won the race in his supa dupa untouchable Brawn
For someone who wanted the JB v LH thread closed & said so at every opportunity....why keep unearthing it, that parrot is a past tense...

 

[The Pits]

sushifiesta I agree with your points, I think that Red Bull is everyones problem at the moment, and the loss of key personnel must take its toll eventually.

The only person I can recall giving his reasons for leaving openly was Lewis, and I think that the environment and constraints that are alluded to are at odds with the outward image of the Whitmarsh tenure, which is one of the reasons I think like I do.

I see Newey in a similar light to Dave Brailsford, and Clive Woodward. People who get what it takes to build a winning team, Newey has flourished at Red Bull as he is allowed the latitude to express his talent, with few restrictions, be they financial or otherwise. He was less successful at McLaren, as he was not allowed this freedom amongst other things, and this is the kind of thing I think is in the fabric of McLaren.

 

[teabagyokel]

I see Newey in a similar light to Dave Brailsford, and Clive Woodward.

NOTE: For success, select the bald.

The situation in 2009 is not comparable to the situation here. Then, F1 was in the first phase of radical new rules, when a team could make huge strides from race to race, and the field was extraordinarily tightly bunched. Remember, Force India went from last in the field to contenders to win at Spa and Monza just through car set-up!

McLaren did well, but there's no opportunity to make such strides at the end of the rules phase. Mercedes have the outright best car (ignoring the Pirelli effect) and the diminishing returns states that all gains are now piecemeal, and a waste of funds compared to jumping out of the box in 2014 with a great car. Remember, being half to a whole second up could see you win quite a few of the first races and thus take an unassailable lead when everyone else catches up.

Which driver would you back in that circumstance?

 

[Il_leone]

The Pits Correct as there was a mole at Mclaren who apparently reported to Whitmarsh about Newey. Obviously this was not helped by his infamous u-turn in agreeing to join Jaguar after it leaked he was about to join them

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Gary Anderson is pointing out that Mclaren do not have a visionary person who will have an idea and pull the team forward whereas they are currently too much analysing everything and its too much detail to consume
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The only other thing with Mclaren even though Lewis said he found it too stifling for his personality is they don't appear as efficient as they use to be and making little errors.

Under Ron Dennis you could see he was absolute perfectionist and it transcended to the team to be perfect.
Whitmarsh using a matrix operating structure seems to have his own personality and is not as hard as Ron in terms when he comes across speaking publicly
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I'd like to know what Sam Michael is suppose to be doing given there are a lot of operational errors

 

[gethinceri]

I know what Sam Michael is doing.
Fuck all is what he's doing.

 

[Lewywo4]

. I don't think Checo's predecessor has ever been this low and so far behind the championship leader half way through a season. Let's not forget that at some critical races last year and without Checo's predecessor (we don't want to mention his name do we before all hell breaks loose), you would've thought the McLaren was a dog of a car in the hands of Button.

Those are important distinctions that are totally missed by some......

 

[Quintessentially]

I'd like to know what Sam Michael is suppose to be doing given there are a lot of operational errors

You should ask Whitmarsh. He recruited him after all

 

[Lewywo4]

In 2009 Macca had a real dog of a car....
At the beginning of the year.....Aust? Lewis dragged that car up to fourth, in the pouring rain, behind a safety car, a few laps from the end of the race. Trulli in 3rd position , went off on an excursion & returned to the track behind Lewis. Someone at Mclaren told Lewis he had to give the place back,This turned out to be incorrect, & McLaren tried to get the place back. They then lied to the FIA, Lewis said was he was just doing as instructed by the team. Dave Ryan got sacked/ 5yrs ban?

Mclaren and Lewis's response to the Trulli incident at Australia in 09, just showed how deeply that paranoia had set in the whole team, as a result of some of the totally outrageous decisions that they had received from the FIA in 08'.

 

[Il_leone]

Quintessentially

I might send an email to the Mclaren website then and see if I get a response

 

[Mephistopheles]

I know this is probably partly my fault and I should not have allowed myself to be egged on by F1ang-o, but this is a the McLaren thread and Checos predecessor doesn't drive for them anymore so lets stop banging on about him, he has his own thread for that type of thing...

The matter at hand is, that this years car is shit. and it ain't gonna get any better, as they have categorically stated they have given up on the bag of bolts...

But even that fact won't stop some people saying it is all Whitmarsh's fault or all Jenson's fault, but really it is the original designers fault and thank god he has fucked off to Mercedes to preach his pearls of wisdom...

 

[racecub]

I don't think it's clear who actually designed the current Mclaren, I read that Goss 'had his paws all over it', even if he wasnt chief at the time. I can't remember who said that now. I must admit its a worry(for merc and their fans) if it was all down to Lowe. But who sanctioned that change? From a winning car to a new one a year before the regs altered? That I think is the issue here.
As a side issue Merc have Ross in charge, Lowe will be integrated gradually.

 

[cider_and_toast]

For me, at the end of the day, the car is dog toffee. There's no getting around that issue. You could put the worlds greatest drivers behind the wheel and have the pope bless the wheels off it and it still won't go any faster.

There have been signs in the last couple of races that things are starting to improve slightly and maybe a development corner has been turned. With a little luck, some of the design team are at home (because the factories are shut down obviously) playing a game of "design new bits for your car" on their lap tops. All strictly honest and above board guv "it's just a pc game".

If we have to cast doubt over Button's ability to develop a car (and lord knows I'm no fan of the bloke) then surely we have to place the same doubt over Alonso, who has recently been rebuked by Ferrari after critical comments about his car.

Well if Fernando "6 tenths" Alonso can't develop a car then what chance has Button got?

the history of F1 has several examples of top name drivers moving on and at the same time (for various reasons) a team slumping in form. One that immediately springs to mind is Senna leaving Lotus at the end of 87 to join Mclaren. Nelson Piquet, then current world champion, signed for Lotus for 88, they had the same Honda engines as Mclaren and Lotus had just finished third in the championship with Senna taking 2 wins and a total of 8 podium finishes. For 88, Piquet took 3 thirds and finished in the points a further 4 times. These things happen.

I tend to agree that it would seem fresh ideas are needed in the design department at McLaren and maybe a management shuffle as well but the drivers can only do so much with what they've got and what they've got is not a lot.

 

[Titch]

Whitmarsh has never struck me as an inspirational man. Surely a team should be inspired by their leader. Nor does Button strike me as the sort of driver who's input would be very technical. Give him the goods and he might drive it well. Maybe. On a good day.
But for all that I still find it hard to understand how a team can fall so far and so fast.

 

[Bill Boddy]

There is no such thing as a driver who develops a car, what he does is report on how the car feels to him. This is useful backup to the technical data from the myriad of sensors on modern F1 cars, but no more than that. It is the development engineers (clue in the name?) who take all the data, correlate it and then try to make improvements.

 

[Titch]

Maybe McLaren could do to employ some then BB

 

[teabagyokel]

From what we have heard on the telly, Button is rarely shy with feedback. That's got to be a good thing, surely.

 

[Bill Boddy]

Yes, feedback is good but it is not development.

 

[teabagyokel]

How many if the top engineers have previously been Grand Prix drivers?

That tells you Bill Boddy is correct...

 

[Il_leone]

If Damon Hill was only about 20 years younger than he would be the perfect development driver