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.)

 

[Il_leone]

I have to say Sam Michael's career with Jordan, Williams and MClaren so far has not been stellar

The fact it seems each team he has joined they end up going backwards is either ironic or he seems to be part of the problem not the solution

Sam Michael does not have direct input into the design of the car but he can influence the way Mclaren go about analysing the data and improving the processes

For a start Mclaren in trying to understand where they are going wrong with the car they analyse everything so you're not really to trying to isolate the problem and prioritising

- I would have thought Sam Michael should at least been able to steer the engineering team into key focal areas

 

[Il_leone]

I remember someone posted that Sam Michael quoted in Spain when the upgrades did not work but the team was working really hard to do everything and did not get enough time to test all the new bits

At the same time Red Bull, Ferrari, Lotus and Merc were further ahead of them with upgrades

- the fact is other teams have done better and made better use of their time to regroup and analyse the data and make improvements with upgrades from the flyaway races to the European season

That says Mclaren don't know how to allocate their resources and time properly if they were trying to test everything

That is more like lets hope they find the key problems by trying everything at once

 

[Mephistopheles]

I seem to remembering him saying at one of the races this year when parts were late turning up to the track that it just goes to show how well things are going and that the team and he was putting in the maximum effort, no it doesn't shit bollocks it just goes to show how inept you are...

 

[Il_leone]

Mephistopheles That is what I am referring to - the fact the other teams were further ahead shows Mclaren don;t know what they are doing and tried to cover all bases rather than really pinpoint where key developments could have been made

that is what I meant by better use of resources - is that not Sam Michael's job or are the engineers simply being overworked where he seems to have little control in the Mclaren set up

 

[The Artist.....]

Il_leone

Sam Michael is a sporting director- I.e. He is in charge of sporting issues.

He is not a technical director- in fact he has no input on the technical side. If McLaren were losing because they were pissing up pit stops, then that's a role of the sporting director...

 

[Mephistopheles]

He's still a twat though...

 

[Bill Boddy]

Nice to see a considered posting.

 

[Greenlantern101]

Ermahgerd

 

[Mephistopheles]

That cars got DRS I wonder who the driver was

 

[sobriety]

Now that is how a car should sound.

 

[Il_leone]

The Artist..... Which happened last year and at the beginning of this year

 

[downforce]

Does Oliver Turvey do anything outside of his McLaren testing role?

I know Parfett races in DTM, so he is always race sharp, that in my opinion would make him a better test driver in a test ban. Does Turvey race in any other series?

 

[Fenderman]

Yes downforce . This year Turvey campaigned in the European Le Mans Series in the LMP2 class with Jota Sport team mate Simon Dolan. He won the season opener at Silverstone but they DNF'd at the second round at Imola. At round three at the Red bull Ring they came 4th and then took 3rd at both the Hungaroring and Paul Ricard rounds. With team mate Lucas Luhr for the Le Mans 24hrs, Turvey and Dolan came 13th overall and 7th in the LMP2 class.

 

[downforce]

thanks.

 

[Greenlantern101]

Leaked image of the new Mclaren?
From Face Book.

Not as ugly as I had expected. I rather like it. Hope they go for the orange as well.

 

[sobriety]

Quack.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Actually that looks pretty cool kinda retro looking in that colour a pity they won't be keeping it..

 

[F1Yorkshire]

I like the simpler front wing, they just need to tweak the nose so it looks more like early 90's F1 cars.

 

[RasputinLives]

From that colouring I can tell who Mclaren's new title sponsor is. Just photoshop Tony the tiger into the cockpitband you've got a Frosties advert. Mclaren they're Greeeeattt!

A word of warning though. Mclaren traditionally run the first test of every year in the traditional Mclaren Orange. This could very well be that rather than the colours for the whole season.

 

[Greenlantern101]

Mr Saward reckons the new sponsor is Sony which ties in with the orange colour scheme rumour mill.

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/ruminations-on-mclarens-title-sponsor/