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]

The only engine supplier who I have seen shown equal status treatment was Renault back when they had Williams as the main team but their contract stipulated they could supply one other team and that was Benetton who thanks to Flavio bought Ligier to get the Renault engine deal

It did annoy Williams that the Renault engineers in their camp were celebrating when a Benetton Renault won in Schumacher's hands more often or not

When Mclaren had Mercedes - Ron always wanted them to be the defacto No 1 team so was angry with Whitmarsh for helping out Brawn with the same engines without looking after its own interest

For a while Mclaren ( and occassionally Force India) were able to beat Mercedes team with the same engine because they (Mercedes ) were still trying to build their team back to the staffing levels that Honda were operating at. Now Mercedes are set up where they are monopolising the front with money and information from the engine supplying to customers used to build more new parts for the factory team

A good example is Williams who were once a dominant force appear to be subservient to Mercedes. So if Mclaren start beating Mercedes ... would Toto start limiting supplying engines ie put the fee up to Mclaren ?

Ferrari apparently supplied Minardi inferior engines after being shown up one practice session by the small team

Mclaren have got themselves in a terrible mess with Honda completely breaking off or just writing off this season and use a Merc engine makes you wonder how long will it take for Mclaren's recovery to the front

As long as they are owned by the Bahrainian's they will not fold like some teams have so it could be painful to watch seeing the 2nd most successful team in F1 to be languishing at the back for a few more years

 

[sobriety]

Trouble is, if the engine is bad, then it's hard to improve the chassis as you're never able to push to the chassis limits.

It's effectively a circular process, right now McLaren are engine-limited, if the engine improves they'll be chassis-limited, then they improve the chassis, they'll be back to engine-limited again, and the process of improvement can continue. However that's really hard when you're limited on engines and can't test...

 

[sobriety]

If I were McLaren I'd write off this season in terms of points and go testing. New engines/chassis/aero parts at every race, kind of like the old days....

Also, ship a chassis or two to honda, dress it up as an nsx and pound it round Suzuki. If they get caught just pay the bloody fine and carry on, it's not like getting DQ'ed from this year's championship will make it any bloody worse.

 

[Il_leone]

The big problem is see with both Mclaren and Honda are that they both act like they are "Apple" and suffer from "hubris" in that they think their product and technology is superior

Mclaren for saying they have an exclusive contract with Honda and not being flexible about potentially sharing engine data with teams

Honda whilst not openly arrogant like Apple, only look within itself for what it considers the best engineers when you consider Mercedes as soon as the powerplant regulations were being implemented they put in a massive recruitment drive to get engineers not only from those who lost their jobs from Honda/ Brawn but to anyone else available


So both Mclaren and Honda are falsely assured that they are on track with their progress.. its only when they start testing they realise just how their car is with the rest .. this is something you see with Apple new products especially phones when they brag about it until you realise the number of bugs and defects it has. It is almost as if the hype is more important than the final product itself

When Mclaren with Mercedes at least they could compare data to Force India who were like a B team to them using the same engines and even swapping / seconding engineers

I think this attitude has to change from Mclaren because if they are both like that then it can only get to the point when they will be at loggerheads with each other like Williams and BMW were which caused their acrimonious split

 

[teabagyokel]

Difference being that BMW-Williams were competing very much at the front of the grid. In hindsight, they probably had a title winner with a different driver - Jenson Button, maybe - rather than simply having the wrong Schumacher and Montoya.

McLaren-Honda has not been a title winner despite having very good drivers. I cannot imagine how bad they'd be with an iffy driving team.

While their decline is not as wilful as Brabham's, it is beginning to resemble the dying vestiges of that team as well as Lotus.

Is it sad? Well, for fans of schadenfreude it remains a great pity that Ron Dennis will not captain the ship to the ocean floor.

 

[Bill Boddy]

It is always a shame when any team falls by the wayside, I would much rather have a grid full of competitive marques.

 

[RasputinLives]

Do you remember in 2015 when Button was joking he hoped Manor would make the grid otherwise they'd be last? Well now Manor haven't made the grid and they will be plumb last.

Shows zero progress really.

 

[Il_leone]

teabagyokel True in that sense that had Button being the Williams 2003 they might have won the title drivers title given their two drivers were inconsistent and error prone

But BMW certainly felt they were the reason for team being competitive and overlooked the fact the other variable was the Michelin tyres which contributed to some of their dominant wins and not just the powerful BMW engine

Are Mclaren disappearing like Lotus that depends how the "new" Mclaren under Zac Brown operates. Lotus' dominance came from usually the engineering brilliance of Colin Chapman but Mclaren its more down to having all resources pulling together

Ron certainly should take a lot of the flak and therefore take the sinking ship with him because this is all his doing under his stewardship and it is going to be messy to sort out

 

[Rutherford]

Does McLaren still produce the rocket red t-shirt that they wore after victories? It's probably a waste of money these days.

 

[RasputinLives]

Red and Orange!?!? Clash. Prob why they've decided not to win races.

 

[Greenlantern101]

 

[Titch]

What does it do? Is it a pasta maker ?

 

[The Pits]

It moves slowly.

 

[cider_and_toast]

That front wing is beyond pointless. I would wager good money that car would go faster with just two flat blades either side of the nose.

 

[Incubus]

How many times have we seen bits of those intricate bits flying off in the first corner of races without any apparent effect on lap-times?

Seems their primary function is to generate dirty air.

 

[The Artist.....]

I have long argued that the front wing should consist of two (four) distinct elements, with vertical end plates. One of the elements of the front wing should be horizontal, and the other element hinged from the lower element, with a continuously differentiable surface, and no discontinuities. The maximum surface area of the upper element should be 0.5 square metres. Teams can then decide whether to have one narrow wide element or two broad narrow element.

 

[The Artist.....]

The other side to the argument is that if you want to ensure that cars remain fast, return to ground effect cars - as was the original proposal for 2017...

F1 poised to return to ground-effect cars with new rules in 2017

 

[FB]

I wonder if they will take us to the room where they keep Fernando's pram and introduce us to the poor chap (or chapess) who's job it is to put all the toys back in it?

McLaren and Amazon Prime in ground breaking new behind-the-scenes TV series

 

[RasputinLives]

Why on earth would they do this right now? Is the mandate to not only be as incompetent as possible but expose to the whole world how incompetent they are?

Mclaren are a strange organisation.

 

[Rutherford]

Bad publicity is better than no publicity. Therefore, this step isn't to strange.