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]

@ThePits The Pits

The problem was Hamilton's 1 lap speed is masking that problem

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Jenson started 17th on the grid.

The drivers that he moved ahead of in the race were Maldonaldo (incident), Kobayashi (incident), Di Resta (retired), Perez (retired), Rosberg (how the hell did he end up back here?), Hulkenberg (merit), Ricciardo (merit)

The difference between the McLaren drivers may be more what you would expect but the difference between Hamilton and everyone in front of him was more than I would expect. Hence my conclusion that this is the result of a compromise which has benefited Jenson and hindered Lewis and the potential pace of the car. Unfortunately, as far as the team is concerned, the losses are bigger than the gains.

 

[The Pits]

ExtremeNinja, if your conclusion is correct, then I agree, however, your opinion is only one of several possibilities, some of which sound more likely to me.

It does not change the issue, which is that the car is not quick enough.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

I have entertained and shared a number of possibilities. This is the one I give most credence to, although you are welcome to disagree. Actually, identifying what they are doing wrong will change the issue. If the team can do this then maybe they can make the car quick enough. The first part of developing a solution is understanding the problem.

 

[The Pits]

Without understanding/knowing how the team operate, I am unable to give a qualified opinion, although, using lessons from history, the team have struggled before with updates. the EBD in 2010 springs to mind where significant effort was put into one update, which was at the cost of other updates. Also of note, this marked a diversion from McLarens design philosophy within season, and they struggled to make it work properly. In 2009 it took them longer than expected to get the car sorted, as they had started from a flawed design philosophy, which needed significant work, and many dead ends to sort out.

With regards to a solution, Identify and understand the issue/problem, then develop solution. works for me.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

What is the evidence that McLaren have got slower or are struggling with upgrades, though? This is only speculation which I have heard on this forum. I've not seen mention anywhere else. It seems to me that they have pretty much stood still or improved slightly whilst the other teams have unlocked the potential in their cars and simply delivered more substantial upgrades to better effect. Perhaps the McLaren is just not fundementally as good as the car of it's rivals?

I don't pretend to know the problem but I do attempt to understand it. I don't believe there is any relevance between the EBD and any more recent mods. They were completely different and unrelated pieces of work. Before last year, McLaren had a reputation of being the most capable team of developing a car over a season. The reality is that every problem has it's own challenges.

 

[The Pits]

Your first sentance is answered by your second. There is no definitive answer, although there have been excerpts in the press regarding a lack of upgrades, and correct me if I am wrong, but your own posts have alluded to a performance drop off, which you have put forward the opinion that this is due to the team focussing on Jensons issues. I am simply observing that McLaren are not as competitive now as they were at the start of the season. Only my opinion mind.

If you are standing still, you are going backwards. How do you stop going backwards in F1? You go forwards, and make your car faster.

 

[Lewywo4]

Set up, possibly an issue this weekend, new parts? tested on the sim but not on track? There are many possible reasons, but the simple fact is that this was a crap race for McLaren, and the underlying pace of the car needs improving.

 

[teabagyokel]

To be fair The Pits we may have slightly overlooked the effect of having minimal dry running all weekend.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Sorry. By performance drop off, I meant relatively, but if you are now clear on that then we are on the same page. If the other teams are improving and you are not then you are relatively falling back whilst not actually getting any slower. My posts allude to hypothesis that development has been focused on providing a car that is more drivable for Jenson, given his woes, at the sacrifice of developing a car which can be driven by Lewis to challenge for race wins, despite his sublime performances.

Making a car faster for one driver may not necessarily make it faster for the other. It's much more complex. For example, if you are focused on tuning out oversteer to help Jenson, this may improve his performance but make no difference at all to Lewis as he might be able to extract the maximum from the car across both configurations. You don't have a faster car in that situation, you have a quicker Jenson, a quicker pair of Ferraris, Lotus, Sauber, Williams, Merc, Red Bull, etc.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

To be fair The Pits we may have slightly overlooked the effect of having minimal dry running all weekend.

...and the anticipation of a wet race. Your charts definitely show a trend rather than an anomaly though.

 

[teabagyokel]

Hmmm... ExtremeNinja. While Button has been unmistakably poor, Silverstone is the first race in which circumstances have not prevented a better result for Hamilton.

We'll see. I do expect Hamilton to be in with a chance of a podium in Germany.

 

[The Pits]

The lack of dry running was what I was alluding to. If they had brought updates (as was reported), but were either unable to properly evaluate them, or set them up, or even decided not to use them at all, that could be an issue, especially with the race being run in very different conditions to most of the practices.

ExtremeNinja I understand the concepts of race car developments and handling, however, my understanding is that there have been few additions to the car, and the majority of Jensons issues have been addressed through set up decisions. Lewis (I believe) has said that the car actually feels good, so he does not believe set up is the issue. I also do not believe that if a part is designed which will make the car faster, that it would not be used. How the teams tailor an upgrade path in relation to the drivers is not something I know anything about, however, so I am not qualified to comment.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Yes. Both Jenson and Lewis have said that the car feels good to drive, today. The first time that they have been synchronious on this since possibly Australia. So, something has changed and it would have taken some effort to produce that change. The problem - and the reason why I raise my points - is that Jenson finding comfort in the car coincides with the car falling behind it's competitors. So the question I raise is have thier efforts been mis-spent?

I don't know and don't claim to. I simply offer hypothesis and ask questions based on what I understand and my interpretation of the information available to me.

 

[The Pits]

ExtremeNinja Me too!! Just with a different hypothesis.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Of course. It's just that when you said you were not qualified to comment on things that happen within teams that meant that I was not, either. And I took that to be a subtle way of invalidating my comments. I just wanted to be clear that I'm not offering my thoughts as fact or trying to be a know-it-all.

We are all qualified to comment, especially on F1 as we are clearly all big fans here.

Anyway, we both have opinions and hypothesis. I have many and I don't even disagree with any of yours. They are all valid. I will shoot down anything I think is nonsense, though. Nothing you have said strikes me as nonsense. It's all pretty intelligent stuff.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

It seems Gary Anderson is in agreement with me:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/18763819

It was a bad sign that their two cars had hugely different amounts of front wing on them in the race, with Jenson Button running a lot less than Lewis Hamilton.
The front wing is the most critical aerodynamic part on the car - it defines the airflow over the rest of the bodywork.

Button's car seems to be a bit of a light switch - it either works really well or it doesn't work at all.

And now Hamilton seems to be getting caught in the same little box. Instead of Jenson getting better, Lewis has gone back to meet him somewhere. They've probably met up in the middle.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

This is further correlation with the points I have been making.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/18763819

I think Button's problems are revealing an issue with the car. It is not as obvious with Hamilton because he is better at driving around problems and adapting his style, but at Silverstone it affected him, too.

 

[Incubus]

Careful there old son... whatever he actually meant what you've just done there isn't strictly legal as far as publishing laws are concerned!

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Fixed - as was the article on BBC,