Flemke - Is this your McLaren? (Vol 5)
Discussion
flemke said:
The last thing one needs is a faster 12C or 458. What can usually be improved, and are more important than performance, are the steering and brake feel, ergonomics, how well it shifts (or the driver is able to shift) gears, engine note - that kind of thing.
.....
I'm not crazy about the car, no. The electric stuff has no appeal whatever to me and, when you boil it down, the only thing that makes the car "special" is the electric stuff. The driving ergonomics are great, as are the brakes, but otherwise I wouldn't call it a "million pound experience", which it ought to be. The width of the car is a real problem, the complexity of using it and looking after it is a pain, and I don't have enough time in my life to drive it just for the sake of driving it, which given its general impracticality is what one needs to do.
Flemke, a good while ago in relation to a topic about the GT-R I think, if I'm not wrong you once said that when Porsche no longer offered the gt3 with a manual option, the future of driver focused cars was essentially dead in the water. Or words to that effect as my memory is more than a bit hazy. .....
I'm not crazy about the car, no. The electric stuff has no appeal whatever to me and, when you boil it down, the only thing that makes the car "special" is the electric stuff. The driving ergonomics are great, as are the brakes, but otherwise I wouldn't call it a "million pound experience", which it ought to be. The width of the car is a real problem, the complexity of using it and looking after it is a pain, and I don't have enough time in my life to drive it just for the sake of driving it, which given its general impracticality is what one needs to do.
That has obviously come to pass with the 991 gt3 (have you tried one incidentially?) and if even the P1 which was made to be the best possible 'driver's car' per Mclaren seems to be a car that you are not finding quite as satisfying (although perhaps a million pound experience is a bit of a high bar!), do you still feel the future of cars that place driving experience/focus over absolute laptime is bleak? Or does say the SLS black which is a car you seem to like a lot despite the electronics/dual clutch gearbox/size prove there is still hope....?
From what I understand from friends in McL, their unwillingness to publish a finite ring time is not necessarily related to that of the Porsche, but more to do with the fact, as alluded to earlier with the Porsche reference, that they don't want to get into a tit for tat race with 'others 'to continually beat those published times
Largely, because the third player in the hybrid hypercar battle have a history of playing unfairly, and should Mcl post up a high profile video of a 6.XX lap, the sneaky Italians will miraculously come up with a 'customer spec' car capable of a lap slightly faster
A battle that can only end badly
McLaren currently have a press embargo against posting lap times vs Laf, and possibly, you could argue, didn't play fairly in the EVO vid when beaten at lap times by Porsche and had to have a second stab with a car on 'different tyres'
As Flemke mentioned earlier in the thread : a very interesting comparison would be one great driver and all three cars
I for one hope that happens
Largely, because the third player in the hybrid hypercar battle have a history of playing unfairly, and should Mcl post up a high profile video of a 6.XX lap, the sneaky Italians will miraculously come up with a 'customer spec' car capable of a lap slightly faster
A battle that can only end badly
McLaren currently have a press embargo against posting lap times vs Laf, and possibly, you could argue, didn't play fairly in the EVO vid when beaten at lap times by Porsche and had to have a second stab with a car on 'different tyres'
As Flemke mentioned earlier in the thread : a very interesting comparison would be one great driver and all three cars
I for one hope that happens
Edited by graeme4130 on Monday 5th January 19:36
Peloton25 said:
I haven't taken anyone to task over the decision as they don't owe me any explanation, but I will say that in my own opinion and generally speaking: Nurburgring lap times are pointlessly incomparable marketing exercises, often done using vehicles less than representative of their production counterparts in ways you can't see without very close examination. I am comfortable with McLaren's decision to say "we reached our goal and then some" and be done with it. I never doubted they could, nor am I among the camp of people who would prefer they do poorly either.
>8^)
ER
So 'pointlessly incomparable' that Ron Dennis made specific mention to it and the supposed 'fait accompli' with which the P1 would smash everyone else's time. And then slunk away rail between his legs after their testing. This is what irks. Put up or shut up is the less elegant but most apt phrase re this nonsense. >8^)
ER
Edited by Peloton25 on Monday 5th January 20:08
hing about it like it matters though. flemke said:
Quite so, but it is doing 20% of the job, and at >180 mph it is a big job. 
I'm not sure it's any bugger job no matter the speed, but more the throttle position, no? The electric motor puts our 130kw max; foot flat to the floor at 50mph and accelerating it'll be putting out 130kw. Foot flat to let floor at 180mph it won't be working any harder, no? Or am I being daft?
mattdaniels said:
Apart from Kevin Magnussen?
Don't think Kevin was affected by their decision to not release a specific Nurburgring lap time for the P1.Anyway, Kevin is still a part of the team and may get his chance again as a primary driver in 2016 or beyond. Now if you had said "Sergio Pérez" I might not have any room to debate.
>8^)
ER
flemke said:
Although all the standard road cars came with the Ti silencer box to which you refer, the LMs came instead with individual, much smaller silencers.
At some point the factory started offering that less elegant but lighter weight and better sounding LM system as a retrofit option, and I had that done to my car many years ago. It is that optional system from which this Ti thing provides only a 2 kg reduction in weight.
Ah that makes more sense now. I wonder how they managed to shave off more weight from that! At some point the factory started offering that less elegant but lighter weight and better sounding LM system as a retrofit option, and I had that done to my car many years ago. It is that optional system from which this Ti thing provides only a 2 kg reduction in weight.
Are you planning any further modifications to your car? Would love to see it in a back to back against a 'regular' F1 in EVO to see what they think of the improvements. I'm sure they would be blown away!
PGNCerbera said:
Show me where he backed up his claims then...
I wasn't suggesting that they had in a way that would satisfy the skeptics. I am simply countering his imaginary point that the reason we didn't see the full result was because the P1 didn't perform to expectations. That's not the case at all.>8^)
ER
isaldiri said:
flemke said:
The last thing one needs is a faster 12C or 458. What can usually be improved, and are more important than performance, are the steering and brake feel, ergonomics, how well it shifts (or the driver is able to shift) gears, engine note - that kind of thing.
.....
I'm not crazy about the car, no. The electric stuff has no appeal whatever to me and, when you boil it down, the only thing that makes the car "special" is the electric stuff. The driving ergonomics are great, as are the brakes, but otherwise I wouldn't call it a "million pound experience", which it ought to be. The width of the car is a real problem, the complexity of using it and looking after it is a pain, and I don't have enough time in my life to drive it just for the sake of driving it, which given its general impracticality is what one needs to do.
Flemke, a good while ago in relation to a topic about the GT-R I think, if I'm not wrong you once said that when Porsche no longer offered the gt3 with a manual option, the future of driver focused cars was essentially dead in the water. Or words to that effect as my memory is more than a bit hazy. .....
I'm not crazy about the car, no. The electric stuff has no appeal whatever to me and, when you boil it down, the only thing that makes the car "special" is the electric stuff. The driving ergonomics are great, as are the brakes, but otherwise I wouldn't call it a "million pound experience", which it ought to be. The width of the car is a real problem, the complexity of using it and looking after it is a pain, and I don't have enough time in my life to drive it just for the sake of driving it, which given its general impracticality is what one needs to do.
That has obviously come to pass with the 991 gt3 (have you tried one incidentially?) and if even the P1 which was made to be the best possible 'driver's car' per Mclaren seems to be a car that you are not finding quite as satisfying (although perhaps a million pound experience is a bit of a high bar!), do you still feel the future of cars that place driving experience/focus over absolute laptime is bleak? Or does say the SLS black which is a car you seem to like a lot despite the electronics/dual clutch gearbox/size prove there is still hope....?
I think a viable niche market does exist, but a far greater problem than market size is regulatory constraint. As a consequence of regulatory constraint, there is now so much stuff that is either added on to a car or fundamentally changed in a car - airbags, crash structures, cats, turbocharging, pedestrian impact front ends, auto gearboxes, hybridisation - that producing and selling what we might call a true "driver's car" is not allowed.
The car makers in some cases have done a fine job of trying to compensate in other ways for that constraint, but I think the record shows that to overcome it completely is impossible.
graeme4130 said:
From what I understand from friends in McL, their unwillingness to publish a finite ring time is not necessarily related to that of the Porsche, but more to do with the fact, as alluded to earlier with the Porsche reference, that they don't want to get into a tit for tat race with 'others 'to continually beat those published times
Largely, because the third player in the hybrid hypercar battle have a history of playing unfairly, and should Mcl post up a high profile video of a 6.XX lap, the sneaky Italians will miraculously come up with a 'customer spec' car capable of a lap slightly faster
A battle that can only end badly
McLaren currently have a press embargo against posting lap times vs Laf, and possibly, you could argue, didn't play fairly in the EVO vid when beaten at lap times by Porsche and had to have a second stab with a car on 'different tyres'
As Flemke mentioned earlier in the thread : a very interesting comparison would be one great driver and all three cars
I for one hope that happens
As I think I said above, I had exactly that arranged, but then, months after it had been agreed, and on the eve of our test, first the driver/journalist backed out and then Porsche told us that they would transport a 918 to wherever we wanted, whenever we wanted, except not to compare it with a P1.Largely, because the third player in the hybrid hypercar battle have a history of playing unfairly, and should Mcl post up a high profile video of a 6.XX lap, the sneaky Italians will miraculously come up with a 'customer spec' car capable of a lap slightly faster
A battle that can only end badly
McLaren currently have a press embargo against posting lap times vs Laf, and possibly, you could argue, didn't play fairly in the EVO vid when beaten at lap times by Porsche and had to have a second stab with a car on 'different tyres'
As Flemke mentioned earlier in the thread : a very interesting comparison would be one great driver and all three cars
I for one hope that happens
E65Ross said:
flemke said:
Quite so, but it is doing 20% of the job, and at >180 mph it is a big job.
I'm not sure it's any bugger job no matter the speed, but more the throttle position, no? The electric motor puts our 130kw max; foot flat to the floor at 50mph and accelerating it'll be putting out 130kw. Foot flat to let floor at 180mph it won't be working any harder, no? Or am I being daft?
Mjunkie said:
flemke said:
Although all the standard road cars came with the Ti silencer box to which you refer, the LMs came instead with individual, much smaller silencers.
At some point the factory started offering that less elegant but lighter weight and better sounding LM system as a retrofit option, and I had that done to my car many years ago. It is that optional system from which this Ti thing provides only a 2 kg reduction in weight.
Ah that makes more sense now. I wonder how they managed to shave off more weight from that! At some point the factory started offering that less elegant but lighter weight and better sounding LM system as a retrofit option, and I had that done to my car many years ago. It is that optional system from which this Ti thing provides only a 2 kg reduction in weight.
Are you planning any further modifications to your car? Would love to see it in a back to back against a 'regular' F1 in EVO to see what they think of the improvements. I'm sure they would be blown away!
Assuming the brakes are finalised in whatever form during my lifetime, only other thing that comes to mind is to get the interior looking better, which I would like to do this winter if I can figure out how it should be.
Some people would prefer the standard car to mine, as mine has a stiffer ride (standard car on those tall sidewalls has a surprisingly soft, comfy ride) and my dampers are quite noisy. Flip side is, on my car the brakes are vastly better and the handling is more stable and predictable, which to those of us whose driving skills are short of Mika Hakkinen's makes the F1 more exploitable.
Peloton25 said:
PGNCerbera said:
Show me where he backed up his claims then...
I wasn't suggesting that they had in a way that would satisfy the skeptics. I am simply countering his imaginary point that the reason we didn't see the full result was because the P1 didn't perform to expectations. That's not the case at all.>8^)
ER
IIRC, Ron made two distinct claims:
- the P1 would, in paraphrase, be world's "best driver's car", and
- the P1 would, in paraphrase, be world's "fastest road car on a circuit".
I cannot recall whether he specifically mentioned Nordschliefe, but certainly any petrolhead would have inferred that that was what Ron meant, because, for better or worse, a NS lap-time is the universally-accepted benchmark of a road car's circuit capability. Nobody is talking about what a great lap-time a Radical (might have) set around Hockenheim or Silverstone.
To Ron's first claim, he might have been right; some would say he was whilst others would strongly disagree. What is clear however is that he was not indisputably right. The differences between the P1 and other cars are nuances, down to personal preferences. This is nothing like the situation 20 years ago, when Ron's F1 was in a league of its own.
To Ron's second claim, we have no evidence whatsoever that he was right. Did the P1 do a 6:59, or 49 or 39 (
)? We have no idea. Even putting to one side the question of what was the P1's Nordschleife time, AFAIK no useful lap-times have been measured at any other circuit.If expectations were that, in a fair test, the P1 would set the fastest lap-time at the Nordschleife, or anywhere else, then indeed those expectations have not been met.
flemke said:
It's bleak, yes, because it costs a lot of money to develop car, you have to sell a lot of cars in order to pay for that development expense, and not that many people care about having a "driver's car". Nonetheless, niche markets exist in all sorts of areas, so it's possible, and some might say that examples such as the GT86 and Ariel Atom show that. On the other hand, some might say that examples such as the BAC Mono show that it is not possible.
I think a viable niche market does exist, but a far greater problem than market size is regulatory constraint. As a consequence of regulatory constraint, there is now so much stuff that is either added on to a car or fundamentally changed in a car - airbags, crash structures, cats, turbocharging, pedestrian impact front ends, auto gearboxes, hybridisation - that producing and selling what we might call a true "driver's car" is not allowed.
The car makers in some cases have done a fine job of trying to compensate in other ways for that constraint, but I think the record shows that to overcome it completely is impossible.
With regards the legislative burden on car design, there is a way out - don't make many, and avoid type approval. I think a viable niche market does exist, but a far greater problem than market size is regulatory constraint. As a consequence of regulatory constraint, there is now so much stuff that is either added on to a car or fundamentally changed in a car - airbags, crash structures, cats, turbocharging, pedestrian impact front ends, auto gearboxes, hybridisation - that producing and selling what we might call a true "driver's car" is not allowed.
The car makers in some cases have done a fine job of trying to compensate in other ways for that constraint, but I think the record shows that to overcome it completely is impossible.
Hence the lack of many/most of the constraints on cars like the Atom, Mono etc. The Zenos roadster looks an interesting prospect too.
IMO the key for a true driver's car is threefold - a real world usable design which fits on the road and is engaging at 'normal' speeds, a transparency in controls, and a power to weight ratio that gives the driver options in how to drive.
Perhaps why the MX5 is so loved, it almost achieves all three, and is cheap enough that the slight lack of power is easily rectified.
Other than the MX5, I can't think of a mass market car that has that purity of purpose. GT86 is oh so close yet missed by a mile, based on the extended test drive I had early last year.
When we move into the super/hypercar arena, I feel there's more potential. It would seem clear in my mind that Ferrari especially, but also Porsche, Lamborghini and Mclaren have the ability to shape the desires of the market. The Sesto Elemento and the lightweight Ferrari concept of a few years ago (Millecilli or something similar wasn't it?) were very encouraging, however they've all (understandably) continued along the path of increasing weight, whilst increasing power at a greater rate...
If Ferrari had gone down the 'right' path with the LaF the world's press would have been hailing a return to the 'glory days' of the F40/F50. I suppose there's still time in the lower levels of supercar design with a new 'Dino'.
Sway said:
flemke said:
It's bleak, yes, because it costs a lot of money to develop car, you have to sell a lot of cars in order to pay for that development expense, and not that many people care about having a "driver's car". Nonetheless, niche markets exist in all sorts of areas, so it's possible, and some might say that examples such as the GT86 and Ariel Atom show that. On the other hand, some might say that examples such as the BAC Mono show that it is not possible.
I think a viable niche market does exist, but a far greater problem than market size is regulatory constraint. As a consequence of regulatory constraint, there is now so much stuff that is either added on to a car or fundamentally changed in a car - airbags, crash structures, cats, turbocharging, pedestrian impact front ends, auto gearboxes, hybridisation - that producing and selling what we might call a true "driver's car" is not allowed.
The car makers in some cases have done a fine job of trying to compensate in other ways for that constraint, but I think the record shows that to overcome it completely is impossible.
With regards the legislative burden on car design, there is a way out - don't make many, and avoid type approval. I think a viable niche market does exist, but a far greater problem than market size is regulatory constraint. As a consequence of regulatory constraint, there is now so much stuff that is either added on to a car or fundamentally changed in a car - airbags, crash structures, cats, turbocharging, pedestrian impact front ends, auto gearboxes, hybridisation - that producing and selling what we might call a true "driver's car" is not allowed.
The car makers in some cases have done a fine job of trying to compensate in other ways for that constraint, but I think the record shows that to overcome it completely is impossible.
flemke said:
It's bleak, yes, because it costs a lot of money to develop car, you have to sell a lot of cars in order to pay for that development expense, and not that many people care about having a "driver's car". Nonetheless, niche markets exist in all sorts of areas, so it's possible, and some might say that examples such as the GT86 and Ariel Atom show that. On the other hand, some might say that examples such as the BAC Mono show that it is not possible.
I think a viable niche market does exist, but a far greater problem than market size is regulatory constraint. As a consequence of regulatory constraint, there is now so much stuff that is either added on to a car or fundamentally changed in a car - airbags, crash structures, cats, turbocharging, pedestrian impact front ends, auto gearboxes, hybridisation - that producing and selling what we might call a true "driver's car" is not allowed.
The car makers in some cases have done a fine job of trying to compensate in other ways for that constraint, but I think the record shows that to overcome it completely is impossible.
Interesting, thanks for that. Guess it's back to looking for a decent condition manual NSX then..! I think a viable niche market does exist, but a far greater problem than market size is regulatory constraint. As a consequence of regulatory constraint, there is now so much stuff that is either added on to a car or fundamentally changed in a car - airbags, crash structures, cats, turbocharging, pedestrian impact front ends, auto gearboxes, hybridisation - that producing and selling what we might call a true "driver's car" is not allowed.
The car makers in some cases have done a fine job of trying to compensate in other ways for that constraint, but I think the record shows that to overcome it completely is impossible.
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