Discussion
I'd agree that they're keeping their powder dry - however the tyre situation could fit in nicely with their current statements...
'We didn't want anyone trying to match a time that would have been dangerous to attempt with the tyres available at the time. Of course, if another manufacturer wishes to have a go, feel free boyo.'
'We didn't want anyone trying to match a time that would have been dangerous to attempt with the tyres available at the time. Of course, if another manufacturer wishes to have a go, feel free boyo.'
Joe911 said:
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
Or buy in to the P1 race car programme that will include the 'Ring in the circuits visited?
Hmmm, I suspect McL would be very keen to avoid taking P1 customers to the Ring.
ilovevolvo said:
Hi Flemke
Being a regular at the ring do you think you will try in your P1 ?
Russ
It's not at the top of my list. Although I used to spend a lot of time there, I've not raced or even done a lap for more than 3 years. Also and more important, the P1 is a downforce car, driving them properly is fundamentally different from driving mechanical grip cars, and I have little meaningful experience in DF cars on circuit. Being a regular at the ring do you think you will try in your P1 ?
Russ
I've always said that I thought it made a lot more sense for high speed circuit driving, rather than running an expensive road car, to run an old racing car on slicks: it's just as fast, it's more exploitable, and when you crash you're not as sad.
isaldiri said:
I wonder about that. Would be quite surprised if the torque was wrecking the tyres but there is little doubt IMO that the corsas as delivered on the cars currently are not going to be able to hold up to any kind of lap time that is considerably faster than the 918 as Mclaren have been hinting/leaking. The Cup2 is almost certainly better by a good bit on track than a corsa tyre and the 918's tyres were pretty much shot at the end of Lieb's lap.
Trofeo R's are due to be certified for the P1 shortly though from what I understand and my own somewhat crackpot theory is that this is partially why Mclaren have not allowed any sort of lap times to be declared on any track (whether by the factory or magazines) as they want to have the 'fastest' tyre to be officially available first.
It would be something of a fatal flaw if you've built what is meant to be the "ultimate driver's car", which has a "Race" mode, you have professional racing drivers demo it with clients on a circuit, you organise circuit days for it, and yet after less than 7 minutes on circuit the tyres are unusable.Trofeo R's are due to be certified for the P1 shortly though from what I understand and my own somewhat crackpot theory is that this is partially why Mclaren have not allowed any sort of lap times to be declared on any track (whether by the factory or magazines) as they want to have the 'fastest' tyre to be officially available first.
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
ilovevolvo said:
Hi Flemke
Being a regular at the ring do you think you will try in your P1 ?
Russ
Or buy in to the P1 race car programme that will include the 'Ring in the circuits visited? Being a regular at the ring do you think you will try in your P1 ?
Russ
In the first place, the "FXX" programme comes very close to violating McLaren's promise that under no circumstances would they build more than 375 P1s.
In the second place, the reason, they said, why there was no chance that there would be an "RS" or other variant of the basic car was that the standard P1 was already the best car that they could make.
So if the P1 is the best car they can make, what will the FXX or PXX or P1XX be? Will it be less "good" (whilst costing twice as much)? Not likely.
They'll say that it will be "different", but will it really? McLaren were able to take road-legal F1s and turn them into racing car that were good enough to win Le Mans. Could they not take a portion of the 375 build run, strip out various comfort bits, increase the boost, and do whatever else would be the current equivalent to the F1 GTR?
The sad fact is that in this world there are enough petrobrats to buy these things, although probably nary a one of them will have any idea of what to do with it.
As much as I like the P1 and admire McLaren as an organisation, this programme has a Ferrari smell about it, and that is not a good thing.
Edited by flemke on Tuesday 13th May 09:36
flemke said:
It would be something of a fatal flaw if you've built what is meant to be the "ultimate driver's car", which has a "Race" mode, you have professional racing drivers demo it with clients on a circuit, you organise circuit days for it, and yet after less than 7 minutes on circuit the tyres are unusable.
well said that manCraigyMc said:
Joe911 said:
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
Or buy in to the P1 race car programme that will include the 'Ring in the circuits visited?
Hmmm, I suspect McL would be very keen to avoid taking P1 customers to the Ring.
flemke said:
In the second place, the reason, they said, why there was no chance that there would be an "RS" or other variant of the basic car was that the standard P1 was already the best car that they could make.
Unfortunately they left off the cruicial 3 words "AT THE TIME".....I'm sure for example, any of these would have been described, at their specific time as "best"
;-)
Not just that, but also the compromises introduced when building a road legal car are quite imposing. If you can set aside all those things and the focus becomes much clearer for a specific purpose you can obviously raise the bar again. You just can't drive it home when you are done.
>8^)
ER
>8^)
ER
Max_Torque said:
flemke said:
In the second place, the reason, they said, why there was no chance that there would be an "RS" or other variant of the basic car was that the standard P1 was already the best car that they could make.
Unfortunately they left off the cruicial 3 words "AT THE TIME".....I'm sure for example, any of these would have been described, at their specific time as "best"
;-)
Peloton25 said:
Not just that, but also the compromises introduced when building a road legal car are quite imposing. If you can set aside all those things and the focus becomes much clearer for a specific purpose you can obviously raise the bar again. You just can't drive it home when you are done.
>8^)
ER
Very true, but I would say that the track-specific benefits of reversing those compromises will be so far above the heads of the P1XX owners that they would need a radio telescope even to detect their existence, and one can forget about their ever accessing them. >8^)
ER
There is no way that anyone short of a professional racing driver with particular expertise in high downforce cars could utilise a standard P1 at 10/10s.
There may be a couple of such people who buy P1s, but a tiny handful at most. Even amongst those guys, if you're a professional racing driver who races downforce cars for a living, are you really going to spend £1.5-2m on a car just for track days? I don't think so.
This thing, just as was the original FXX and will be the LafferXX, is nothing more than a bauble for rich fantasists. There is a market for such things, but quality organisations such as McLaren typically do not cater to it.
flemke said:
Very true, but I would say that the track-specific benefits of reversing those compromises will be so far above the heads of the P1XX owners that they would need a radio telescope even to detect their existence, and one can forget about their ever accessing them.
There is no way that anyone short of a professional racing driver with particular expertise in high downforce cars could utilise a standard P1 at 10/10s.
There may be a couple of such people who buy P1s, but a tiny handful at most. Even amongst those guys, if you're a professional racing driver who races downforce cars for a living, are you really going to spend £1.5-2m on a car just for track days? I don't think so.
This thing, just as was the original FXX and will be the LafferXX, is nothing more than a bauble for rich fantasists. There is a market for such things, but quality organisations such as McLaren typically do not cater to it.
Surely even a moderately skilled driver would notice the difference slicks, a boost increase and more agressive brakes would make, possibly a proper race seat and harness too?There is no way that anyone short of a professional racing driver with particular expertise in high downforce cars could utilise a standard P1 at 10/10s.
There may be a couple of such people who buy P1s, but a tiny handful at most. Even amongst those guys, if you're a professional racing driver who races downforce cars for a living, are you really going to spend £1.5-2m on a car just for track days? I don't think so.
This thing, just as was the original FXX and will be the LafferXX, is nothing more than a bauble for rich fantasists. There is a market for such things, but quality organisations such as McLaren typically do not cater to it.
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