McLaren

[thegreenhell]

Alonso says 'It was nothing to do with me'...

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/alonso-wasnt-co...

[rev-erend]

Zak Brown says McLaren will take years to get fixed .. 2 ~ 10 years..

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula-one/44725602

Guess he is giving himself lots of time in the job before he gets the push..

[StevieBee]

rev-erend said:

Zak Brown says McLaren will take years to get fixed .. 2 ~ 10 years..

Even if that's the case, that's a pretty dim thing to say publicly.

[Vaud]

StevieBee said:

Even if that's the case, that's a pretty dim thing to say publicly.

Why? It's not a surprise. Renault were very open that it was a 3-4 year plan to get to the front of the grid, as that is how long it takes to put in place the right people, infrastructure, etc, plus how tight the grid is with regulation stability.

If you are a "B team" - Haas, Force India, etc then you are well placed. If you are McLaren or Williams, life is about survival until the next regulations.

[WestyCarl]

StevieBee said:

rev-erend said:

Zak Brown says McLaren will take years to get fixed .. 2 ~ 10 years..

Even if that's the case, that's a pretty dim thing to say publicly.

After all the other failed promises, I suggest that's the best thing he could say. Realistic and lowering expectations.

[revrange]

StevieBee said:

Even if that's the case, that's a pretty dim thing to say publicly.

Wrong, he finally setting realistic expectations for the team. I am no fan of Browns, but Mclaren shot itself in the foot this year, not with the car but the statements that came out pre season and early season about the car and development, all of which were pie in the sky. Bouiller said many of these things, hence why i think he has gone. Brown's trying to sell the team as its moving forward etc but he cant do this if the team is saying by mid season it will be up with red bull when in fact its still a 1s a lap off them
He knows that this mess will take at least a season to have a top 10 car again and 2-3 years for one to match the front. A championship winning car may come under new rules in 2021 but likely they need a new engine partner aka works plus bduget from this. That could then take 2-3 years to bed down a relationship and win!

[thegreenhell]

Well he pretty much said he has no idea how long it will take to fix their problems. 2-10 years is a massive range, and there's only 2 years until the next major rules change. I really don't think they have a plan.

[rev-erend]

British GP : 1st practice .. Fernando 2.3 seconds off the pact of the fastest red bull (Rickiardo).

[entropy]

revrange said:

Wrong, he finally setting realistic expectations for the team. I am no fan of Browns, but Mclaren shot itself in the foot this year, not with the car but the statements that came out pre season and early season about the car and development, all of which were pie in the sky. Bouiller said many of these things, hence why i think he has gone. Brown's trying to sell the team as its moving forward etc but he cant do this if the team is saying by mid season it will be up with red bull when in fact its still a 1s a lap off them
He knows that this mess will take at least a season to have a top 10 car again and 2-3 years for one to match the front. A championship winning car may come under new rules in 2021 but likely they need a new engine partner aka works plus bduget from this. That could then take 2-3 years to bed down a relationship and win!

Zack claims the car has less downforce than last year's. This is due to problems with wind tunnel correlation and having to sort out rear downforce issues. Regardless of whether Bouiller would have been there or not McLaren would still be bragging how much better off in Renault than Honda because the expectations are so high.

[HustleRussell]

Sam993 said:

HustleRussell said:

rev-erend said:

Sam993 said:

HustleRussell said:

If they are continuing to let Alonso pull the strings then this is doomed from the start. He’s the reason Honda engines will be winning in somebody else’s car while the Renault donkey in their car never will.

Was it really Alonso's fault that (as it turns out) McLaren weren't willing to cooperate on the same level as Toro Roso and provide Honda with opportunities and feedback they needed when relaunching themselves in F1 and most importantly launching a brand new engine with brand new tech? If McLaren were responsible for everything down to gearbox and Honda only provided engine it's hard to be surprised to see them struggle. I'm struggling to see Alonso's fault there.

I also think I remember that Honda wanted another year in development but McLaren insisted on a year earlier..

My point was Alonso pressured McLaren to get rid of Honda, as a result Mclaren went from the fourth best engine with works opportunity to the third best engine as a customer and 100,000,000 worse off financially.

On the other hand do we think that Alonso really knew what caused the piss poor performance? Maybe Mclaren sold him the story about nasty Honda being difficult to work with and the Japanese culture and such and that's why he used his influence to get the Renault engine?

Well exactly, Alonso is a driver- he can have his own opinions about where they are leaving the lap time but there are supposed to be intelligent, objective people with calculators and computer models who know for sure. This is why Alonso has always been a disaster for teams in the long run. He never stops politicking.

No driver is bigger than the team.

[CoolHands]

I reckon with the wind tunnel problems they have they just don't know what they're doing, and don't understand the numbers. Even worse, if there is a computational or mechanical error with the whole set up, I bet they'll never find it. I wonder if they can pay another team to do their aero work. Maybe job-share with Williams

[c6r]

CoolHands said:

I reckon with the wind tunnel problems they have they just don't know what they're doing, and don't understand the numbers. Even worse, if there is a computational or mechanical error with the whole set up, I bet they'll never find it. I wonder if they can pay another team to do their aero work. Maybe job-share with Williams

That was what occurred to me when it came out that they couldn't match the track numbers to the sim. As you say, if it's a numerical/computational error somewhere it can be a nightmare to find. Hence the estimate of 2-10y means "We're definitely screwed for the next 2y at least, beyond that no-one knows." Pretty bad!

[Vaud]

Flaw in the CFD model? Doubly compounded by the lack of compute time allowed? Every time you run it with variants you lose future dev time...

[rev-erend]

McLaren run SAP.

Someone probably overwrote the variant .. and no one noticed.

[Vaud]

rev-erend said:

McLaren run SAP.

Someone probably overwrote the variant .. and no one noticed.

Funnily enough I'm writing some notes on SAP's product strategy at this moment...

[entropy]

CoolHands said:

I reckon with the wind tunnel problems they have they just don't know what they're doing, and don't understand the numbers. Even worse, if there is a computational or mechanical error with the whole set up, I bet they'll never find it. I wonder if they can pay another team to do their aero work. Maybe job-share with Williams

It's a complex problem. The track data will say one thing, CFD another and wind tunnel something else altogether. The wind tunnel can be wrongly calibrated, the scaling of the models used in wind tunnels.

RBR suffered similar problems last year and bounced back in the second half of the year. https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/red-bull-says-w...

[cuprabob]

c6r said:

Hence the estimate of 2-10y means "We're definitely screwed for the next 2y at least, beyond that it probably won't be my problem as I'll have moved on"

This is how I read the comment

[CoolHands]

If I was a sponsor I’d be bailing

[StevieBee]

revrange said:

StevieBee said:

Even if that's the case, that's a pretty dim thing to say publicly.

Wrong, he finally setting realistic expectations for the team.

There's being open and honest and there's being commercially astute. Given the team's need to secure title and other additional sponsorship there are less clumsy and less direct ways of trimming expectations. One of Brown's roles is commercial so for him to say that effectively the team's going to be crap for the next 10 years seems to me to be a bit daft - even if it is obvious.

[revrange]

StevieBee said:

There's being open and honest and there's being commercially astute. Given the team's need to secure title and other additional sponsorship there are less clumsy and less direct ways of trimming expectations. One of Brown's roles is commercial so for him to say that effectively the team's going to be crap for the next 10 years seems to me to be a bit daft - even if it is obvious.

Rear what he said, the 10 year thing is more of a reference rather than a fact. Its was almost a throw away line to make a point which is they wont be winning anything soon, and its the start of a rebuilding process. Spraying BS around has made them look silly and that looks even worse to would be sponsors than some honest reality of where the team is.