McLaren

[Derek Smith]

Mr_Thyroid said:

The best way for a driver to motivate and inspire the team is by giving their all every time they're in the car - I don't think there's much argument that he does that.

Every time? I'm not sure I'd go along with that.

[StevieBee]

DanielSan said:

Has anyone noticed the correlation between Mclaren building road cars and doing terrible in F1?

Built the F1 - as focus moved to the road car the team hit a massive slump

SLR - less involvement than the F1 but also coincided from being drivers and constructors champions to at least bagging wins but being s bit unreliable and inconsistent

MP4-12 onwards - last few years speak for themselves.

I hadn't but it's a good point.

I recall the SLR as being very much a Ron Dennis driven project and likewise the development of the now established road car division. Both (and the F1 Road Car) were developed as separate commercial entities to the F1 team but require a significant amount focus so I guess something has to give.

[dr_gn]

Kraken said:

StevieBee said:

What, those glasses that allow you to see the many race wins, world drivers and constructor's championships delivered with RD at the helm?

Ancient history and a totally different world.

Maybe, but when you use the term “rose tinted glasses” it can only mean in this context that you think RD didn’t actually achieve as much as people remember. The fact is, he did deliver. Massively. As I mentioned: 17 championships. RD might be past it, but Whitmarsh never approached it in comparison, with a grand total of 0 championships.

[TheLimla]

slipstream 1985 said:

ELUSIVEJIM said:

TheLimla said:

They need to get the chequebook out and revamp the team. Fred's salary is probably doing more harm than good now as that money needs to be spent on the right design team.

Without Alonso they would be in a worse position.

Without Alonso they would be Williams

Apparently they've offered Danny Ric £20m to join

[WestyCarl]

DanielSan said:

Order66 said:

They have arguably one of the top 2 drivers on the grid and apparently a large budget - what more does Boullier want

If Boullier was able to make more decisions without running it by a commitee Mclaren would be far better off.

Joe Saward was talking about this on the Missed Apex podcast that came out last night, Mclaren work on a management structure that basically refuses to point blame at any one person, and as a result doesn’t allow one person to make decisions they’re well capable of making

not in F1, but our business is run like this in a matrix structure. I'm surprised we even get stationary ordered........

[DanielSan]

WestyCarl said:

not in F1, but our business is run like this in a matrix structure. I'm surprised we even get stationary ordered........

It’s been bugging me that I couldn’t remember what it was called, and couldn’t be bothered to go back over the podcast. So thank you

[entropy]

Kraken said:

Ancient history and a totally different world.

Agreed. What did Ron do when he came back? Rolled the dice with Honda and no sponsors as promised.

DanielSan said:

Has anyone noticed the correlation between Mclaren building road cars and doing terrible in F1?

Built the F1 - as focus moved to the road car the team hit a massive slump

SLR - less involvement than the F1 but also coincided from being drivers and constructors champions to at least bagging wins but being s bit unreliable and inconsistent

MP4-12 onwards - last few years speak for themselves.

Debatable.

McLaren F1 - Honda up and left and Ron was desperate for a works engine. At one point Lamborghini was considered but ended up with Ford customer engine, pushed for equal footing with Benetton (who were Ford's works team). Switched to Peugeot unsuccessfully then moved to Merc and the rest is history.

SLR - Newey went on record he came up with some crap cars during the early 2000s especially the infamous MP4-18 that was tested but never raced due to poor reliability.

Today - strong case for road being a distraction. R&D wise they've gone downhill and struggled to keep up with RBR and Merc. Corporate sponsorship has gone massively downhill. Makes you wonder if Whitmarsh saw the writing on the wall so he hired Perez? Zak supposed to bring more sponsors - unsuccessfully - but ends up getting greater control over McLaren racing division.

[revrange]

entropy said:

Debatable.

McLaren F1 - Honda up and left and Ron was desperate for a works engine. At one point Lamborghini was considered but ended up with Ford customer engine, pushed for equal footing with Benetton (who were Ford's works team). Switched to Peugeot unsuccessfully then moved to Merc and the rest is history.

SLR - Newey went on record he came up with some crap cars during the early 2000s especially the infamous MP4-18 that was tested but never raced due to poor reliability.

Today - strong case for road being a distraction. R&D wise they've gone downhill and struggled to keep up with RBR and Merc. Corporate sponsorship has gone massively downhill. Makes you wonder if Whitmarsh saw the writing on the wall so he hired Perez? Zak supposed to bring more sponsors - unsuccessfully - but ends up getting greater control over McLaren racing division.

Ron saw and rightly so you need to be a works team, the floor was maybe not delayed Honda's arrival until 2016. His other mistake was snubbing the title sponsor deal Whitmarsh had in place. Ron felt Mclaren have a rate card and its a top one and Whitmarsh was selling the space too cheaply. This was one of the drivers for Martin leaving the team. I would wager that was Ron not relising F1 rate cards are not what they use to be (free view tv drying up etc)
F1 costs money, lots of it, simply put the more you have the faster you go. Its not a surpirse that without both they have slipped back as they simply dont have the budget of top teams.

I think they did no favours pre season with the claims knowing the design team had designed the car around a honda and as late as septembet made the switch to Renault. They should have played down chances and said it wont be mid season until we are Q3 big point scorers/2019 we will have a real shot.

clearly staff are unhappy, hence all the leaked story (one this morning about chocolate bars for rewards!)

For whats it worth I'd like to see Whitmarsh back, and to correct earlier post, he did win world titles in charge , as he was very much part of the management team. As he says in F1 you are either taking pain or giving it, Mclaren seem to be still taking it

[StevieBee]

A good post. But..

revrange said:

Ron saw and rightly so you need to be a works team

Red Bull might beg to differ!

[HustleRussell]

StevieBee said:

revrange said:

Ron saw and rightly so you need to be a works team

Red Bull might beg to differ!

I don't think they would. Years of the bull were coincident with Renault's slow withdrawal and the freezing of the very mature 2.4L V8 formula.

That is why they have now given Renault the boot and engaged Honda to provide engines for all four of their cars, becoming a works team to Honda in all but name as they were to Renault in 2012 - 2015

[revrange]

StevieBee said:

Red Bull might beg to differ!

Red Bull was a defacto works team when it won its world title.... Renault developing the exhaust blown diffusers etc with them.

[entropy]

revrange said:

Red Bull was a defacto works team when it won its world title.... Renault developing the exhaust blown diffusers etc with them.

Lots of slagging off between the pair post-trick exhausts. Marko moaning that they weren't treated like a factory team and Renault countering that RBR never publicly gave them enough credit.

As much as the importance of being a factory team no reason to stick with Merc till Honda did their development work. Honda money probably trumped it.

[amgmcqueen]

WTF?! No wonder team morale is at an all time low....!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formulaone/articl...

[slipstream 1985]

amgmcqueen said:

WTF?! No wonder team morale is at an all time low....!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formulaone/articl...

I'd be more upset that a fredo is now 25p

[thegreenhell]

A very heated interaction between that DM reporter and Boullier in today's press conference. The DM guy was clearly on a wind-up trying to get a reaction out of EB, and in the end a neutral had to step in.

[Fortitude]

thegreenhell said:

A very heated interaction between that DM reporter and Boullier in today's press conference. The DM guy was clearly on a wind-up trying to get a reaction out of EB, and in the end a neutral had to step in.

McLaren's chocolate meltdown: Racing director Eric Boullier lashes out at critics in heated press conference ahead of French Grand Prix as he vows not to resign
•Racing director Eric Boullier insisted that McLaren 'have a good team of people'
•It emerged that staff are insulted by being rewarded with 25p Freddo bars
•Boullier claimed McLaren will never win the world championship with Renault
By Jonathan McEvoy for the Daily Mail

Published: 22:30, 22 June 2018 | Updated: 08:27, 23 June 2018

McLaren's temperamental bosses lashed out at their critics during a heated press conference on Friday ahead of Sunday's first French Grand Prix in a decade.

Sportsmail's revelations that staff at the team's Woking factory are angry with their 'clueless' leadership - who insult the workforce by giving them 25p Freddo chocolate bars as a reward for hard work - dominated paddock talk.

And, while Lewis Hamilton tore to the fastest time in practice, there were frantic discussions between McLaren's senior management after the story broke, with racing director Eric Boullier primed before he faced the media at the Circuit Paul Ricard.

But Boullier lost his calm, accusing a journalist of 'lying' for saying, correctly, that executives within the rivalrous team are briefing against him. Tim Bampton, head of McLaren PR, motioned from the back of the room to the FIA's director of communications to try to stop the questioning.

Boullier, who gave a muddled and evasive performance, did not rule out attempting to find and discipline the whistleblower, saying it was an 'internal matter' - though it clearly no longer is.

He also insisted that the source spoke only for 'a couple of people who are grumpy' - a ludicrous assertion because the malaise within McLaren is tangibly widespread, if not universal.

Boullier, 44, is in his fifth season at McLaren - a period of unbroken failure. The team's last win came in 2012.

But he said: 'No, I will not resign. We are on a journey. We are not where we want to be. We are with a new Renault engine partner and we have a good team of people. We know where the issues of the car are.'

No, the heart of the problem is that he apparently has no idea what the car's issues are, or how to put them right. If he did, Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne would not have spent Friday two seconds off Hamilton.

Boullier made the extraordinary admission that McLaren will never win the world championship with Renault - so much for the journey's destination! 'You can win races as a customer but winning a championship is another level - you need works team status,' said the Frenchman, who reports to chief executive Zak Brown, who has banned Sportsmail from his team buildings in a textbook case of shooting the messenger.

The roads leading into the circuit could not cope with the traffic trying to get in. This could be a serious black mark against the race as numbers increase over the weekend.

On the track, Hamilton, with a new engine, was flying - seven-tenths quicker than Daniel Ricciardo's Red Bull.

The only other drama, McLaren apart, was Marcus Ericsson having to climb out of his crashed Sauber pronto after it caught fire.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formulaone/articl...

[cuprabob]

I would at least have expected McLaren to have special Freddos in the shape of Alonso, with his nickname being "Fred"

[Fortitude]

French GP: McLaren hit new low and suffer worst qualifying of F1 2018
"Nothing went wrong - the performance is what it is," insists Alonso; Zak Brown promises former champions "will get this right"
By Matt Morlidge and James Galloway at Paul Ricard
Last Updated: 23/06/18 7:20pm

http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/11413000/fr...


23rd June
F1 update: McLaren racing director Boullier rules out resigning despite growing unrest in the ranks
Gordon Stevenson

http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/16309834.F1_up...


McLaren F1 team’s revival hits a bump in France
Alonso starts 16th Sunday, Vandoorne 18th
June 23, 2018

http://autoweek.com/article/formula-one/mclaren-f1...


McLaren unable to see aero problems in wind tunnel testing
By: Scott Mitchell, Journalist
Co-author: Stuart Codling, Journalist
Yesterday at 7:24pm

McLaren cannot identify the aerodynamic failings of its Formula 1 car in wind tunnel testing and is having to "experiment" on grand prix weekends to find solutions instead.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/mclaren-cant-se...


McLaren reveals aerodynamic problem behind poor form
2018 French Grand Prix
Posted on 23rd June 2018, 20:58 | Written by Dieter Rencken and Keith Collantine

McLaren says a problem with its car’s aerodynamics is to blame for its poor performance in Formula 1 this season following its worst qualifying result of the year so far.

https://www.racefans.net/2018/06/23/mclaren-reveal...


McLaren struggling struggling with trial and error approach in windtunnel

http://www.f1i.com/news/308117-mclaren-struggling-...

[The Vambo]

Boullier has been there 5 years?!?!

After 3 of the worst years the team has ever had, you should be thinking 'is this guy the problem?' Not McLaren.

[Fortitude]