New PU. Same old McLaren. Give them the Mercedes PU and I bet they'd still be useless. 4 laps and 2 breakdowns so far today.
If this is a McLaren specific issue, this could get really ugly for them. Hopefully it’s minor but suddenly we’re looking at a Honda running without issues and McLaren having issues again- with another engine. At the moment it appears a minor battery issue but it will become clearer through the week. In slightly more positive news, RBR, Ferrari and Merc all going well on mediums. I hope it stays that close but suspect Ferrari and Merc have time up their sleeve over the RBR.
I said it a lot last season and i stand by it. Alonso should retire, Button had the right idea. There's no possibility of success in F1 now. At least he's doing Le Mans at the same time so it's not another wasted year.
well it seems that ferrari and mercs are bullet proof thus far Learned nothing from times so far this week but its early. I just suspect mercede have the power edge and will be better in quali based on no more than the flimsiest evidence from last week. Ferrari seems on rails? I dunno.
And that quali pace has seemed to be their philosophy from day 1, that's what has always given me hope, they seem to lose .3 -.5 more than the others between quali and race pace.
Whatever happened to "To finish first, first you must finish?". Of course there's going to be teething problems with a new car, and for Mclaren they mainly seem to be mechanical so far. So I cannot understand why they seem insistent on exacerbating their problems with size zero cooling from day 1. By all means chase the tenths and hundredths of a second that extreme cooling and aero solutions can bring, but first you need to prove the car can make the finish line. If Mclaren fail to get a race distance in this week, yet experience more cooling issues, they're going to look seriously amateurish.
Given several guys pounded round well over race distance they are just setting themselves really back.
If that is what it looks like , then they are stuffed ! Putting all their eggs in one basket to keep Alonso who , IMHO , cannot have his heart seriously set on F1 given all his other commitments , was daft . Yes I know , I have a degree in hindsight !
I take your point . It's not their turbo unit though , it's Renaults , Wonder what Renault are feeling like . No issues on the other teams they supply ( that I am aware of )
in fairness they cant turn a cowling redesign round in 5 days so i presume they will turn up with a new design in melbourne
I thought I read somewhere that McL were bringing all new aero to Melbourne. My guess is they know they don't have enough cooling and hence the new aero for Aus! To a certain degree if you do your calcs and go for the best aero you can and it needs a little more cooling then no big deal. If you start with naff aero you cant get the data on what you think a good aero package would give you, although you will know your temps! The problem this creates is testing time and these days it is so limited. Any loss in testing mileage is a massive data loss. I really hope they are competitive this year. I doubt they will challenge Merc, not that I think anyone will, but to be challenging for podiums would be great.
