Is McLaren on to something??

[JohnSSC]

Now, it is only one race, but Kimi/McLaren seem to have something going with the car.

Rather than looking for rules changes, praying for inclement weather or seeking some sort of divine intervention, it seems that now that the Taj Mahal with garage doors is finished McLaren is focusing on racing!

This Novel Concept seems to have achieved results in that teams may now be building cars that are as fast as the Ferrari. Hopefully they will be building cars that are as fast or (dare I say it?) faster than the Ferrari on all different tracks.

Is it possible that if other teams raise their game the term "snoozefest" will be banned from the 10-tenths lexicon?

.

[Gt_R]

Possibly, but for the sake of the "all important" audience, OVERTAKING is a must and so some tweaks to make cars overtaking-friendly would be welcomed.

It's good to see Mclaren finding their feet again...but at the same time, Williams seem to be stagnant, if not slipping, and BAR's glorious charge seem to be losing steam...

So if all the teams could up their game, or if the top guys start to lose their's ,we'd have close competition.

[HDTVKSS]

I think that the only thing thats holding the rest of the pack back is the big T - Tyres. if the michelins had good overall race performance like the Bridgestones, and not jsut a good burst at the start, then maybee we would be seeing some overtaking and other cars getting closer to the front of the pack.

[Snrub]

Originally posted by HDTVKSS
I think that the only thing thats holding the rest of the pack back is the big T - Tyres. if the michelins had good overall race performance like the Bridgestones, and not jsut a good burst at the start, then maybee we would be seeing some overtaking and other cars getting closer to the front of the pack.

I don't mean to offend you, but I'm not sure how regular fans like us could make that assessment. Do you have any particular reasons for saying this?

[HDTVKSS]

no offience taken, and hay its an opinion, like anything anyone says on this forum, and im certainly not going to go cry if somone disagrees with me. im not a boffin at a tyre company or anything else to do with F1, so i like anyone else here can only speculate on what makes a team, tyre or driver fast or slow, or how good anyone or anything performs in a perfect world.

My reasons for citing that the tyres are the issue are these. Since last year (monaco?) where Bridgestone protested the Michelins, they generally have fallen back a bit. It would seem, from my observations that the Bridgestones have good wear accross the particular stint that the driver is doing. for evidence at this, one only has to look at how well Shumi can put the boot into the car near the end of the stint and put in some blistering laps. You cant do that unless you have the rubber underneath you.

to be continued....

[HDTVKSS]

At Silverstone, It appeared to me that Kimmi had no issues keeping with the Ferrari after the 1st pit stops, then after a few laps, the performance of the car seemed to drift. This as well appeared to be the case for Alonso at in France. common factor between the two? Tyres.

If the Michelins held a more consistant life across a stint, then by my reconing a driver should be able to push out consistant laps, or feel confident that the car will hold its grip and inspire confidence in the driver to perform an overtaking move.

Ferrari are in a unique position where they have a Bridgestone virtually working just for them. Hence a tyre can be tailored perfectly for their car. Michelin, while having a variety of teams to gain data from would probably find some issues where every car takes somthing different to makeit perform, you cant make a tyre for every team ( i guess you could but it would be impractical, so you have to strike a balance somwhere.

to be continued....

[HDTVKSS]

My racing experience is Mountain bikes and Sprint Karts, so really im no F1 Tyre Guru. these are just my observations and if you want to disagree with me then no problems, and im more than willing to hear your side to the story.

[gttouring]

maclaren is onto something as is renault - Coulthard was right, he formula doesn't need to be immasculated or changed or slowed, the other teams need to raise their game. we have seen Honda, Maclaren finally, Renault do where is everyone else, shouldn't it be a gamble who can win everyrace?
as soona s michael ended up in P1 after kimi pit on sunday in Silverstone, i knew it was over- why is that? even with the late race SC period, it was close and kimi was close, but cool heads prevailed and a close second is better than a wreck.
yes Maclaren has figured somehing out, and that's the way it should be.

[Aysedasi]

Well, for our sakes, let's hope so, and lets also hope that Williams, BAR and Renault (to name just three more) can do a spot of figuring too......

[Sirio]

I think that the tyre situation as it is now is perfect for good racing.
If tyres change during the 20 laps that they are used for then we will see the cars close to each other at different times.
If the tyres were the same then everyone would be the same distant apart for the whole 20 odd laps until the next pitstop. As we have it at the moment the cars are racing close as one brand has a huge advantage over another for a few laps and then it will change with somone else pushing forward as their tyres start to work.
You can say that the red tyres are better than the blue tyres but i dont buy that line as the other red tyre cars are not at the front all the time.
Can you imagine how good it would of been to see kimi get past TGF and then have to hold him off for the rest of the race as his tyres started to drop off?

[Bononi]

Originally posted by Aysedasi
Well, for our sakes, let's hope so, and lets also hope that Williams, BAR and Renault (to name just three more) can do a spot of figuring too......

Just my thoughts exactly, mate.

[Aysedasi]

Originally posted by Sirio
I think that the tyre situation as it is now is perfect for good racing.

Erm.....

Which part of which race were you referring to?

[BootsOntheSide]

Originally posted by HDTVKSS
no offience taken, and hay its an opinion, like anything anyone says on this forum, and im certainly not going to go cry if somone disagrees with me. im not a boffin at a tyre company or anything else to do with F1, so i like anyone else here can only speculate on what makes a team, tyre or driver fast or slow, or how good anyone or anything performs in a perfect world.

My reasons for citing that the tyres are the issue are these. Since last year (monaco?) where Bridgestone protested the Michelins, they generally have fallen back a bit. It would seem, from my observations that the Bridgestones have good wear accross the particular stint that the driver is doing. for evidence at this, one only has to look at how well Shumi can put the boot into the car near the end of the stint and put in some blistering laps. You cant do that unless you have the rubber underneath you.

to be continued....

You've got that a little bit messed up. At Moanco last year, Michelin protested agaionst the Bridgestones, and suddenly Michelin were on top. Before Monza, Bridgestone protested Michelin's methods with the tyres, and since then Bridgestone have certainly looked equal.

I don't think tyres are the explnanation for Ferrari's success anyway, consdering that BAR have moved up this year, and Ferrari have struggled for single-lap pace a bit, frquently beign forced to run longer stints as a result (Magny-Cours was an exception of course)

[pole2pole]

I think mclaren are on to something.They have found something which has turned there performance around and I and iam sure alot of you out there are glad to see it.It was refreshing to hear the interview with Ron Dennis after the race where more or less said bring on the next race cause we will be stronger. Who knows could this be the big change at the top.

[Sirio]

Which part of which race were you referring to?

Have another look at my post.

I think that the tyre situation as it is now is perfect for good racing.

I did not say that the racing is good.
I did not say that the tyres are giving us good racing.

What i said was that one part of the mix (the tyres) is good for racing.

What i left unsaid is that the other teams need to raise their game every weekend and the circuits need to change to allow more racing and the car regulations need some changes as well.

[Bononi]

Well, Mclaren can get to the edge now, but they can't turn the WDC situation anymore. With the poor results in the first part of the season, even if Kimi wins the last 7 races, TGF will still be champion.
So it's up to Renault to try to make it.

[pole2pole]

Its amazing how fast things change in F1.....Remember it was'nt too long ago that we all wondered if Montoya made the right move in signing for McLaren for 05.....Right place right time springs to mind.

[Kicking-back]

Well, that was more because people were a bit short-sighted in writing off McLaren.

[garcon]

It's a curious psychological fact that the accessible memory of your average F1 fan tends to stretch back three, maybe four weeks... unless the subject is Michael Schumacher, in which case there is a single clear memory from 1997 and a vague recollection of the red car winning again last time out...

[ASCII Man]

A single clear memory from 1996 in France springs to mind too.

[pole2pole]

Originally posted by garcon
It's a curious psychological fact that the accessible memory of your average F1 fan tends to stretch back three, maybe four weeks... unless the subject is Michael Schumacher, in which case there is a single clear memory from 1997 and a vague recollection of the red car winning again last time out...

Well put

[senna12]

Being quick right out of the box is certainly promising, there's a lot of room for improvement as well. But Michelin is going to have to step it up a bit also. Unfortunately, Ferrari's current hookup with Bridgestone is going to make it very difficult indeed.

[Snrub]

There's no question that the Bridgestones have more consistent performance than the Michelins. It's an advantage that Bridgestone has always had. It's also clear that towards the end of a stint the Bridgestones ARE faster. Comparing to MS isn't necessarly accurate as he only drives fast for 4-5 laps per race but the end of stint thing is evident with Rubins and indeed even Sauber.

The part I might disagree on is the performance for the rest of the time. That's something I'm not sure we can tell... Who knows, maybe those who think this is the case are right. Sometimes one sees something, but can't quiet explain it to the satisfaction of others. That doesn't necessarly mean they're wrong.

As for McLaren, I doubted they could improve much this season because they've been on a downhill slide since Mika's WDC. Why would one expect that mid-season they'd be able to make a massive jump forward? Atleast for me it would make more sense between seasons where they'd have more time to make substantial changes.

[JohnSSC]

I for one was just glad to see them put their heads down and figure out how to take the fight to Ferrari.

I admire Michael/Ferrari a great deal but I was getting impatient with the other teams and their seeming inability to get their acts together.

[300kph]

The result they had is a very sign of the usual Mc Laren we are used to, fighting at the front and yes, they are back on form...they have new pieces coming in for the next races which could improve further this new car...

...and yes, they have something underneath, imo...