Did McLaren waste time with the MP4/18?

[boom boom]

With all the time and trouble they were having testing the new car, were they able to make any modifications for the MP4/17-D? Because Ferrari and Williams made alot of headway during this season. It seams to me Mclaren waited to long to forget about the new car and start making the car they are using now faster, and I think Kimi sumed that up in the press conference today "transcript form F1-Live.com

KR: "Hopefully we can have some new parts for the car because it is basically the same as the start of the season and we need to get something new now. We will get a new aero package for the next test and hopefully it will work out in the next race."

To little to late?, Could Kimi be ahead in the standings if they would have forgoten about the new car earlier in the season, and tried to upagrde the current car?
I feel the effort and time they wasted, ruined what could have been a better season (unless Kimi Wins it yet)
Is starting with the old car and working on the new one the way to do it? Or should you start with the new car right away and make modifications during the season?

[neilap]

Yes.

[Knowlesy]

They could have started the season with the new car, except for one small thing - it was only halfway through the design process.
They could have done a Williams though - start off embarrasingly slowly and then become fastest on grid!

[Adam43]

Without knowing inside McLarens testing program who knows.

McLaren, better than all save Ferrari, as quite capable of running two parallel test programs.

Also I remember Norbert saying that they have learned much from the 18. Some things that proved useful for next year and some useful for this year's car.

While it seems (to me) unlikely that the 18 will race this year, do we know this as fact. My guess is not. The 18 may have a great test at Monza and it may be raced.

[alesi95]

We will see the mp4 18 but maybe not until next year in an evoloutionary design, an Mp4 18B perhaps. By which time it'll probably blow everyone away.

Who's to say the 17d isn't already running some of the 18's internal bits and pieces?

[eein]

They have made a number of updates on the current McLaren throught he season - but they have not been big jumps and thus been somewhat shadowed by the 'up and down' nature of the performance by the other 3 top teams.

I think McLaren over estimated Ferrari's ability to create another massive leap with the GA and decided that they must go with a more risky (potentially more rewarding) design. In hind sight, we see that the GA is not the leap it was touted to be (although it may be developed over a couple of years and become much better) and the risk that McLaren took with their attempt at a big leap did not work - they tried too much at once in too short a time.

It really is simple project management. Any properly managed project has certain, known, objectives and risk at the beginning. And if things change during the project (i.e. the GA appears and its not as big a threat as thought, failed crash tests, design issues taking more time that anticipated) then the project manager has to adjust hings and I think McLaren have taken some difficult decisions but handled it well.

Their current car is thrid in the drivers standings and their new car continues to be devloped in line for next season. I would not be surprise though if the new car makes an appearance in the last race or two if both championships are sewn up (which is looking unlikely!).

[climb]

MP04-18 has been utterly disastreous, no doubt, particularly if we remember the mega-battage that McLaren prganized when it was launched.
Nevertheless it's suspicious their capability to update the old car and keep it competitive, simply improving an old-concept car.
I think that it's not just an excuse when Haug says they learned a lot from MP04-18.
It's surely been a waste of money, they probably could have reached similar results without investing on a revolutionary car, but it's hard to define their effort completely useless.

[RWC]

They could only waste time on the new car if it is indeed possible to improve the 17D much more.I tend to think there is only so much thay can do with the old one anyway-judging from the leveling out of improvement.Remember nearly all the recent gains are allmost entirely because of michelins great tyres.
In other words they had little to lose by putting some effort into the new car.I wouldn't mind betting that we see it race this year in the hands of DC(as he's not in the running for the WDC)

[climb]

RWC,
your reasoning is undusputably good, but we have to admit that staying competitive as the Macs are doing this year is very strange, SINCE THEY ARE RUNNING A CAR THAT LAST YEAR WAS REAL DOG!
Without any injection of MP04-18 ideas, the performances of the gray arrows sounds again the principles of technologic progress, doesn't it?
How can a car be good today if last year was so bad?
You talk about Michelin tires improvement, ok, but Macs have not catched up only Ferrari, they are fighting also teams like Williams, who have Michelin as well, and run a new car!

BTW: I'M AT 500, MATES! I'M A VETERAN, NOW!!!

[Knowlesy]

Well, the MP4-17D only shares the monocoque of last years car, the MP4-17.......

[type49]

The original MP4-17D was too conservative an exersize,an underpowered and outclassed evolution of the model of the previous year. But for a bad qualifying performance in Can, a blown engine at the 'Ring and a starting accident in Germany it would be possibly,possibly, be the class of the field today in the hands of Kimi. How much less would the drivers be whining if they had the race developed 18A? Racers always want to go faster. The evolution of last years car in parallel to the development of the 18A was the correct step. Lets wait for the Italian test be before christening it "The Spruce Goose". Wasn't it fastest during it's last test outing?

[Mr V]

Originally posted by alesi95

Who's to say the 17d isn't already running some of the 18's internal bits and pieces?

It is according to a report in F1Racing mag. One of their (un-named) mechanics told the mag that a hell of a lot of the parts are stamped with MP4-18.

As for wasting their time with the 18, imo, no. They have a good basis for next years car. Hopefully for them, it will be faster than this years car, and at the moment, the year old (heavily modified) car is second only to the Williams imo.

[paulzinho]

Were any testing times ever released?

[Adam43]

IIRC it was quite quick. Quicker than the 17D. Of course it is testing so who knows what fuel/tyres/etc they were running.

[Logrence]

It has been very quick, but very fragile - and when the exhaust pipes melted the back of the car they decided they needed to have a bit of a fiddle back at the factory.

I could have dreamed this, but I also heard somewhere that it takes them 8 hours to change the engine because it's all complicated-like. Could be rubbish though.