Mclaren build the fastest cars.

[dannyjo22]

Sadly it's 5 or 6 months after the season has started.

Why is this becoming a trend? Is the design team missing the mark year in and year out so they end up throwing money at the car to copy and close the gap?

They get to the end of each year with a fast car and seem unable to build on it the following year. They do show very well that the days of almost unlimited testing are not needed to turn a car around but does the limited preseason running mean they start slowly each year?

For a team that has such resources why the hell can't they build back to back decent cars out of the box? It can't be Whitmarsh fault, Dennis didn't do it since the late 90's either. They won the title in 98 and 99 but I doubt they would have won the 99 title had MS not broken his leg. Still the car was fast out of the box. It then took him until 2008 to win another title.

The fizzy drinks company by comparison was a decent contender in 2009,10 and 11.

They used to leave Raikonnen with too much to do and now are doing the same with Lewis. Surely next year has to be Lewis last chance to give Mclaren the ability to give him a race car that's a threat from day 1?

If they cannot get it right in times of reasonable stability I wouldn't fancy them over Newey in a period of large regulation changes?

 

[dannyjo22]

The positves cannot outweight the negatives because they are losing championships because of it and winning one in 12 years if you go from 2000 to 2011.

Brawn isn't a reasonable comparison because they just stopped developing the car. Red Bull should have taken wins off them in the first 7 races but they made mistakes, the pace was there though.

Which cars luck their way into being fastest at the start of the season?

Fighting for titles hasn't affected Red Bulls charge, mclaren surely have enough bodies to cope with this. Don't they have split teams anyway?

 

[dannyjo22]

Could it be now that rbr think they pretty much have the title wrapped up and ha e stopped developing the current car to start on next years? And this is why Ferrari and mclaren have caught up/passed?

I think maybe the rules changing for blown diffusers made them concentrate on what would happen to the car. CS nuts said they were working hard on it. The rules then stayed as they were.

Then again Mclaren keep showing they have an ability to turn a slower car into the fastest car around mid season. Which is always too late.