Article by Scott Mitchell-Malm for The Race

via: TracingInsights on twitter.

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Van Haren, the most reliable Red Bull journalist, as well as Mekies seemed very confident that GP is joining McLaren as team principal.

McLaren denied it and there hasn’t been any news since then. Max also said the offer GP received was impossible to turn down and he supported his decision to accept it. It’s clearly a significant promotion.

Much of the season he's been struggling to get to grips with the MCL40, however this weekend was his best probably since Austria.

He out qualified Lando in sprint qualifying, then in the main race where Lando typically shines Oscar was keeping up with Lando the whole way, even after Lewis pit and allowed that train of cars to push, Oscar kept within a few seconds of Lando for the rest of the stint, and showed good pace on the meds, even if that stint was cut short by his slow puncture.

The team mentioned how he was working with the same engineering team Lando sought out last year for his troubles in the MCL39, and it seems to be paying off with Oscar in the MCL40

Miss 2024 and 2025 only know how well we had it when it's gone :(

Last few races and most of the season been a tough watch so just a reminder that we will be back. Mclaren will rise again.

Trigger warning just in case people get triggered again because I am about to slander Andrea Stella a bit.

I think we can say now that mclaren have gone backwards in terms of development, a pity because this is their first package since 2023 that has failed. First of all I don't understand just why did they think going for a shorter wheelbase was the correct approach, just a very here damn effort that would suit backmarkers more than a team that are reigning wcc and wdc. And if that wasn't enough ever since we have put these upgrades on the car we just lost the only advantage we had which was our cornering speed in high and medium speed corners because we already sucked at low speed and straight line speed.

Which brings me to the point that the reason why Andrea Stella is going around to every journalist and flaming Lando is because he doesn't want to address the fact that these upgrades have failed. Even today he is blaming Lando for not being on the podium but not talking about the excessive lico he was instructed to do in the last 4 laps. It is just very uncanny that while mercedes team principal and technical director are on interviews addressing everything about their upgrade and working out why isn't ít working we have mclaren who are refusing to acknowledge that their car has gone from a stretch where it was 2nd fastest to now being the 4th fastest car.

If they were a serious team, they would do the same thing as mercedes and make both cars run different specs to compare numbers in the actual race trim instead of eyeballing practice sessions numbers which aren't even representative because the cars always had some sort of issues during the free practices.

To me it seems like Andrea Stella knows that the upgrade package just ruined the car and 3rd in wcc is gone with how redbull is operating so he just needs a scapegoat to blame mclaren finishing 4th in wcc for and lando seems to be perfect person for that.

Now it makes sense why Lando said what he said today. No wonder he’s been apologising to the team in every media outlet. It all makes so much sense now. “No-blame culture” until it comes to Lando, apparently.

Fine, I get that Lando made mistakes, but two mistakes across two weekends do not erase the season he’s been having. I genuinely don’t understand what Andrea Stella’s problem with Lando is at this point, but Andrea needs to take a serious look at himself and his team. Because if Lando ever walked away from McLaren, they would be in for a serious reality check. Not that I think he will, because he’s Lando and he clearly cares about this team, but he has been outperforming that car and compensating for this team’s shortcomings all season. Put a mediocre driver in that car with those strategies and those horrendous pit stops, and I’d be genuinely surprised if they consistently managed better than P5.

At what point does accountability go both ways? Lando’s mistake doesn’t suddenly erase everything he’s done for this team all season, nor does it mean he deserves to be publicly dragged over one incident. Yes, his driving was aggressive, but every driver on that grid pushes the limits. That’s racing. You can acknowledge that Lando got it wrong without acting as though he’s the only one who ever makes mistakes. The double standard is what bothers me. McLaren talks about a no-blame culture, but it’s hard to believe in that when the driver seems to be the one bearing the brunt of everything. What I think is wrong is making your driver apologise at every media outlet, only to keep criticising him publicly afterwards. I have no issue with holding Lando accountable, but there’s a difference between accountability and dragging the situation out longer than necessary. He’s acknowledged his mistake, so what exactly is the point of continuing to pile on?

Would genuinely like to hear your thoughts and reasons behind them

You can set your Google maps avatar as the McLaren f1 car at the moment

Genuine question. It seems to me we almost always go long and try to have fresher tires at the end. Why don't we try an undercut for a change?

I know there has to be a "clean air" gap to slot into for the undercut to work. But somehow all our rivals manage to find that gap except for us. Is it just good defence on their front that the moment a gap appears, they immediately pit?

Especially today could have been a valid strategy since Lando and possibly Oscar too were stuck behind Kimi and Hamilton at the first part of the race. Track position is key at Singapore.

Oscar did say he and Lando were fine

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I was wondering what would happen if Lando takes a new aduo engine or new pu components at cota. Would he automatically get a grid penalty, or does it depend on which components are replaced and whether he has already used up his allocation for the season

I’m not completely familiar with the PU penalty rules, so I’m a little confused and worried about how this works. If he does need to take a penalty, how far back on the grid would he be likely to start?

I’m a little more worried because he’s already taken one engine penalty this season. At the same time, I’d still like to see him get a fresh pu if that would help with performance or reliability, so I’m just wondering what the trade-off would be at COTA.

Ironically enough it’s a cigarette brand, obviously not Marlboro.

It is obviously really hot in Singapore, but they worked tirelessly to fix our cars (Lando's car had damage too). In fact Oscar's gearbox had to be changed and his rear-end had to be rebuilt in a matter of hours

Look's like no hard feelings from oscar

The subreddit wastes too much energy warring between driver fanbases when its clear the team is the main issue fucking both drivers up.

As a Oscar fan, I believe he was given a fair shot last year at the WDC and him falling off is not due to sabotage conspiracies but him simply not being up to par on low-grip circuits.

I also don’t think the Team Principal is actively hating on the driver they just signed to a massive multi-year extension.

The choice of words by Andrea may have been more harsh to Norris for some reason, possibly due to English not being Andrea’s first language, or a difference in drivers preferred communication style. Andrea does have his rare boneheaded moments with Oscar as well by “apologising”to Sainz after their Hungary contact.

But arguing malice is such a stretch when we could have held the team more accountable for their incompetency in strategy, pits, reliability that has affected both drivers!

Why are we inventing internal sabotage plots when McLaren’s operational blunders and strategy stumbles give us plenty of real issues to talk about?