The fall of McLaren

so in the end Hamilton made the right decsion and proved hoards of naysayers wrong.
Mclaren are in danger of running into the same problem as Williams. They have a very insular culture where they are alll singing their own praises and laudin their "rich history" of success.
The Mclaren way and culture is starting to not be an attractive prospect for top engineers and folks anymore and their continued 2013 struggles are unfolding in a troubling way that can directly be matched to the early days of ther williams downfall. This is also accompined by a duo of drivers who are not ideal for further developing this car. Button seems to think he is entitled to beat his temmate rather than race against him. He will never extract more out of the car than it is capable off and all too often actually underperforms it wrapped in a cloud of frustration and dismay. Many times giving up before sunday has even arrived. Perez on the other hand is too raw of a driver at this point but is inherantly quicker than button. The car is not that good and he struggles to extract more out of it as well. Mclaren missed their chance with Hulkenberg IMO.

What they need is some outside talent to come into the fold and shake up their thinking process. Yes they produce excellent cars every odd year, and they might sort it out eventually with the 2013 car if they stick with it, but all signs point towards a further decline for the forseable futue if button remains and the culture persists.

Mclaren do seem very stale at the moment, but lets not forget just last year they had one of the best cars on the grid, but that said they havent really delivered the titles their cars have warranted. i.e 2005,2007,2010,2011,2012. All seasons where Mclaren could have won a title, given different things happening here and there

It's a very tricky time out there. People predicting the decline of McLaren better get ready to taste crow. This is the most successful team in F1 since they entered the sport lets not forget.

Lets wait and see ;)

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Originally Posted by truefan72

so in the end Hamilton made the right decsion and proved hoards of naysayers wrong.
Mclaren are in danger of running into the same problem as Williams. They have a very insular culture where they are alll singing their own praises and laudin their "rich history" of success.

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There is always some bits of insider information, unknown to us, that can logically explain Hamilton's move to Mercedes. This situation also reminds me Schumacher's move from Benetton to Ferrari. At that time, everyone thought he was nuts, but then Benetton went on a decline and Ferrari started improving.

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Originally Posted by truefan72

so in the end Hamilton made the right decsion and proved hoards of naysayers wrong.
Mclaren are in danger of running into the same problem as Williams. They have a very insular culture where they are alll singing their own praises and laudin their "rich history" of success.
The Mclaren way and culture is starting to not be an attractive prospect for top engineers and folks anymore and their continued 2013 struggles are unfolding in a troubling way that can directly be matched to the early days of ther williams downfall. This is also accompined by a duo of drivers who are not ideal for further developing this car. Button seems to think he is entitled to beat his temmate rather than race against him. He will never extract more out of the car than it is capable off and all too often actually underperforms it wrapped in a cloud of frustration and dismay. Many times giving up before sunday has even arrived. Perez on the other hand is too raw of a driver at this point but is inherantly quicker than button. The car is not that good and he struggles to extract more out of it as well. Mclaren missed their chance with Hulkenberg IMO.

What they need is some outside talent to come into the fold and shake up their thinking process. Yes they produce excellent cars every odd year, and they might sort it out eventually with the 2013 car if they stick with it, but all signs point towards a further decline for the forseable futue if button remains and the culture persists.

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Well for sure, something isn't right. It seems that since the combination of Hakkinen and Coulthard they have had difficulty keeping a pair of drivers who seem content with the team and has a good combination of capabilities. If you go back to the year 2000, they have had 5 WDCs on the team since... but haven't wrapped up a constructors title. The only one still retained won the WDC in a grossly dominant car. Yet the drivers they have let go have proven to be able to push in other cars, and in some cases win titles in other cars.

Granted it is hard to live up to the reputation they had in the 80s and early 90s, but something has stagnated and gone wrong that they keep getting so behind in development.

Truefan, interesting thoughts about McLaren and their culture. What is clear is that these days you need to be very open-minded and flexible to succeed. Attract the best people around the world and adapt to their needs and preferences to get the best out of each person and work in harmony. I can't measure, what is McLaren's situation, but IMO they have gone backwards in the last few years in their depth of the team, even if the fall has seemed sudden (very fast car in 2012).

I may explain it further. In 2008-2010 McLaren seemed like the most complete team on the grid. Even if they struggled, they could fix issues, develop fast and race operations were top-notch. Recall mid-2010, when Hamilton and Button were first and second in the drivers championship. However, they hit a problem in car development and fell to 4th and 5th. This was the first sign of McLaren's weakness. Their in-season development wasn't as impressive as thought to be.

Pre-2011 they had big problems in testing. Somehow they overcame these by the first race and in the end the car was pretty fast, but in strategies and race operations they were already struggling to match RBR and even Ferrari. While in 2010 RBR was still inferior to McLaren in "completeness" of the team.

For 2012 they once again had a fundamentally fast car, but problems became even deeper. An inconsistent car, which in some conditions hardly worked plus big setup issues. So big that Button turned into a slower driver than he had ever been before! Surely it unveiled a weakness in Button, but it also shows team's weakness that they can't get the best out of a driver any more.

2013? Now they have a slow car. Once again setup issues. Once again struggling to develop a car during a season. Why did they ditch 2012 design? Because they thought they would be unable to develop it properly. So IMO this shows a deeper issue in the team. Regardless of which car they have, they have problems in maximizing its potential.

Bottom line is that in one aspect McLaren is in a better situation than Williams. They have managed to attract a big partner in Honda. This is an important ability, because without that McLaren could well fall into a long-term trouble. Something in which Williams already is as they are not able to attract big corporations and frankly aren't open-minded enough either.

How open is McLaren? Can't say for sure, but there are strong rumours about their corporate culture, which doesn't suit everyone. Including Newey, who ran away to RBR to have more freedom. Much like he had ran away from Williams to McLaren earlier...

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Originally Posted by jens

McLaren is in a better situation than Williams. They have managed to attract a big partner in Honda.

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Williams attracted BMW after their initial decline, but no championships.......

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Originally Posted by jens

Truefan, interesting thoughts about McLaren and their culture. What is clear is that these days you need to be very open-minded and flexible to succeed. Attract the best people around the world and adapt to their needs and preferences to get the best out of each person and work in harmony. I can't measure, what is McLaren's situation, but IMO they have gone backwards in the last few years in their depth of the team, even if the fall has seemed sudden (very fast car in 2012).

I may explain it further. In 2008-2010 McLaren seemed like the most complete team on the grid. Even if they struggled, they could fix issues, develop fast and race operations were top-notch. Recall mid-2010, when Hamilton and Button were first and second in the drivers championship. However, they hit a problem in car development and fell to 4th and 5th. This was the first sign of McLaren's weakness. Their in-season development wasn't as impressive as thought to be.

Pre-2011 they had big problems in testing. Somehow they overcame these by the first race and in the end the car was pretty fast, but in strategies and race operations they were already struggling to match RBR and even Ferrari. While in 2010 RBR was still inferior to McLaren in "completeness" of the team.

For 2012 they once again had a fundamentally fast car, but problems became even deeper. An inconsistent car, which in some conditions hardly worked plus big setup issues. So big that Button turned into a slower driver than he had ever been before! Surely it unveiled a weakness in Button, but it also shows team's weakness that they can't get the best out of a driver any more.

2013? Now they have a slow car. Once again setup issues. Once again struggling to develop a car during a season. Why did they ditch 2012 design? Because they thought they would be unable to develop it properly. So IMO this shows a deeper issue in the team. Regardless of which car they have, they have problems in maximizing its potential.

Bottom line is that in one aspect McLaren is in a better situation than Williams. They have managed to attract a big partner in Honda. This is an important ability, because without that McLaren could well fall into a long-term trouble. Something in which Williams already is as they are not able to attract big corporations and frankly aren't open-minded enough either.

How open is McLaren? Can't say for sure, but there are strong rumours about their corporate culture, which doesn't suit everyone. Including Newey, who ran away to RBR to have more freedom. Much like he had ran away from Williams to McLaren earlier...

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:up: very well said Jens

McLaren is now a mid-field team but they will be up front again in the future. Remember 1978-1979 or 1994-1996, when the team struggled as well.. Of course when you'd think they had to drive in the top 6 in order to get points back in those times, this years' car seems to be the worst of all. On the other side: Back in those times we had a lot of retirements during a race and nowadays almost everyone finishes the race, if there would be as much DNF's per race nowadays as they had back in the old days, this car would have been on the podium already, if not in victory lane. I'm not a McLaren fan but I hope they will find their way to the top again, 2014 might become another awful season but real McLaren fans should look forward to 2015... Honda knows how to build good engines..

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Originally Posted by heliocastroneves#3

McLaren is now a mid-field team but they will be up front again in the future. Remember 1978-1979 or 1994-1996, when the team struggled as well.. Of course when you'd think they had to drive in the top 6 in order to get points back in those times, this years' car seems to be the worst of all. On the other side: Back in those times we had a lot of retirements during a race and nowadays almost everyone finishes the race, if there would be as much DNF's per race nowadays as they had back in the old days, this car would have been on the podium already, if not in victory lane. I'm not a McLaren fan but I hope they will find their way to the top again, 2014 might become another awful season but real McLaren fans should look forward to 2015... Honda knows how to build good engines..

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Do they? Or is it all in the past since they did quite badly with their own team in F1 and their passenger cars still have lazy normally aspirated engines while VAG and others are very successful with small turbos.