One McLaren Is Way Slower Than The Other And The Team Don't Know Why

McLaren's two F1 cars are behaving wildly differently on track, despite identical parts and setups, and even the team itself has no idea why
One McLaren Is Way Slower Than The Other And The Team Don't Know Why

McLaren’s Formula 1 team slipped to a new low over the weekend thanks to an astonishing revelation regarding number two driver Stoffel Vandoorne’s car.

Despite both cars apparently being set up exactly the same for the race, with the same parts, Vandoorne’s MCL33 was producing significantly less downforce than Fernando Alonso’s sister car.

The McLaren F1 team admitted they were totally stumped as to the reason or reasons why Vandoorne’s chassis simply wasn’t performing, with the Belgian having repeatedly complained that the car was “undriveable” over the British and German Grands Prix weekends.

One McLaren Is Way Slower Than The Other And The Team Don't Know Why

Vandoorne told Autosport after a disappointing qualifying at Hockenheim that the team had played trial-and-error with as much of the car’s bodywork as they could, even breaking curfew overnight on Friday in the hope of finding time on track. He said:

“Since we hit the ground in Silverstone, we were by far the last car and it turned out the same today.

“I can’t really tell anything more. It’s frustrating. We changed a lot of parts on the car and it still doesn’t work. It’s not linked to the set-up at all. It’s something on the car that doesn’t work.

“We’ve changed over a lot of parts already and at the moment we don’t really have a solution to just make it work normally.”

One McLaren Is Way Slower Than The Other And The Team Don't Know Why

Vandoorne did eventually finish ahead of Fernando Alonso in the race, after the Spaniard tried a bold strategy as a rain shower arrived late in the race, switching immediately to wet-weather tyres in the hope that the downpour would continue – which it didn’t.

Neither scored any points for the orange-clad team, whose perennial struggles seem to have become part of modern F1 folklore.

Sponsored Posts

Comments

Anonymous

This is fkin hell for the driver

07/23/2018 - 08:41 |
10 | 0
Matt Kimberley

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

It’s not fair, at all. There are plenty of ‘junior’ drivers out there all hoping for a promotion to a better team and this just makes Vandoorne look bad. There’s no way he can show what he can do.

07/23/2018 - 08:43 |
36 | 0
chrislol

Don’t worry guys Mclaren has the best chassis on the grid I’m sure this is just Renault’s fault, right?

07/23/2018 - 08:47 |
79 | 0

[DELETED]

07/23/2018 - 08:51 |
0 | 4

Bare in mind they dont have a functional wind tunnel… The one in Woking at the factory is broken and they have been borrowing Toyota’s in France… without decent aero parts, they can’t improve

No windy boi = no winny boi

07/23/2018 - 14:51 |
42 | 0
☆★THEBOOSTEDBRIT★☆

“Handmade in Britain as supposed to everything’s going to fall off.”

-Our Saviour, Jeremy Clarkson
07/23/2018 - 08:56 |
34 | 1
Manuel Kunz

That must be so annoying for Vandoorne to be pulled back by a tiny detail in his car, which even a team of highly skilled engineers can’t figure out, even though he didn’t do anything wrong.
I really hope for him that Mclaren can figure out what is going on, so he can show what he is capable of once again.

07/23/2018 - 09:03 |
9 | 0

Highly skilled? Haha

07/26/2018 - 21:49 |
0 | 3
Anonymous

Well then. This further shows how good a driver Alonso is, to be able to wrestle a top 10 finish from the MCL33.

07/23/2018 - 09:57 |
0 | 7
Ben Ireland

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

It doesn’t really because this issue is only plaguing Vandoorne’s car for some weird reason

07/23/2018 - 10:38 |
7 | 0
Wogmidget
07/23/2018 - 10:27 |
55 | 0

That’s why I drive a Peugeot 205! To compensate for my huge penis 😎

07/23/2018 - 23:06 |
4 | 0
7heDuke

This is just sad as hell

07/23/2018 - 10:32 |
1 | 0
Anonymous

It’s sad to see Vandoorne fighting to get to enter F1 with one of the classic teams and see himself in the back with no options to improve. It has to be so frustrating.

07/23/2018 - 11:08 |
4 | 0
DL🏁

Maybe they put a 540C badge instead of 570S by accident

07/23/2018 - 18:23 |
2 | 0
Nerdy moustache

Reading this make me even more depressed.

07/23/2018 - 19:52 |
1 | 0