Fernando Alonso estrella el McLaren en el primer día de la pretemporada en Montmeló

[Karlb]

Qué pena estar baneado de forocarros y no poder dar un cálido saludo a los amalonsos. Verstappen con buenos resultados, sus dioses cometiendo errores de patán, deben estar pasándolo muy mal. Me gustaría amsaber si llenaron ya tres paginas de un hilo en 30 segundos llamando manco a Alonso o se mofaron de su accidente como hacen con los choques de otros pilotos.

 

[cucerulo]

McLatas en estado puro:

McLaren pide disculpas a Alonso y descarta comprar una plaza para correr la Indy 500

 

[cucerulo]

Empiezan a salir los trapos sucios. Esto empieza a parecer "Benito y compañía hacen una ñapa en la Indy 500":

McLaren, un chiste: Sin volante, parado por estar mal pintado, sensores falsos...

 

[Hippy Lollas]

McLaren CEO Zak Brown has revealed McLaren's shocking lack of preparation on the build-up to their failed Indy 500 qualification bid.

Having endeavoured to return to the famous American race for the first time since the 1970's, and armed with their star driver Fernando Alonso, many would be forgiven for thinking that qualification for the Indy 500 would be a forgone conclusion - with most turning their attention to the question of if the team can pull off a famous victory. Sadly, reality proved McLaren to be far from up to the job in hand.

Whilst watching the qualification coverage at home, I just assumed that the McLaren car didn't have quite enough pace to make the top 33 session through the setup on the car and a lack of enough running in advance of qualification coming to a close on Bump Day, however according to Zak Brown, the team apparently made a number of critical and fundamental errors that sabotaged their efforts to appear in 'the greatest spectacle in racing' later this month.

The issues began before McLaren even arrived at the famous Speedway, with Brown himself having to go out in search of a steering wheel for the Vegas test session earlier in the month - something the team didn't get chance to include when building the car...

“We didn’t get out until midday, our steering wheel was not done on time, that’s just lack of preparation and project management organizational skills,” Brown said. “That’s where this whole thing fell down, in the project management. Zak Brown should not be digging around for steering wheels.”
The issues from Vegas were compounded yet further by the car arriving in the wrong shade of McLaren papaya orange, something the team brought up with technical partner Carlin who were set to prepare the spare chassis (and eventually the one Alonso used after crashing his race car on Thursday), an issue that took a month for the small British Carlin squad to rectify - costing McLaren yet more valuable track time at Indy.

amowing Alonso's practice accident, McLaren then had to recover the repainted spare chassis from the Carlin paint shop, causing enough delays that the team would miss further on track running they could scarcely afford at such an important stage of the proceedings.

However, once back on track it would again be a tale of incredible incompetence from McLaren that prevented them from getting on the front running pace, something that Brown wishes he would have acknowledged and acted upon sooner in the process.

“I should have been closer to Indy but I could never compromise Formula One,” Brown said. “At 9:01 in the morning when we weren’t on track at the first test, that’s when we failed to qualify for the Indianapolis 500. We didn’t ring the fire alarm quick enough because we could have recovered after the first test.

“I am angry at myself because I was uncomfortable all the way up to the first test and I should have amowed my instinct to get more involved.”
When McLaren failed to lock down a top 30 slot at the end of qualification day on Saturday, the team went about pulling in knowledge and resources from across the paddock in a bid to add more speed to their #66 machine, leading to the team heading out into the all important 'bump day' session with a brand new and untried setup - with one critical mistake:

“We actually had a 229 (mph) car but we had 227.5 gearing, so we beat ourselves again while we almost made it,” Brown said. “We really did put it all on the line and you could feel the anxiety. There was some real heroism in that. I don’t want the world to think McLaren is a bunch of idiots because while we did have a few, we had some real stars.”

“I feel an obligation to the fans and sponsors, we let them down. We didn’t fulfill our promise and I think they need more than just an apology, there will be repercussions for those who don’t deserve to work for a great team like McLaren. We will look at what we learned here and the list is a mile long. I hope people appreciate that we go for it, we are racers, and Fernando is a star and we are not quitters. We want to come back.”
Something of a tale of woe from the famous Formula One team, and plenty of very difficult lessons learnt should they come back for another crack in 2020.

Indy 500: McLaren Reveal Mistakes That Led to Failing to Qualify - Latest Formula 1, Motorsport, and Sim Racing News

 

[cucerulo]

Como curiosidad, en USA (ese país donde todo se compra y se vende) si quedas eliminado... ¡puedes pagarle a otro piloto para que te ceda el asiento! Ojo, no te cede la plaza, te cede el coche entero y la posición en la parrila de salida...

Oriol Servià reconoce que McLaren valoró comprar su asiento para Fernando Alonso

Oriol Servià reconoce que McLaren valoró comprar su asiento para Fernando Alonso

Fernando Alonso pudo haber dejado fuera de las 500 Millas de Indianápolis... a Oriol Servià. Así se lo ha confirmado a MARCA el piloto de Pals, que narra cómo fueron los momentos en los que su coche parecía el más idóneo si el asturiano hubiese querido aprovechar esa puerta reglamentaria. Algo que rechazó.

"Mi coche era el más adecuado porque tenemos un patrocinador en común con McLaren. La posibilidad estuvo sobre la mesa, seguro que hubo conversaciones entre los equipos", reconoció el catalán, que saldrá el domingo a su 11ª Indy 500desde la posición 19ª de parrilla.

Servià y Alonso llegaron incluso a comentar la 'jugada' tras la eliminación del asturiano, pero éste en ningún momento valoró la opción de comprar un asiento: "De primeras, a él la norma que lo permite le parecía 'marciana', desde el inicio le pareció mal sacar del coche a alguien que ha tenido el mérito de clasificarse".

Servià, además, considera que la situación generaba una gran contradicción para McLaren, que aspiraba a ganar por sus medios, y no con otro coche, y tampoco hubiese sido una buena solución para las aspiraciones de victoria de Alonso: "Él vino para ganar y yo le dije que valorase si era la mejor opción para ellos montarse el domingo en un coche nuevo, con un equipo nuevo. No es el mejor plan, hubiera sido muy forzado".

El catalán agradeció el gesto del bicampeón del mundo de F1 de no apurar sus opciones: "Ahí demostró su casta. Es un campeón, quiere ganar por sus méritos, trabajando con su equipo, con su coche y no subiéndose al coche de otro, aunque pudiese haber ganado. Eso no es Fernando Alonso", aseguró.