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Post by Wß on May 16, 2016 12:10:22 GMT
Alonso achieved more with his Q3 appearance than Button did with his P9. Wise commentary.
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Post by Wß on May 16, 2016 12:19:12 GMT
I recall back in the silly season of 2013 into 2014 when Vodaphone announced their exit. Some of Jenson's girlfriends, erm, I mean his more ardent bromance fans were claiming that McLaren would remain that they were indeed recession proof that their automobile division was strong and that they controlled the negotiations with sponsors, not the other way around.
I tried, I really tried to explain the business of F1, that sponsors put their money in a team not only for their record but for their drivers. That the loss of Hamilton, would alienate sponsors and that they would dump McLaren. It was incomprehensible to them though.
No title sponsor replacement for Vodaphone, Tag Heuer, Hugo Boss end a generation long partnership, and still, Button with the British Champion mantle around him, leading the British Champion team has unwavering support of his most ardent fans.
Live and learn I guess.
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Post by CookinFlat6 on May 16, 2016 16:16:01 GMT
I guess ditching his wife cant be good for the old 'Japan and Honda love Jenson' crowd
Honda and McLaren need 2 drivers that can drive a car out of its skin even when its not perfect. Button is a showroom driver, once the car is perfect he can drive sponsors around as fast as any other driver. To develop the car you need drivers that can drive around instability and imbalance - otherwise the car doesnt evolve fast enough. With Alonso they dont need Button, better to have a young charger who can be bedded in for 2017 when the car should be a player. There can be no doubt that his self admitted inability to control oversteer 'I cant fully commit to corners' has hurt McLaren massively (what pull rod?) - Look how good the chassis has become since it was built for his comfort zone
Lets see what happens at the test - if SVD is much better at driving fast with updates I bet we see more and more of him this year
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Post by RyRy on May 18, 2016 21:10:03 GMT
If Max is anything to go by then the controversy could be outweighed by the headlines caused by a new Max style star driver pushing Alonso Theirs only worked out because they had both a good car for the track and Mercedes took eachother out, it would a whole different story at McLaren or even at red bull if the Mercedes crash never happened.
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Post by Wß on Jun 15, 2016 21:00:51 GMT
Good summary of McLaren's cunundrum for next year with their drivers. I've particularly highlighted a section, not to get into a Button bash fest cause Button is good at promoting himself, but quite frankly what he says below about car development he's proven that he's abysmal at that when he took the mantle and bragged about the 2013 car being the best he'd ever driven and the one he helped to create without the influence of Hamilton. The 2014 car was no better despite having the absolute best engine on the grid. So something doesn't line up with what's being claimed.
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Post by CookinFlat6 on Jun 16, 2016 0:19:13 GMT
This part would completely explain 2009 if he was honest - After a fortune was spent on the double diffuser chassis, Button won the first 6 races or whatever when the car was seconds faster than the rest. In the second half of the season he was spanked by his teammate Reubens - who was winning and on the podium whilst Button was floundering and calling the car 'undriveable'. The car had been developed on a shoestring cos Brawn had no money - it was the same car, the others had caught up more.
Buttons career is defined by his team floundering despite having the biggest resources (BAR, Honda, McLaren) whilst trying to cater to his inability to not feel scared unless the car is perfect. The floundering is inversely proportional to Buttons standing in the team, when he is lead driver the team never ever recovers. Without a Barichello, Lewis, Alonso beside him in the team, the car will always gravitate to the back of the grid - why? because thats the pace a car Button can drive without being scared. If it gets competitive chances are its also 'scary'
What driver in F1 history is free to constantly tells us he is unable to drive fast because the car is scary to drive in the rain/on the limit/etc
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Post by Hammer on Jun 16, 2016 4:07:08 GMT
What's shocked me is how many teams he's managed to fool with his bullshit through his career despite heaps of evidence suggesting the contrary to his bs.
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Post by CookinFlat6 on Jun 16, 2016 9:45:37 GMT
Try a google search for 'f1 driver says car was scary to drive' and see what comes up. Lauda and Vettel say F1 cars should be more scary to drive, the only drivers who say racing is too scary are Button and interestingly enough Mcnish
Same race 1 year on and he is still scared and wants the car made safer to drive?
This time he couldnt get away with it because Alonso was there
Imagine that Alonso wasnt there and Button was lead driver under Twitmarsh? - Another development cul de sac and the team go backwards
He is even scared when faster cars overtake him on the motorway
And who can forget this Button classic
At least we know for a fact that Ron and Eric both wanted him out so they know whats going on
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Post by racechick on Aug 8, 2016 6:33:37 GMT
Kovalinen has opened up about his time at McLaren. "Former Formula One driver Heikki Kovalainen has revealed he lost confidence during his time driving alongside Lewis Hamilton for McLaren in 2009" "I just wasn't able to extract from the car as much as Lewis was. It was an important time, and I obviously needed some results at that point" ""I mentally wasn't sharp enough to really try to get more out of it. Also Lewis got some [new car] parts ahead of me, and maybe I let it affect me a little bit when he got slightly better service, if you like." (Perhaps Lewis did get some new parts first, he was the world champion and Lewis scored 49 points that year to Heikki's 22 and had McLarens only two wins) Now. Bearing in mind Heikki was undergoing a crisis confidence, get this bit.......... Kovalainen also revealed that then-McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh had informed him from an early stage that his position at the team was under threat from the likes of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and eventual champion Jenson Button. "Martin Whitmarsh kept me up to date. He told me early on that they will look for another driver, they will look for Kimi [Raikkonen], and they were also looking for Jenson Button. But both of those drivers might not be available, and Martin said to me if not, then you'll be the third choice. "I was in America and it was Thanksgiving Day when Martin called me to say, 'We have signed Jenson.' My results weren't good enough, and I was kind of expecting it" Great way to boost someone's confidence. Martin had the hots for Button from an early stage! www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id/17237138/heikki-kovalainen-opens-mclaren-regrets
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Post by racechick on Aug 23, 2016 7:13:41 GMT
Interesting!!
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McLaren
Aug 30, 2016 17:56:06 GMT
via mobile
Post by LRW on Aug 30, 2016 17:56:06 GMT
Last time we took note of shirt sales in the McLaren store, we all thought Alonso was leaving after 3 races into the season.
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Post by Hammer on Sept 21, 2016 15:35:25 GMT
Apple In Talks To Buy McLaren: ReportApple, the computer company, is in talks to buy McLaren, the supercar and race car company, according to a report from the Financial Times. Apple has been attempting to develop its own car for a while now, and this would appear to be a huge change in its direction. It could either be a major investment or an outright purchase of the company, the FT reports: The California technology group, which has been working on a self-driving electric vehicle for more than two years, is considering a full takeover of McLaren or a strategic investment, according to three people briefed on the negotiations who said talks started several months ago. It would definitely be a bit of a weird tie-up on the surface. Apple, by all indications, has been looking to make electric self-driving cars for a while. McLarens, as we can personally attest, are best enjoyed when a person is driving. For the uninitiated, the small but scrappy Woking, England-based company has been making expensive, high-performance supercars and Formula One race cars for decades. Responsible for a car that was the fastest in the world for many years, the McLaren F1, it now positions itself as a tech company that happens to make cars and specializes in things like hybrid powertrains, lightweight materials and aerodynamic advancements. But there’s way more to McLaren than meets the untrained eye. Not only is the successor to the vaunted McLaren P1 rumored to be electric, but the company itself maintains operations far beyond what you would initially think. Its Applied Technologies Group supplies electronics to everyone from Formula One to NASCAR, and it has done extensive work on data center optimization. It also has an associated catering company. Apple’s own car ambitions – rumored to be dubbed “Project Titan” – have taken some strange turns as of late. While it looked to be developing a new vehicle from the ground up for the past two years, it was recently reported to be laying off some staff, reshuffling its own executives, and re-tooling the entire project. A move to buy McLaren might just be the biggest push in that new direction. McLaren is owned by Ron Dennis, the team principal of its Formula One team since 1981, company chairman Mansour Ojjeh, and the sovereign wealth fund of the nation of Bahrain. Dennis and Ojjeh have both owned large stakes in the company for more than thirty years, but Bahrain is a new investor, and is likely looking for a return on its money. In 2014 the company posted revenue of £475 million and a pre-tax profit of £15 million, a massive 233 percent increase over 2013's numbers. But as the FT notes, McLaren’s most recent published financial documents from 2014 indicate losses, Bahrain may be looking to make some money by selling the company. More as we have it. jalopnik.com/apple-in-talks-to-buy-mclaren-report-1786894101
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Post by Wß on Sept 22, 2016 15:21:29 GMT
Don't know what the benefit of an actual buyout would be but on the surface there's an irony of Apple wanting self driving cars buying out a car company that focuses on only high performance cars for people that buy them for the sole reason to *drive* them!
The focus on "brand image" is the same ethos though, so I wouldn't doubt some type of serious collaboration between them.
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McLaren
Sept 26, 2016 15:51:16 GMT
via mobile
Post by stonemonkey on Sept 26, 2016 15:51:16 GMT
Well, that'd be one way to scare all the bejesuses out of you, take a self driving supercar onto a racetrack. Maybe there could be a market there though and I'm sure there'd be a manual mode.
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Post by Wß on Sept 26, 2016 16:22:12 GMT
Well, that'd be one way to scare all the bejesuses out of you, take a self driving supercar onto a racetrack. Maybe there could be a market there though and I'm sure there'd be a manual mode. Funny you should say that...
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Post by LRW on Oct 19, 2016 14:50:32 GMT
www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/126728/ron-dennis-set-to-leave-mclaren-top-jobAutosport are saying Ron will not have his contract as CEO and Chairman renewed when it finishes at the end of this year. I dont quite understand that - I didnt realise he had contracts as he owns 25% shares of the business? Then further down the article McLaren deny a lot of things. So I don't really know what to make of any of it. But I posted anyway.
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Post by Wß on Oct 19, 2016 18:28:52 GMT
And here I've been giving Arrivabene a hard time.
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Post by racechick on Oct 22, 2016 9:03:05 GMT
Heard the shareholders are trying to oust Ron again.......Whitmarsh and Brawn's name mentioned.
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McLaren
Oct 22, 2016 12:10:58 GMT
via mobile
Post by LRW on Oct 22, 2016 12:10:58 GMT
I really can't see Brawn coming back to F1.
However.
I have been wrong before.
Many times.
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Post by Wß on Oct 22, 2016 12:14:16 GMT
He's not ruled it out himself. He's said the following;
1) can't be at a 100% time commitment level going to every event year round overseeing everything. 2) Has to be a challenge. 3) Has to have 100% say over what goes on in the team without the intervention of business interests from above.
In the same interview he said that's why he left Ferrari and that's why he'd not return to Ferrari.
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