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Has anybody else been watching this? It's really good. Shows the depth of Mclaren's issues with Honda. They couldn't even get the engine to fire up for an in house demo.

mikeyg123 wrote:Has anybody else been watching this? It's really good. Shows the depth of Mclaren's issues with Honda. They couldn't even get the engine to fire up for an in house demo.

Yeah I watched the whole lot in one night.

Whilst the original idea was to concentrate on Stoffell, I found myself fast forwarding through those bits. I was more interested in the issues with the car and engine.

Were Honda expecting to fire the engine up remotely without the usual starter?

I really like these fly on the wall type of documentaries and I would have liked to have seen the whole season rather than roughly 8 weeks with the team.

Not sure about Michael Douglas as a narrator. Can't even pronounce Renault properly

Haven't seen or heard of this till now. I'm going to try and find it tough, thanks for bringing it up.

Just about to start watching it. I hoped for more than 4x30 min episodes. Perhaps they can feature other teams in subsequent episodes?

inky38 wrote:

mikeyg123 wrote:Has anybody else been watching this? It's really good. Shows the depth of Mclaren's issues with Honda. They couldn't even get the engine to fire up for an in house demo.

Yeah I watched the whole lot in one night.

Whilst the original idea was to concentrate on Stoffell, I found myself fast forwarding through those bits. I was more interested in the issues with the car and engine.

Were Honda expecting to fire the engine up remotely without the usual starter?

I really like these fly on the wall type of documentaries and I would have liked to have seen the whole season rather than roughly 8 weeks with the team.

Not sure about Michael Douglas as a narrator. Can't even pronounce Renault properly

Wait until you hear Zak Brown

I watched the whole thing last week in one go, and I loved it. It's really a monument to how McLaren and Honda couldn't make the relationship work, but the level of behind-the-scenes access is far beyond what you usually get form anything F1.

As a McLaren fan, one of my favorite moments is right at the start when they're preparing the conference table for a shareholder meeting: an employee goes from seat to seat making sure that the spacing is precise and everybody's materials are laid out exactly the same. Love it or hate it, that perfectly encapsulates the modern McLaren culture for me.

Another scene that tickled my fancy was where Stoffel and Alonso are getting ready for the big media day, and the media guy asks Alonso if there will be more overtaking in 2017. Alonso says no, there will be less. Then they ask if that's what he's going to tell the press, and he says no, he'll say that we'll have to wait and see. You get a feeling that talking to the media has become so familiar by now that it's second nature to him, whereas Stoff is still trying to figure the whole thing out. Their rookie / veteran dynamic is very clear in scenes like that.

I don't know if they're going to make more like this in the future, but I'd definitely watch if they do.

Exediron wrote:I watched the whole thing last week in one go, and I loved it. It's really a monument to how McLaren and Honda couldn't make the relationship work, but the level of behind-the-scenes access is far beyond what you usually get form anything F1.

As a McLaren fan, one of my favorite moments is right at the start when they're preparing the conference table for a shareholder meeting: an employee goes from seat to seat making sure that the spacing is precise and everybody's materials are laid out exactly the same. Love it or hate it, that perfectly encapsulates the modern McLaren culture for me.

Another scene that tickled my fancy was where Stoffel and Alonso are getting ready for the big media day, and the media guy asks Alonso if there will be more overtaking in 2017. Alonso says no, there will be less. Then they ask if that's what he's going to tell the press, and he says no, he'll say that we'll have to wait and see. You get a feeling that talking to the media has become so familiar by now that it's second nature to him, whereas Stoff is still trying to figure the whole thing out. Their rookie / veteran dynamic is very clear in scenes like that.

I don't know if they're going to make more like this in the future, but I'd definitely watch if they do.

Yes, that was really interesting.

I've got to say I had mixed opinions on it.

I love it as a concept, and the first three episodes were really good. Well paced, a good mixture of everything that was going on without feeling like a whole lot was held back. What disappointed me was the fourth and final episode. It felt like they hadn't planned it all out very well and suddenly realised they only had one episode left, so tried to cram as much content in as possible. The whole series is building up to testing and then we get what, half an episode focused only on the first two days of the test. And then it was basically over. Such a shame they didn't have two more episodes so they could've shown more of not just testing, but some of the race weekends during the season. Stoffel's early troubles before he settled in, the back-to-back DNS, 'high' points like Hungary, the will-he-won't-he Alonso situation, all the drama with Honda and then switching to Renault. Could even have thrown some Lando Norris in to show it wasn't all completely bleak, or focused a little on the development of the 2018 car.

Half way through the second episode - quite interesting so far.

It was interesting, I didn't mind Michael Douglas narrating it. It needed to be a seperate production away from the familiar people seen on Sky or and Channel 4.

Finished watching it. It could have been so much better. Agree with Understeer on epi 4.

LBET wrote:Finished watching it. It could have been so much better. Agree with Understeer on epi 4.

Yeah, it's too short. But I'm not going to complain too much, since getting anything at all inside an F1 team is so rare.

Is anybody else surprised that Honda let this film happen? We knew they were struggling but...yikes.

was interesting when the gearbox wouldnt fit and they had to make new studs or whatever they were. you get the impression honda would have taken 3 days to redesign and make it and the mclaren man was trying to explain they needed to make it now and they can make it inhouse. "i need the drawing", (blank look on honda engineer) "can i have the drawing please".

TheBlackFlag wrote:Is anybody else surprised that Honda let this film happen? We knew they were struggling but...yikes.

Watched it last night, im guessing mc honda thought it would be a great underdog story coming from a disappointing opening campaign to what their expections were for the 2017 season. Thats probably why it was documented imo. (Maybe a sponsorship from amazon if the season went well)

Unfortunately for them it was just like their partnership, a huge build up to a anticlimactic finish. Would have been nice to actually see the race by race work from behind the scences, how the team worked to get better reliability, how they addressed the frustration building for alonso etc..... instead of the skip ahead to the announcement of the separation.

I worked at McLaren while they were filming and preparing this - I was part of Automotive so I couldn't say for certain but I think what you see in these 4 episodes is a heavily edited, condensed version of what was originally planned. I saw them filming sections with Jackie Stewart and I think this was planned to be a much bigger series, potentially a celebration of McLaren coming back to form - So when they fired the engine up and testing went south as quickly as it did, I think they canned this angle pretty quickly, only coming back to the footage and repurposing it into the 4 part docu you see today, which is why the story stops so abruptly after testing.

I could be wrong because I was on the wrong side of the business to know this, but that was my impression from what I saw and heard (and from finally watching the docu this week). I still enjoyed it, and I think it's great McLaren let this still go out, warts and all. This would never have seen the light of day in Ron's era.

Watching this, it's clear Mclaren suffered two huge disappointments in 2017, one was Honda and the other was Vandoorne. Both were expected great things of, both failed, especially Honda. It's clear now that they had to hold onto Alonso at any cost, and in order to do that, Honda had to be let go. Still think it's an unbelievable documentary albeit too short.

kleefton wrote:Watching this, it's clear Mclaren suffered two huge disappointments in 2017, one was Honda and the other was Vandoorne. Both were expected great things of, both failed, especially Honda. It's clear now that they had to hold onto Alonso at any cost, and in order to do that, Honda had to be let go. Still think it's an unbelievable documentary albeit too short.

I think Vandoorne did OK. Alonso's just better. I doubt anybody seriously expected Vandoorne to be much better in his rookie year. Bottas is the only driver on the grid to outscore an experienced team mate in their rookie years. Quality drivers usually make a big improvement in their second season.

mikeyg123 wrote:

kleefton wrote:Watching this, it's clear Mclaren suffered two huge disappointments in 2017, one was Honda and the other was Vandoorne. Both were expected great things of, both failed, especially Honda. It's clear now that they had to hold onto Alonso at any cost, and in order to do that, Honda had to be let go. Still think it's an unbelievable documentary albeit too short.

I think Vandoorne did OK. Alonso's just better. I doubt anybody seriously expected Vandoorne to be much better in his rookie year. Bottas is the only driver on the grid to outscore an experienced team mate in their rookie years. Quality drivers usually make a big improvement in their second season.

I dont think its fair to criticize Vandoorne for a lack luster year while having to deal with faulty equipment. How many times didnt the car let both drivers down? Or drivers told to back off only to later retire the car anyway.

This year with the new Renault package we will see what vandoorne can really do and i for one am interested to see what he's got.

inky38 wrote:

mikeyg123 wrote:Has anybody else been watching this? It's really good. Shows the depth of Mclaren's issues with Honda. They couldn't even get the engine to fire up for an in house demo.

Yeah I watched the whole lot in one night.

Whilst the original idea was to concentrate on Stoffell, I found myself fast forwarding through those bits. I was more interested in the issues with the car and engine.

Were Honda expecting to fire the engine up remotely without the usual starter?

I really like these fly on the wall type of documentaries and I would have liked to have seen the whole season rather than roughly 8 weeks with the team.

Not sure about Michael Douglas as a narrator. Can't even pronounce Renault properly

Very interesting. I’ll give it a watch some time this week.

I’m not really surprised that Michael Douglas was the narrator. He has been a huge McLaren fan for decades.

mikeyg123 wrote:I think Vandoorne did OK. Alonso's just better. I doubt anybody seriously expected Vandoorne to be much better in his rookie year. Bottas is the only driver on the grid to outscore an experienced team mate in their rookie years. Quality drivers usually make a big improvement in their second season.

Yeah, and does anyone really think Bottas would have outscored Alonso in his rookie year?

Exediron wrote:

mikeyg123 wrote:I think Vandoorne did OK. Alonso's just better. I doubt anybody seriously expected Vandoorne to be much better in his rookie year. Bottas is the only driver on the grid to outscore an experienced team mate in their rookie years. Quality drivers usually make a big improvement in their second season.

Yeah, and does anyone really think Bottas would have outscored Alonso in his rookie year?

No. It's very hard to compare Vandoorne and Alonso last year as they hardly ever both got to run clean. I would say the performance gap was similar to that of Bottas/Hamilton if I had to make an educated guess. If that is the case then that's good going for a rookie.

Lets be honest if the Mclaren had been the best car last year and Alonso cantered to the WDC with Vandoorne picking up occasional wins everyone would be saying what a great rookie year he had.

mikeyg123 wrote:

Exediron wrote:

mikeyg123 wrote:I think Vandoorne did OK. Alonso's just better. I doubt anybody seriously expected Vandoorne to be much better in his rookie year. Bottas is the only driver on the grid to outscore an experienced team mate in their rookie years. Quality drivers usually make a big improvement in their second season.

Yeah, and does anyone really think Bottas would have outscored Alonso in his rookie year?

No. It's very hard to compare Vandoorne and Alonso last year as they hardly ever both got to run clean. I would say the performance gap was similar to that of Bottas/Hamilton if I had to make an educated guess. If that is the case then that's good going for a rookie.

Lets be honest if the Mclaren had been the best car last year and Alonso cantered to the WDC with Vandoorne picking up occasional wins everyone would be saying what a great rookie year he had.

I think Vandoorne had very much a season of two parts. From the time of his big step-up on, he was very acceptable for a rookie and showed the flashes of brilliance we all expected: before that, he was more like 6-7 tenths off on average and was quite disappointing. But he did get through his issues, and most importantly he did show a consistent improvement throughout the season, so I tend to think that he performed better than most people give him credit for.

If the car had been a World Championship winner, he at least would have won a race (Malaysia) and possibly more since a championship-winning car would have been a lot more reliable.

Just finished watching it! This was a very cool look at the behind the scenes that goes, everything that we do not get to see from F1. One thing I was really surprised by was just how much and how many people go into an F1 team, it's just crazy! You hear it all the team while watching races about the teams working hard back at the factories, but to see it in action puts it much more in perspective.

I'm really liking where F1 is headed in the fans' regard.

mikeyg123 wrote:

kleefton wrote:Watching this, it's clear Mclaren suffered two huge disappointments in 2017, one was Honda and the other was Vandoorne. Both were expected great things of, both failed, especially Honda. It's clear now that they had to hold onto Alonso at any cost, and in order to do that, Honda had to be let go. Still think it's an unbelievable documentary albeit too short.

I think Vandoorne did OK. Alonso's just better. I doubt anybody seriously expected Vandoorne to be much better in his rookie year. Bottas is the only driver on the grid to outscore an experienced team mate in their rookie years. Quality drivers usually make a big improvement in their second season.

Only through biased lenses you could say that. He was underwhelming, Alonso taken into account or not. He has not had one drive that is memorable so far. If he is to be so great he would already have one or a few, even in a difficult car. I am not saying he was awful, but he was definitely not top tier material. This is a guy that was touted to be better than Vettel and Hamilton, completely dominated his junior career. We are not talking about a Sirotkin equivalent here. In the documentary it was evident that Mclaren thought he would give Alonso a run for his money, he did not. Plain and simple.

kleefton wrote:Only through biased lenses you could say that. He was underwhelming, Alonso taken into account or not. He has not had one drive that is memorable so far. If he is to be so great he would already have one or a few, even in a difficult car. I am not saying he was awful, but he was definitely not top tier material. This is a guy that was touted to be better than Vettel and Hamilton, completely dominated his junior career. We are not talking about a Sirotkin equivalent here. In the documentary it was evident that Mclaren thought he would give Alonso a run for his money, he did not. Plain and simple.

Malaysia? Finished 7th, solidly outqualifying and outracing Alonso?

Exediron wrote:

kleefton wrote:Only through biased lenses you could say that. He was underwhelming, Alonso taken into account or not. He has not had one drive that is memorable so far. If he is to be so great he would already have one or a few, even in a difficult car. I am not saying he was awful, but he was definitely not top tier material. This is a guy that was touted to be better than Vettel and Hamilton, completely dominated his junior career. We are not talking about a Sirotkin equivalent here. In the documentary it was evident that Mclaren thought he would give Alonso a run for his money, he did not. Plain and simple.

Malaysia? Finished 7th, solidly outqualifying and outracing Alonso?

That was a good drive, but that was certainly not memorable in my book. He was due to beat Alonso at some point, no? And if I remember correctly they were running different setups for that race, and the following races Alonso went back to dominating him. We know he was off the pace more often than not but taking that aside when has Vandoorne ever displayed great racecraft in F1? To be honest, I've seen more racecraft from Lance Stroll than I've seen from him. It seems a lot of people want the guy to be regarded as great but his first year was actually very mediocre.

kleefton wrote:

mikeyg123 wrote:

kleefton wrote:Watching this, it's clear Mclaren suffered two huge disappointments in 2017, one was Honda and the other was Vandoorne. Both were expected great things of, both failed, especially Honda. It's clear now that they had to hold onto Alonso at any cost, and in order to do that, Honda had to be let go. Still think it's an unbelievable documentary albeit too short.

I think Vandoorne did OK. Alonso's just better. I doubt anybody seriously expected Vandoorne to be much better in his rookie year. Bottas is the only driver on the grid to outscore an experienced team mate in their rookie years. Quality drivers usually make a big improvement in their second season.

Only through biased lenses you could say that. He was underwhelming, Alonso taken into account or not. He has not had one drive that is memorable so far. If he is to be so great he would already have one or a few, even in a difficult car. I am not saying he was awful, but he was definitely not top tier material. This is a guy that was touted to be better than Vettel and Hamilton, completely dominated his junior career. We are not talking about a Sirotkin equivalent here. In the documentary it was evident that Mclaren thought he would give Alonso a run for his money, he did not. Plain and simple.

Nobody with any experience of F1 would expect Vandoorne to look Alonso's equal. That includes Mclaren. Nobody reasonable would expect someone to be "great" or "top tier" in his rookie year either. He did fine. Alonso is the best driver in F1 and even he was restricted to a couple of memorable performances in quali. Not much a driver can do in a car that is slow and woefully unreliable.

Back on the subject...

I also enjoyed it, hoping there's a 2nd series from this season.

I was surprised that the main problem running up to testing for McLaren last year wasn't the engine, but problems getting the floor together.

Although the look on the engineers faces when talking about anyhing to do with Honda was hilarious.

I watched this over the weekend and thought it was pretty good. It's obvious that the intention going in was to be a promotion for their revival but had to be changed to a cautionary tale once the season went south and they already had film in the can.

Being the endurance sports freak that I am, although not much of a cyclist, my friends who do Iron Man triathlons were quite impressed by Vandoorne's power meter numbers on the bike when he was doing his last Vo2Max/FTP/Lactate threshold test. I actually would've like to hear what his Vo2Max number was too.

There's a couple of people within McLaren that need pensioned off with Ron judging by that documentary.

Herb wrote:Back on the subject...

I also enjoyed it, hoping there's a 2nd series from this season.

I was surprised that the main problem running up to testing for McLaren last year wasn't the engine, but problems getting the floor together.

Although the look on the engineers faces when talking about anyhing to do with Honda was hilarious.

Yes, i thought that too... seemed like McLaren had their own problems before Honda had even arrived....

If McLaren do manage to get back to the front i think it will be the first F1 team to have such a low and come back

It gives me hope for Williams but i'm sceptical about that

They need to be top 5 this year at least. Im not convinced the engine switch will be the magic bullet they need to get back to the top 3.

GingerFurball wrote:There's a couple of people within McLaren that need pensioned off with Ron judging by that documentary.

Who would you say are the main people that need sending into the wilderness?

Seanie wrote:They need to be top 5 this year at least. Im not convinced the engine switch will be the magic bullet they need to get back to the top 3.

They'll get top 5 for almost certain. The interesting thing will be how they stack up against Red Bull and Renault. At worse they have to be close to Red Bull.

Edit - I think if they have a reliable car that is within 0.25 of the front Alonso will have a run for the championship. So they don't even need the fastest car. They just need to be competitive.

Shouldn't this be in the off topic category?

- going back to the old F1 drivers on top gear debate.

dannyjames8 wrote:Shouldn't this be in the off topic category?

- going back to the old F1 drivers on top gear debate.

I don't think a series that is entirely devoted to an F1 team is off topic.

It's not the same as Top Gear (especially when F1 driver laps are allowed in the appropriate thread).

mikeyg123 wrote:

kleefton wrote:

mikeyg123 wrote:

kleefton wrote:Watching this, it's clear Mclaren suffered two huge disappointments in 2017, one was Honda and the other was Vandoorne. Both were expected great things of, both failed, especially Honda. It's clear now that they had to hold onto Alonso at any cost, and in order to do that, Honda had to be let go. Still think it's an unbelievable documentary albeit too short.

I think Vandoorne did OK. Alonso's just better. I doubt anybody seriously expected Vandoorne to be much better in his rookie year. Bottas is the only driver on the grid to outscore an experienced team mate in their rookie years. Quality drivers usually make a big improvement in their second season.

Only through biased lenses you could say that. He was underwhelming, Alonso taken into account or not. He has not had one drive that is memorable so far. If he is to be so great he would already have one or a few, even in a difficult car. I am not saying he was awful, but he was definitely not top tier material. This is a guy that was touted to be better than Vettel and Hamilton, completely dominated his junior career. We are not talking about a Sirotkin equivalent here. In the documentary it was evident that Mclaren thought he would give Alonso a run for his money, he did not. Plain and simple.

Nobody with any experience of F1 would expect Vandoorne to look Alonso's equal. That includes Mclaren. Nobody reasonable would expect someone to be "great" or "top tier" in his rookie year either. He did fine. Alonso is the best driver in F1 and even he was restricted to a couple of memorable performances in quali. Not much a driver can do in a car that is slow and woefully unreliable.

That's just a bunch of boloney. You seem to get your panties in a bunch everytime I say something about Vandoorne. And I didn't say that he had to be Alonso's equal. I just think, with all the hype surrounding him before he got to F1, he should have been closer and that he should have shown more on track. Causing an accident while being overtaken (In Bahrain?) is the main thing I remember him for on track. Not good. And in my view, he was more off the pace compared to Alonso than Raikonnen was. And Raikonnen has been a below average driver since he rejoined Ferrari. Which begs me to question, who are the drivers Vandoorne faced in the junior series? Anyone of them made it to F1 and were successful? It may be that his success in the junior series was against mediocre talent. In this case him having any real success in F1 is highly questionable.

kleefton wrote:

mikeyg123 wrote:

kleefton wrote:

mikeyg123 wrote:

kleefton wrote:Watching this, it's clear Mclaren suffered two huge disappointments in 2017, one was Honda and the other was Vandoorne. Both were expected great things of, both failed, especially Honda. It's clear now that they had to hold onto Alonso at any cost, and in order to do that, Honda had to be let go. Still think it's an unbelievable documentary albeit too short.

I think Vandoorne did OK. Alonso's just better. I doubt anybody seriously expected Vandoorne to be much better in his rookie year. Bottas is the only driver on the grid to outscore an experienced team mate in their rookie years. Quality drivers usually make a big improvement in their second season.

Only through biased lenses you could say that. He was underwhelming, Alonso taken into account or not. He has not had one drive that is memorable so far. If he is to be so great he would already have one or a few, even in a difficult car. I am not saying he was awful, but he was definitely not top tier material. This is a guy that was touted to be better than Vettel and Hamilton, completely dominated his junior career. We are not talking about a Sirotkin equivalent here. In the documentary it was evident that Mclaren thought he would give Alonso a run for his money, he did not. Plain and simple.

Nobody with any experience of F1 would expect Vandoorne to look Alonso's equal. That includes Mclaren. Nobody reasonable would expect someone to be "great" or "top tier" in his rookie year either. He did fine. Alonso is the best driver in F1 and even he was restricted to a couple of memorable performances in quali. Not much a driver can do in a car that is slow and woefully unreliable.

That's just a bunch of boloney. You seem to get your panties in a bunch everytime I say something about Vandoorne. And I didn't say that he had to be Alonso's equal. I just think, with all the hype surrounding him before he got to F1, he should have been closer and that he should have shown more on track. Causing an accident while being overtaken (In Bahrain?) is the main thing I remember him for on track. Not good. And in my view, he was more off the pace compared to Alonso than Raikonnen was. And Raikonnen has been a below average driver since he rejoined Ferrari. Which begs me to question, who are the drivers Vandoorne faced in the junior series? Anyone of them made it to F1 and were successful? It may be that his success in the junior series was against mediocre talent. In this case him having any real success in F1 is highly questionable.

Which bit of what I wrote is "baloney"? Any specifics? What don't you agree with there?

A rookie beating Kimi in their debut season would be extremely impressive. I certainly wouldn't expect a rookie to come in and beat Kimi.

Generally drivers that get beaten in junior series don't make F1 but he beat 5 future F1 drivers to his GP2 championship and 3 on the way to the FRenault 2.0 championship. Not that I think it means a lot TBH.

Take out the junior resume and think his debut season stands up on it's own. As I said, not top tier but nobody sane would have expected him to be in year 1.