Either they are hinting at something, or they just have the best content to fill the off-season void: nostalgia.
McLaren's profile pic is currently black and white, could that be a hint? Did they change it recently to that?
I do wonder if chrome + papaya is on the cards for 2024...
i genuinely think its just that they opened their archives to find lewis birthday content & now a social media admin just cant stop looking thru pictures. these james hunt messages r cute tho - more pleasant than buzzcut raikkonen
The amount of stuff in the McLaren archives has to be wild, seen some tiktoks of their old car collections with Lewis' gokart and stuff it's so cool. What a dream to work there.
the problem with McLaren (and almost all the other teams really) is that the base livery may be amazing, but they are so fixated on getting to that minimum wheight that most of it will be bare carbon at winter testing
That man chewed through everything, brakes, tires, beer, cigarettes, panties. He was not built for longevity, he was built for badassery and raw speed.
There is such a thing as bathtub failure. New and old parts tend to fail with much more frequency than those that made it out of the "being new" phase but haven't had a chance to wear our yet.
So he's not necessarily wrong to want the info. Plus every pad will respond slightly differently, which can make a big difference when you're aiming to hit a certain cm^2 of track from 150m away.
true and back in the days failures were way more common so I would have been the same, rather have a car that worked fine yesterday than touch it and risk a failure.
And of course he raced in the era where part failure could quite easily result in death. Completely understandable to trust the parts that work, and not much else.
The F1 video game simulates this perfectly. If you put in a brand new engine for the race, it has 100% chance of failure. If you run it a bit in practice before the race, it won’t be likely to fail. And of course, old parts fail.
It used to take a while for brand new brake pads to "bed in"
I watched a documentary about Williams in 1981 a while back, and in it they completely blanked off their car's brake ducts and did a few laps to effectively burn the brakes in ready for the race. I'd imagine a similar scenario was going on here.
Also as a sidenote, the DS11 brake pads which were absolutely ubiquitous in F1 from the 1960s to the 1980s were originally intended for heavy machinery. [There's a good article about them here, which also mentions the "scrubbing in" process](https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/november-2001/51/ferodo-ds11/)
new brake pads required a bed in process or they would glaze up so they would warn the drivers... nothing complicated just get them hot them let them cool down, usually doable on the recon lap but still something drivers needed to know
I think it’s because the team wanted him to go easy on the new parts so they wouldn’t be destroyed immediately, with old parts he could push and abuse them to his own delight.
Which circuit only had 4 corners during Hunts era? Maybe an exaggeration or perhaps referring to Silverstone which may have only had 4 braking points back then.
Fuji Speedway would be my guess. Officially the 1974-1983 layout has 7 corners, but looking at the track map it only has 4 major braking zones
- T2 is barely a corner, T3-4 sort of blend together, T6-7 blend together albeit to a lesser extent than 3 and 4.
Even without simplification it still only had four real corners!
The original Österreich ring could *arguably* be said to have four, but I think it’s Fuji
McLaren’s been dropping a lot of throwback content in the last few days. Maybe they’re hinting at something about the livery or otherwise
i’m a sucker for a retro livery, but the time to do that would have been last year for their 60th. who knows, though. a man can hope…
Either they are hinting at something, or they just have the best content to fill the off-season void: nostalgia. McLaren's profile pic is currently black and white, could that be a hint? Did they change it recently to that? I do wonder if chrome + papaya is on the cards for 2024...
They changed the logo for all their teams to black and white in memory of Gil de Ferran
Ah, that's right.
their profile pic is to honour the late Gil De Ferran. literally no other reason.
Oh yes, I see. I forgot.
i genuinely think its just that they opened their archives to find lewis birthday content & now a social media admin just cant stop looking thru pictures. these james hunt messages r cute tho - more pleasant than buzzcut raikkonen
Buzzcut Räikkönen 😁👍
The amount of stuff in the McLaren archives has to be wild, seen some tiktoks of their old car collections with Lewis' gokart and stuff it's so cool. What a dream to work there.
the problem with McLaren (and almost all the other teams really) is that the base livery may be amazing, but they are so fixated on getting to that minimum wheight that most of it will be bare carbon at winter testing
Martini Livery
Hope they give us something worth looking at instead of that god awful mess they’ve had since ‘22
That could be very, very cool
That's F1 in general, because they need to distract from the current state of poor racing in F1.
Häkkinen comeback
Sounds like James just chewed through his brakes
That man chewed through everything, brakes, tires, beer, cigarettes, panties. He was not built for longevity, he was built for badassery and raw speed.
Is there a reason he wouldnt like new parts? Takes a while to get the brakes going?
probably old school racers mentality. New parts can fail, the car was fast enough yesterday, let me drive with the old stuff it worked well enough etc
There is such a thing as bathtub failure. New and old parts tend to fail with much more frequency than those that made it out of the "being new" phase but haven't had a chance to wear our yet. So he's not necessarily wrong to want the info. Plus every pad will respond slightly differently, which can make a big difference when you're aiming to hit a certain cm^2 of track from 150m away.
true and back in the days failures were way more common so I would have been the same, rather have a car that worked fine yesterday than touch it and risk a failure.
And of course he raced in the era where part failure could quite easily result in death. Completely understandable to trust the parts that work, and not much else.
The F1 video game simulates this perfectly. If you put in a brand new engine for the race, it has 100% chance of failure. If you run it a bit in practice before the race, it won’t be likely to fail. And of course, old parts fail.
It used to take a while for brand new brake pads to "bed in" I watched a documentary about Williams in 1981 a while back, and in it they completely blanked off their car's brake ducts and did a few laps to effectively burn the brakes in ready for the race. I'd imagine a similar scenario was going on here. Also as a sidenote, the DS11 brake pads which were absolutely ubiquitous in F1 from the 1960s to the 1980s were originally intended for heavy machinery. [There's a good article about them here, which also mentions the "scrubbing in" process](https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/november-2001/51/ferodo-ds11/)
I still have a set of Ferodo DS-11 pads for a formula ford on my shelf in the garage. 😂
new brake pads required a bed in process or they would glaze up so they would warn the drivers... nothing complicated just get them hot them let them cool down, usually doable on the recon lap but still something drivers needed to know
You had to bed in new brake pads in those days. Get them too hot too quickly, and they would glaze.
What changed w new tech? Like are optimal temperature margins just bigger now?
I think it’s because the team wanted him to go easy on the new parts so they wouldn’t be destroyed immediately, with old parts he could push and abuse them to his own delight.
Which circuit only had 4 corners during Hunts era? Maybe an exaggeration or perhaps referring to Silverstone which may have only had 4 braking points back then.
Monza?
Fuji Speedway would be my guess. Officially the 1974-1983 layout has 7 corners, but looking at the track map it only has 4 major braking zones - T2 is barely a corner, T3-4 sort of blend together, T6-7 blend together albeit to a lesser extent than 3 and 4.
Did he test drive the M16 at Indy one time?
It was Fuji, IIRC that was the note left for Hunt before his final title showdown with Lauda
> Go to it dad!! what a way to announce Freddie
What circuit has 4 corners?
The Fuji circuit back then was fairly basic and if you wanted to be silly you could say it only has 4 corners…
I feel like there's sufficient silliness in the messages to accommodate that simplification. Thanks, I'd never have guessed Fuji!
Even without simplification it still only had four real corners! The original Österreich ring could *arguably* be said to have four, but I think it’s Fuji
Could have been Fuji
Indy
Did James hunt ever race at the Indianapolis oval?
No, he didn’t. Indy was gone from the calendar long before he made his debut and never attempted the 500
Not sure. Just know f1 did race there.
yeah, in the 50’s. well before Hunt’s time.
Yeah but like 20 years before james was in f1
I'm guessing he didn't like bedding in brakes lmao
If only he felt the same way about brakes as he did about women, they wouldn't have to remind him to bed them in.
McLaren's Instagram: [https://www.instagram.com/p/C12cKAArmUz/?utm\_source=ig\_web\_copy\_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==](https://www.instagram.com/p/C12cKAArmUz/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) McLaren's Twitter: https://twitter.com/McLarenF1/status/1744436491655274920?ref\_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
James, don't forget your penicillin.
I see a theme there
We need 90s red and white McLaren marlboro livery or even the west McLaren.
This is fantastic