McLaren BP23

You think that because today's engineers are working with newer technologies, and as a result of that, producing faster cars today, that they are of equal caliber to a Gordon Murray? That is just progression.

The only engineers in all of Formula 1 right now that are at the same level as Gordon Murray was, is Adrain Newey, Rory Byrne, and James Allison. None of them work for McLaren.

 

In engineering, progression is the profession and I’m confident Gordon Murray would tell you that himself because he built his career off the backs of the people who came before him whose skills he exceeded because of their work in the first place. Welcome to science and engineering. It never stands still.

Once again, I’m (a) still not taking about Formula One and (b) even if we were you’re still wrong. See my previous point about progression is the profession in engineering. If it weren’t the everyone would be starting having to invent Newton's Laws, and massive amount of other science and inventions, all over again.

 

I'm sorry, but you just don't get it. You give zero credit to what kinds of vision, breakthroughs and advancements were made by engineers at given points in time. You seem to just add it to the overall pile of knowledge, and it gets completely disregarded. New engineers start with all of that knowledge at hand, but certainly has no bearing on their vision, ability to advance from there, etc.

So by your thinking, every scientist alive today is more brilliant than Einstein, right?

 

No, YOU don't get it. I never said Gordon wasn't brilliant or that he didn't make amazing breakthroughs or that he lacked vision. ALL I said was McLaren "has a whole bunch of people who are at least at Gordon Murray's CALIBER now". I didn't say anything about matching his brilliance or vision, did I? But McLaren engineers can now easily exceed his creations because they have build on his, and others, brilliance and vision. They can also tackle far more complex problems because they have tools that are orders of magnitude more powerful, and materials and processes that are way more advanced, than what was available when Gordon designed the F1. That's it. I never denigrated the guy and you had zero reason to take offense like you did. I'm a Gordon Murray fan, just like you.

Your question about Einstein is exactly on the nose. Scientists today are doing more advanced things than Einstein did because Einstein did those things and now they have WAY more sophisticated tools to help them solve tougher problems with as well. That doesn't make Einstein any less brilliant or accomplished.

This started because you made the statement that "If it doesn't have a guy at the level of a Gordon Murray spearheading it all, it will not be a worthy successor to the F1, regardless of how well it performs" and the fact is they have guys beyond the level of Gordon Murray the same way there are thousands of scientists who have advanced beyond the level of Albert Einstein.

I hope that explains my point better, sorry if you found it confusing or felt I was somehow trying to belittle Gordon Murray. That was not my intention.

 

Let's go back to your statements;

ALL I said was McLaren "has a whole bunch of people who are at least at Gordon Murray's CALIBER now". I didn't say anything about matching his brilliance or vision, did I?

You contradict yourself with those 2 sentences. If someone was equal in caliber to someone else, wouldn't they be equal in brilliance, vision, etc.? That's how I see it. That is why I said that the only people that are at his caliber now are Adrian Newey, James Allison, and Rory Byrne - guys who have the ability to think outside of the box, and be wildly successful at it by putting together Championship-winning Formula 1 cars. When you are at that caliber, every team on the grid would give a blank check to get their hands on someone like that.

I guess we define the word "caliber" differently. McLaren does not have a whole bunch of engineers at Murray's caliber now, nobody does. A whole bunch of people at that caliber don't exist. A team is lucky if they can get their hands on 1 guy like that.