Stella believes his team are encountering fewer data correlation headaches with the newest generation of cars compared to the previous.
“This generation of cars is overall better correlated, at least at McLaren, knowing that we have some limitations with the wind tunnel,” he explained.
“I think the limitations of the wind tunnel with the previous generation of cars was very restrictive. Not only for the logistics and all the things that we say all the time – it was even restrictive for the aerodynamic correlation, generally. These cars, a lot happens under the floor where, overall, the correlation is better for whatever reason.
“In the previous generation, there were many vortices that were flying in free air – generated from the bargeboards, for instance, or the front wing. So that area was always a little more tricky. This front wing works further away from the ground, it’s simpler. Even the floor for some reasons correlate better. So overall, this I think, is more to do with the generation of cars and these aerodynamics.”
They are pinning quite a lot of hope on the new wind tunnel to iron these issues out - thing is they are also lacking in the suspension side, so to what extent will the wind tunnel help or are there other tools related to suspension design that are also outdated that they need to catch up on?djos wrote: ↑13 May 2023, 02:14And I got laughed at for saying the car was deeply flawed! If McLaren fixed this issue, Daniel would not have had his confidence destroyed. If race car drivers can't predict the car behaviour, it's hard for them to trust the car and drive it to the limit, that's just a fact!
Despite the shift to ground-effect design standards for 2022, last season's MCL36 was still plagued by the same curve-center driving unpredictability that was already experienced in 2021. Lando Norris raised the same complaint about the current MCL60,
It certainly used to be that when entering and exiting the corner, the suspension boffins tried to control the behaviour of the car so that the nose doesn't dive into the corner but stays up and so that on exit the nose would try not to raise as much and dive down, these are counter to what normal forces would want to do.vinu.l.t wrote: ↑15 May 2023, 11:14They are pinning quite a lot of hope on the new wind tunnel to iron these issues out - thing is they are also lacking in the suspension side, so to what extent will the wind tunnel help or are there other tools related to suspension design that are also outdated that they need to catch up on?djos wrote: ↑13 May 2023, 02:14And I got laughed at for saying the car was deeply flawed! If McLaren fixed this issue, Daniel would not have had his confidence destroyed. If race car drivers can't predict the car behaviour, it's hard for them to trust the car and drive it to the limit, that's just a fact!
Despite the shift to ground-effect design standards for 2022, last season's MCL36 was still plagued by the same curve-center driving unpredictability that was already experienced in 2021. Lando Norris raised the same complaint about the current MCL60,
The telemetry from the race car provides a map of the mid corner vehicle attitudes (roll, pitch, ground clearance) and they can move the windtunnel model to the equivalent position. The only real limitation is that they cannot move the windtunnel model "dynamically" at the same "swaying speeds" as the race car. The windtunnel model motion system is too slow. This latter point to my understanding isn't much of a big deal unless the race car aero is experiencing some kind of aero hysteresis in the time scales during which the car sways in the corner. Considering how successfuly almost all teams have been over the years without actually simulating any dynamic motions in the windtunnel, I don't think this is a big problem either.mwillems wrote: ↑15 May 2023, 15:23But if you follow the principles that acceleration and deceleration cause the car to position itself differently, then so will being off throttle, a third state. The problem is that the wind tunnel in cologne cannot replicate IN CORNER testing, so they do not really have the ability to test any new parts in this mid corner phase or to fully understand what new parts will do to the car in the mid corner phase.
So they hope that the new tunnel, which will be able to see those circumstances, will help them dial out the "unpredictability" in any new design, whether that be in the Aero or suspension. Fundamentally they just gain sight of the factors that cause the car to become unpredictable.
Is a single position in a corner enough? Can the Cologne Wind tunnel even do that, they seem to be suggesting that it can't.AR3-GP wrote: ↑15 May 2023, 15:57The telemetry from the race car provides a map of the mid corner vehicle attitudes (roll, pitch, ground clearance) and they can move the windtunnel model to the equivalent position. The only real limitation is that they cannot move the windtunnel model "dynamically" at the same "swaying speeds" as the race car. The windtunnel model motion system is too slow. This latter point to my understanding isn't much of a big deal unless the race car aero is experiencing some kind of aero hysteresis in the time scales during which the car sways in the corner. Considering how successfuly almost all teams have been over the years without actually simulating any dynamic motions in the windtunnel, I don't think this is a big problem either.mwillems wrote: ↑15 May 2023, 15:23But if you follow the principles that acceleration and deceleration cause the car to position itself differently, then so will being off throttle, a third state. The problem is that the wind tunnel in cologne cannot replicate IN CORNER testing, so they do not really have the ability to test any new parts in this mid corner phase or to fully understand what new parts will do to the car in the mid corner phase.
So they hope that the new tunnel, which will be able to see those circumstances, will help them dial out the "unpredictability" in any new design, whether that be in the Aero or suspension. Fundamentally they just gain sight of the factors that cause the car to become unpredictable.
So all that would leave is aero correlation and/or the ideas in the Wind tunnel to solve the mid corner performance and/or reduce the mid corner pitch/roll sensitivity are simply not good enough. (or it could be a suspension issue).
On your first question, they sample more than "one point". The car is moved through an array of points which are "weighted" in their importance. This allows the aeros to figure out whether changes to the car are benefitting the overall, across all of the important vehicle attitudes, or only providing a peaky level at a point which doesn't have much weighting.mwillems wrote: ↑15 May 2023, 18:54Is a single position in a corner enough? Can the Cologne Wind tunnel even do that, they seem to be suggesting that it can't.AR3-GP wrote: ↑15 May 2023, 15:57The telemetry from the race car provides a map of the mid corner vehicle attitudes (roll, pitch, ground clearance) and they can move the windtunnel model to the equivalent position. The only real limitation is that they cannot move the windtunnel model "dynamically" at the same "swaying speeds" as the race car. The windtunnel model motion system is too slow. This latter point to my understanding isn't much of a big deal unless the race car aero is experiencing some kind of aero hysteresis in the time scales during which the car sways in the corner. Considering how successfuly almost all teams have been over the years without actually simulating any dynamic motions in the windtunnel, I don't think this is a big problem either.mwillems wrote: ↑15 May 2023, 15:23But if you follow the principles that acceleration and deceleration cause the car to position itself differently, then so will being off throttle, a third state. The problem is that the wind tunnel in cologne cannot replicate IN CORNER testing, so they do not really have the ability to test any new parts in this mid corner phase or to fully understand what new parts will do to the car in the mid corner phase.
So they hope that the new tunnel, which will be able to see those circumstances, will help them dial out the "unpredictability" in any new design, whether that be in the Aero or suspension. Fundamentally they just gain sight of the factors that cause the car to become unpredictable.
So all that would leave is aero correlation and/or the ideas in the Wind tunnel to solve the mid corner performance and/or reduce the mid corner pitch/roll sensitivity are simply not good enough. (or it could be a suspension issue).
Even being a suspension issue, it seems that according to the quotes they are unable to get the information they need with the existing wind tunnel. I'm sure they can get the attitude of the car on track, but it isn't showing them why they might be losing downforce in a corner, it could be a question of the suspension enforcing the car holds a certain position mid corner, or it could be that the position it holds mid corner affects some aero. SO even then I'm not sure that holding a static point in the corner with a specific attitude would help. What if it also involves the wind direction? To solve that issue you'd want to profile the air flow through the whole of the cornering and find the balance that mazximises time through the whole corner, affecting any part this is necessary.
It seems reasonable that this problem, like any other in F1, requires a complete data set and this one in particular has less data available than other Aero/Suspension questions.
Not saying they can't do better, just that you can see why it might be hard to find the problem and hence hard to find the fix. We had the same thing with the MCL34 (I think it was the 34), where we discovered in Barcelona that the front wheels were too close to the bargeboard but only when the car was turning in. This was another example of mid corner behaviour not being easily detectable in Cologne.
That was the MCL33, so pretty close! And the new tunnel should be a big help no matter what their exact issues are currently. There's way too many limitations with using the Cologne one.mwillems wrote: ↑15 May 2023, 18:54We had the same thing with the MCL34 (I think it was the 34), where we discovered in Barcelona that the front wheels were too close to the bargeboard but only when the car was turning in. This was another example of mid corner behaviour not being easily detectable in Cologne.
Well yes Ricciardo definitely could not get his head around the McLaren but its odd he did well in many other cars he drove before that. In fact I struggle to think of any he had a difficult time in before coming to McLaren and saw off most team mates he came up against. Just couldn't seem to adapt to the McLaren for whatever reason. Who knows if he will get a chance in any other cars again. Would be fair to say though the RBR would be alot easier to drive, he obviously was quite strong in his RBR stint too. Wonder how he is going on the RBR sim. The upcoming Silverstone test for him in the RB19 will be interesting. As for not doing much since RBr to be fair he did quite well at Renault particularly 2020 where he earned high praise for quite a few really good drives that year.mwillems wrote: ↑13 May 2023, 21:56I think like i said, it was more that you were deflecting the issues to the car away from DR.
You have to remember then it was both Sainz and Lando who could push the car, and now Oscar is much closer to Lando in his first season.
It has to be admitted, no matter how much you like a driver, that if they fail to get any real performance from a car 3 others can then it is a big hit to their perceived ability.
Unfortunately for DR he hasn't done much since RB, it's just been downhill.
Anyways, this is old news, let's accept our opinions and move on
Stella mentioned small bits that had been signed off about a month or 2 ago would be brought to Imola.
agreed.