2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[Darth-Piekus]

I love the progress the team has made. From worst to second best. The joy I find in being able to hope on a pole position is amazing and something I missed for a long time. The longer the anticipation to it happening, the better the feeling when it actually happens.

It will be even better when the roles between Red Bull and Mclaren reverse completely and we are the ones dominating. I am anticipating a long time for that.

On another note does anyone know what happened with Oscar and he did that slow lap at the end?

[mwillems]

Well that was a good placement. Sadly I didn't get to watch. Which wing did they run in the end?

Old rear wings

Thanks. As expected given the conditions. I think they knew they wouldn't run them even in the dry as less DF would chew up the rears, the one lap pace was sufficient in the dry already. But in the absence of a low DF wing, this will be useful wherever we don't need max downforce.

[Stig14]

Well that was a good placement. Sadly I didn't get to watch. Which wing did they run in the end?

Old rear wings

Thanks. As expected given the conditions. I think they knew they wouldn't run them even in the dry as less DF would chew up the rears, the one lap pace was sufficient in the dry already. But in the absence of a low DF wing, this will be useful wherever we don't need max downforce.

I wonder if they lost one of the new wings with Oscars accident and so were concerned that, without having a spare for either car, any rear wing damage in quali would have meant a pitlane start tomorrow due to breaking Parc ferme

[mwillems]

Old rear wings

Thanks. As expected given the conditions. I think they knew they wouldn't run them even in the dry as less DF would chew up the rears, the one lap pace was sufficient in the dry already. But in the absence of a low DF wing, this will be useful wherever we don't need max downforce.

I wonder if they lost one of the new wings with Oscars accident and so were concerned that, without having a spare for either car, any rear wing damage in quali would have meant a pitlane start tomorrow due to breaking Parc ferme

Possibly but I don't think so, they had already spoken about the decision to make regarding the wings based on whether they think they need to aid Race or Qualy pace. Qualy pace is sufficient to just focus on protecting the race tyres even in the dry here and the straights are not so long that the top speed deficit is a big deal. In wet it was a bit of a no brainer that they'd run the max DF wing anyway, so it was always unlikely to run it once they'd mounted it and reviewed its impact, which we now know. More efficient for the DF it creates, but less DF overall.

I mentioned before the summer break (I might try and find the post) that they had hinted at a change for Zandvoort based on low hanging fruit discovered in a parallel development. I guessed that this was a small change to the rear wing to make it more efficient and that this was discovered during work to improve the floor and sidepods. Or as is more likely, just plain copied and easy to introduce. If you look at the wing those outward portions that have been adapted were a small piece attached to the main upper wing element. It looks dramatic, and rather beautiful I think, but the physical change isn't that big for those working with the carbon manufacturing.

I think others had the hope it would be a suspension upgrade. But as you can see at this front limited track, the car doesn't do too bad.

[f1rules]

Next update in singapore which should help in slow speed corners, also new rearwing only if it was dry, has less drag but a bit less df also according to mcl

https://x.com/junaidsamodien_/status/16 ... ltZ__0SqGQ

https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... zandvoort/

[mwillems]

An article on McLaren's site...

What further upgrades can we expect later in the season?

The next round of upgrades will be a further development of the upgrades we took at previous races. There's still scope to go further, and we will attempt to do it. There are some encouraging indications in development, but, as always, the proof will be in the performance realised trackside.

We also need to do some more work specifically to address some of the weaknesses we had in Belgium. We had not done much work on the low drag configuration of the car, and in Belgium, we were lacking some efficiency and top speed. We want to do some urgent work on low drag, as part of a parallel smaller workstream to see if we can cash in some low-hanging fruits for Monza. This activity will be alongside what is the main development of the car, which will benefit us at the entirety of the tracks.

https://www.mclaren.com/racing/formula- ... interview/

A paralell smaller workstream? Could that be the rear wing they want to look at? Is it something else? Stella has confirmed they have the Rear Wing on the to do list for this year so it certainly sounds like it.

On another note there was an article from Pierre Wache (RB) doing the rounds talking about how surprised ("It's crazy") that after 2 years nobody has figured out their DRS trick yet..! lol

https://www.planetf1.com/news/red-bull- ... fused-drs/

Here is an article about the Red Bull RW and some of its perceived efficiencies - Caveat, this is Gary Anderson lol

https://the-race.com/formula-1/gary-and ... drs-trick/

This also reminds me of a conversation I had with someone earlier in the season who was suggesting a flatter beamwing will help energise the diffuser. According to this article and I believe this to be correct, there is a strong alignment in efficiency between the rear wing and the beam wing and then the beam wing and the diffuser and these need to operate as a package. The RB Beam wing is highly aggressive but requires the RW to operate in tandem in order for the beam wing itself to be efficient. So basically more air needs to be directed cleanly upwards by the RW and less vortices created in all situations to reduce drag on the RW but also to make the beam wing more efficient, double bonus.

I expect the team not to bring a low DF rear wing but to optimise the existing wing to improve the efficiency and produce some small changes to give the RW a cleaner profile and improve a little the geometry of the wing.

OK so 2 weeks ago lol

[mwillems]

Next update in singapore which should help in slow speed corners, also new rearwing only if it was dry, has less drag but a bit less df also according to mcl

But important to note that it looks like the lower downforce rear wing is a bit more efficient for the DF it creates.

Re The floor and Sidepods: What do you know of the upgrade? I was expecting the geometry of the strakes to be refined further and for the sidepods to be refined also, both in their own right and to ensure compatibility with the floors behaviour.

As we know, the fine margins in the geometry under the car can bring big benefits and we can see now that Mclaren are using the mid channel expansion technique that RB were utilising in the final channel. I'm guessing those other simpler channels are simply outwash to protect the final strake which generates the strong and explicitly shaped vortex to seal the floor.

I'm curious to see how we improve speed in low speed corners as this relates to how we attack the corners, which is in a V shape rather than the typical U shape. Is this likely to be related to the floor? That doesn't feel quite right to me, unless they don't seek to change that behaviour.

[Ground Effect]

Looks like it's going to be dry tomorrow. So if the old rear wing has any advantage, it should help with degradation.

[CjC]

Apologises if I’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick but surely no one is expecting Mclaren to use the new rear wing they have at Zandvoort in Monza?

[FittingMechanics]

Well that was a good placement. Sadly I didn't get to watch. Which wing did they run in the end?

Old rear wings

Interesting, the team will have reasons for that. Great quali lads, excited for tomorrow!

Old rear wings

Interesting, the team will have reasons for that. Great quali lads, excited for tomorrow!

The old rear wing creates both, more downforce and more drag… Given the conditions (wet) and expecting the race to be also wet, it makes sense to go with the higher DF configuration possible

No need to speculate. Norris explained it during the post qualy press conference. Reason they are running the previous wing is because they lost one of the new ones when Piastri crashed and they want to keep the other one for Monza. So I guess they decided that it is more important to have one for Monza than to gain more efficiency here. From how he said it, I think they would have run new rear wing here if they had enough of them. Probably similar to how only Norris got new updates in Austria - the team is pushing new developments quickly but hasn't been able to manufacture enough in time.

Btw another thing that he said is that he feels he lost 2-3 tenths due to double shift in S2.

Apologises if I’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick but surely no one is expecting Mclaren to use the new rear wing they have at Zandvoort in Monza?

Well Norris said that was exactly the reason they did not use the new one here - they want to keep it for next weekend.

Thought that was quite interesting tidbit.

[CjC]

Old rear wings

Interesting, the team will have reasons for that. Great quali lads, excited for tomorrow!

Interesting, the team will have reasons for that. Great quali lads, excited for tomorrow!

The old rear wing creates both, more downforce and more drag… Given the conditions (wet) and expecting the race to be also wet, it makes sense to go with the higher DF configuration possible

No need to speculate. Norris explained it during the post qualy press conference. Reason they are running the previous wing is because they lost one of the new ones when Piastri crashed and they want to keep the other one for Monza. So I guess they decided that it is more important to have one for Monza than to gain more efficiency here. From how he said it, I think they would have run new rear wing here if they had enough of them. Probably similar to how only Norris got new updates in Austria - the team is pushing new developments quickly but hasn't been able to manufacture enough in time.

Btw another thing that he said is that he feels he lost 2-3 tenths due to double shift in S2.

Apologises if I’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick but surely no one is expecting Mclaren to use the new rear wing they have at Zandvoort in Monza?

Well Norris said that was exactly the reason they did not use the new one here - they want to keep it for next weekend.

Thought that was quite interesting tidbit.

I am……. suprised. It’s a barn door!
Regardless the wing being more efficient or not the sheer amount of drag will kill them on the straight worse than it did at Spa!
Monza is all about the tea tray rear wings.
Unless they can heavily modify the wing to have less DF but I thought those days were over as they are now fully bonded pieces

[mwillems]

Interesting, the team will have reasons for that. Great quali lads, excited for tomorrow!

The old rear wing creates both, more downforce and more drag… Given the conditions (wet) and expecting the race to be also wet, it makes sense to go with the higher DF configuration possible

No need to speculate. Norris explained it during the post qualy press conference. Reason they are running the previous wing is because they lost one of the new ones when Piastri crashed and they want to keep the other one for Monza. So I guess they decided that it is more important to have one for Monza than to gain more efficiency here. From how he said it, I think they would have run new rear wing here if they had enough of them. Probably similar to how only Norris got new updates in Austria - the team is pushing new developments quickly but hasn't been able to manufacture enough in time.

Btw another thing that he said is that he feels he lost 2-3 tenths due to double shift in S2.

Apologises if I’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick but surely no one is expecting Mclaren to use the new rear wing they have at Zandvoort in Monza?

Well Norris said that was exactly the reason they did not use the new one here - they want to keep it for next weekend.

Thought that was quite interesting tidbit.

I am……. suprised. It’s a barn door!
Regardless the wing being more efficient or not the sheer amount of drag will kill them on the straight worse than it did at Spa!
Monza is all about the tea tray rear wings.
Unless they can heavily modify the wing to have less DF but I thought those days were over as they are now fully bonded pieces

I initially thought the same, that they wouldn't take this wing to Monza, but looking at the data it isn't so bad, and probably better than anything else we have already for straight line speed.

[CjC]

I thought they would make a Monza specific wing like they did for last season. I just checked and they had a tea tray.

[MCLvamos]

Just looked at the interview. I may have missed it but Lando only seemed to mention future weekends rather than Monza specifically. It also might be a case of them not running it to avoid breaching Parc Ferme with a lack of spares, as Lando said, due to Oscar's crash yesterday.

Highly doubt that is the Monza wing in its current form at least.

[mwillems]

I thought they would make a Monza specific wing like they did for last season. I just checked and they had a tea tray.

I think the team have said they won't develop a low DF wing and would rather focus on upgrades that will develop the general package.