2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[mwillems]

To be honest, I am a bit cautious with my optimism for Austin. Sector 2 is tricky, and I feel like Mercedes and Ferrari can strike back here so a podium (and by extension a double podium) will be much harder to achieve here.

Definitely will be much harder. Especially as Mercedes are taking a new floor to Austin

They claim it's not worth much laptime. More about understanding if their current direction is correct

Similar to our own Baku upgrade.

[PikeStance]

The car looks fairly well rounded and did well at three tracks that offer different challenges, including Singapore which also has several low speed corners and a few high speed corners. Like Singapore this is a bumpy track also. I don't see Austin offering anything too challenging for the Mclaren but Mercedes will be an unknown, I expect Ferrari to be fast here and we will see how RB manage these bumps. I'd imagine worst case is we can look at top 6 or 8 and best case we can be in with a chance to take the win.

I agree.
The better the performance of the car, the less idiosyncrasy the car has to specific type of corners/ track. There are less sacrifices to race set up etc...

[CjC]

Definitely will be much harder. Especially as Mercedes are taking a new floor to Austin

They claim it's not worth much laptime. More about understanding if their current direction is correct

Similar to our own Baku upgrade.

Allison has said there will be a small laptime gain.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/jame ... x-upgrade/

That’s the second article I’ve read him say it now.

Merc aren’t that far off Mclaren so a small amount of laptime will at least put them on a par with McLaren- if not ahead.

[mwillems]

They claim it's not worth much laptime. More about understanding if their current direction is correct

Similar to our own Baku upgrade.

Allison has said there will be a small laptime gain.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/jame ... x-upgrade/

That’s the second article I’ve read him say it now.

Merc aren’t that far off Mclaren so a small amount of laptime will at least put them on a par with McLaren- if not ahead.

The gain is relative to how they would have performed at this track. Not sure how quick they are here yet Is all.

[FittingMechanics]

To be honest, I am a bit cautious with my optimism for Austin. Sector 2 is tricky, and I feel like Mercedes and Ferrari can strike back here so a podium (and by extension a double podium) will be much harder to achieve here.

Definitely will be much harder. Especially as Mercedes are taking a new floor to Austin

It is good that it is a sprint weekend. Mercedes won't have a lot of time to dial it in.

[Tomsky]

[mwillems]

This comes next year, I believe, and relates to the mechanical aspect of how the car interacts with the tyres and the road.

I had seen previously some comments from Stella saying that these tyres have some behaviour that is very difficult to replicate in the cologne wind tunnel and that this is why it has been very difficult to deal with it, and to which I believe it refers to the deformation of the tyres.

Edit: I guess that it is now possible in the new wind tunnel.

[trinidefender]

This comes next year, I believe, and relates to the mechanical aspect of how the car interacts with the tyres and the road.

I had seen previously some comments from Stella saying that these tyres have some behaviour that is very difficult to replicate in the cologne wind tunnel and that this is why it has been very difficult to deal with it, and to which I believe it refers to the deformation of the tyres.

Edit: I guess that it is now possible in the new wind tunnel.

It was also mentioned that the Toyota Cologne tunnel cannot simulate yaw very well. That would make sense considering a common trait among the McLaren cars for the last 5 years seem to be a weak mid corner front end. Consistently losing time on long corners. Especially 2018 where the front tyres were too close to the front of the floor so in any turn there was a lot of dirty air hitting the floor.

If that is true then it tracks with the tunnel not being able to simulate yaw well.

Secondly and, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't there an issue where the Cologne tunnel cannot run full 60% models in it?

[Tomsky]

[K1Plus]

This comes next year, I believe, and relates to the mechanical aspect of how the car interacts with the tyres and the road.

I had seen previously some comments from Stella saying that these tyres have some behaviour that is very difficult to replicate in the cologne wind tunnel and that this is why it has been very difficult to deal with it, and to which I believe it refers to the deformation of the tyres.

Edit: I guess that it is now possible in the new wind tunnel.

It was also mentioned that the Toyota Cologne tunnel cannot simulate yaw very well. That would make sense considering a common trait among the McLaren cars for the last 5 years seem to be a weak mid corner front end. Consistently losing time on long corners. Especially 2018 where the front tyres were too close to the front of the floor so in any turn there was a lot of dirty air hitting the floor.

If that is true then it tracks with the tunnel not being able to simulate yaw well.

Secondly and, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't there an issue where the Cologne tunnel cannot run full 60% models in it?

What is also encouraging is that, despite following the Red Bull concept, the engineers understand what each part does and why it's supposed to do that, they understand the design of the concept, unlike some other British teams (The one owned by a daddy).

[Ground Effect]

This comes next year, I believe, and relates to the mechanical aspect of how the car interacts with the tyres and the road.

I had seen previously some comments from Stella saying that these tyres have some behaviour that is very difficult to replicate in the cologne wind tunnel and that this is why it has been very difficult to deal with it, and to which I believe it refers to the deformation of the tyres.

Edit: I guess that it is now possible in the new wind tunnel.

It was also mentioned that the Toyota Cologne tunnel cannot simulate yaw very well. That would make sense considering a common trait among the McLaren cars for the last 5 years seem to be a weak mid corner front end. Consistently losing time on long corners. Especially 2018 where the front tyres were too close to the front of the floor so in any turn there was a lot of dirty air hitting the floor.

If that is true then it tracks with the tunnel not being able to simulate yaw well.

Secondly and, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't there an issue where the Cologne tunnel cannot run full 60% models in it?

What is also encouraging is that, despite following the Red Bull concept, the engineers understand what each part does and why it's supposed to do that, they understand the design of the concept, unlike some other British teams (The one owned by a daddy).

James Key had said a while back that the team had actually considered some of the concepts that ended up being more successful, but ended up going the conservative route. So it's likely some level of R&D had already been done, meaning they weren't exactly starting from zero when the switched philosophies.

[CjC]

Last paragraph seems to suggest the all new infrastructure is online?

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/stel ... /10534069/

[mwillems]

This comes next year, I believe, and relates to the mechanical aspect of how the car interacts with the tyres and the road.

I had seen previously some comments from Stella saying that these tyres have some behaviour that is very difficult to replicate in the cologne wind tunnel and that this is why it has been very difficult to deal with it, and to which I believe it refers to the deformation of the tyres.

Edit: I guess that it is now possible in the new wind tunnel.

It was also mentioned that the Toyota Cologne tunnel cannot simulate yaw very well. That would make sense considering a common trait among the McLaren cars for the last 5 years seem to be a weak mid corner front end. Consistently losing time on long corners. Especially 2018 where the front tyres were too close to the front of the floor so in any turn there was a lot of dirty air hitting the floor.

If that is true then it tracks with the tunnel not being able to simulate yaw well.

Secondly and, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't there an issue where the Cologne tunnel cannot run full 60% models in it?

No you're not wrong on both counts. Good recall, he had also mentioned the yaw of the car in the past, you're right, and they struggled with models over 50% in the tunnel. Will look for some links later.

Crikey, didn't realise quite how much it was holding them back, allied to the financials and logistics also.

Edit: Article on the 50% size
https://www.mclaren.com/racing/formula- ... nd-tunnel/

Discussions around tyre deformation in the MCL60 thread
viewtopic.php?p=1111375#p1111375

On the cars Yaw, it is worth noting that this wasn't necessarily, or only, a mechanical issue but could be Aero also:
https://www.sportskeeda.com/f1/news-we- ... sues-mcl60

[mwillems]

Last paragraph seems to suggest the all new infrastructure is online?

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/stel ... /10534069/

I'd seen talk of the new Simulator which is helping them set the car up better, something else to bear in mind. So I knew this was up along with the tunnel. I'm going to have a read of the article and see if it mentions the composites manufacturing facility.

Edit: Indeed he confirms full usage from the Tunnel, Simulator and the Manufacturing facilities.

[Wouter]

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