2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[mwillems]

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.

Ahhh that was the start of the 22 season though.

22: "We saw all these great ideas, we just didn't have time to look at them because of catching up with Covid and we were being conservative, we are now kicking ourselves for not pushing more"

23: "By the time we realised that we had the wrong approach to the floor, it was too late to do much more with the car, so we had to start over"

These are not exact quotes at all, but capture the point of what was said. I think that since then a lot of what is on the car probably exceeds what they saw at the start of last year, and is informed by this and last years cars, with particular note to the Red Bull floor that was revealed this year. The sidepods this year are way more developed than what was on the grid last year.

[mwillems]

I'm just thinking about what the car will do at Austin, and something that slipped my mind when I was talking before about the cars all round qualities, is that this car did have a problem with high energy braking zones which I'm not sure has been resolved, which makes me think that turns 1, 11 and 12 might not be great for us.

[mwillems]

Looking at last years Qualy data, we had issues in these exact three corners. The longest straight is the straight between corners 11 and 12. It'll be interesting to understand what this car can do here.

[Macklaren]

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... NLUKG.html

Fantastic insights from Stella. He seems like a real leader with a level head. Wonderful to see Andrew Benson's praise of Stella as well...

[_cerber1]

[the EDGE]

I think he’s being a bit modest… I bet they’d have given the then ‘undeveloped’ RB19 a headache

[mwillems]

I think he’s being a bit modest… I bet they’d have given the then ‘undeveloped’ RB19 a headache

Definitely. If this car is giving the current RB something to think about, I suspect it would have been very close between the two cars at the start of the season.

[BMMR61]

I believe the 60% model size in the Cologne wind tunnel was physically possible but in practice the size encroached too closely on the walls of the tunnel, which would give aberrations.

There was a jauntiness in a recent interview that Stella gave where he was being unusually optimistic about what they were seeing in the new tunnel and in the simulations. Not known for his excesses of optimism I felt Andrea was barely holding back his excitement about the 2024 car. (MCL61?) Of course there's every reason to believe that RedBull have had every chance to make major strides with their new car given how much good data they have collected from the RB19. Just how much and what kind of gains will be necessary to go wheel to wheel with Max next season is an interesting idea for discussion.

Of course one of the first things the McLaren team - especially the drivers - are looking for is greater drivability, specifically the transition of the car from braking to mid corner that ever driver going back to Sainz has complained about. Good correlation between Woking and the track gives good prospects for continuing and consistent performance gains - just what we have seen, really since Austria. Mercedes and others on the other hand have struggled to produce correlation between the factory's simulations and the actual performance at the track, leading to ups and downs in their relative performances. McLaren has by comparison, been relatively constant in their progress - excepting their lower downforce requirement deficiencies at Spa and Monza which they largely expected. If any lesson can be learned (in a general sense) from 2023 it's that having a car that's highly adaptable to all circuit types and tyre performance windows are the determining factors in championship standing. Some quite good tech overviews of the relative team performances, overlays etc can be found by a former RedBull data analyst here https://www.youtube.com/c/BrrrakeF1

[AR3-GP]

I believe the 60% model size in the Cologne wind tunnel was physically possible but in practice the size encroached too closely on the walls of the tunnel, which would give aberrations.

There was a jauntiness in a recent interview that Stella gave where he was being unusually optimistic about what they were seeing in the new tunnel and in the simulations. Not known for his excesses of optimism I felt Andrea was barely holding back his excitement about the 2024 car. (MCL61?) Of course there's every reason to believe that RedBull have had every chance to make major strides with their new car given how much good data they have collected from the RB19. Just how much and what kind of gains will be necessary to go wheel to wheel with Max next season is an interesting idea for discussion.

I would say that if Mclaren are seeing astronomical gains still, then it shows that this concept is not plateauing. It's good news for Mclaren, but it's also good news for RB since the concepts are very similar.

[CjC]

I believe the 60% model size in the Cologne wind tunnel was physically possible but in practice the size encroached too closely on the walls of the tunnel, which would give aberrations.

There was a jauntiness in a recent interview that Stella gave where he was being unusually optimistic about what they were seeing in the new tunnel and in the simulations. Not known for his excesses of optimism I felt Andrea was barely holding back his excitement about the 2024 car. (MCL61?) Of course there's every reason to believe that RedBull have had every chance to make major strides with their new car given how much good data they have collected from the RB19. Just how much and what kind of gains will be necessary to go wheel to wheel with Max next season is an interesting idea for discussion.

I would say that if Mclaren are seeing astronomical gains still, then it shows that this concept is not plateauing. It's good news for Mclaren, but it's also good news for RB since the concepts are very similar.

Not to discuss the Red Bull too much in this thread, you have to think Red Bull have a bit of a ‘free’ laptime gain by installing the downwash ramp/ slides that Mclaren and others use.

However you would assume that Mclaren have the most advanced wind tunnel as it’s the newest in the grid. So this ‘advantage’ compared to Red Bull could level the 2 teams development.
However as Red Bull are currently ahead on laptime I feel they will still be ahead next season no matter how big of a jump in the off season any of the teams can make.

Thanks for the link @BMMR61

[Emag]

I think RedBull's biggest advantage is not even raw pace, but rather the consistency and its ability to maintain that pace over a wide range of conditions, be it tire wear, temperatures, wind directions etc etc.

Its one thing making a really fast car, and a whole other thing making a consistently fast car.

The former wins you pole positions (ferrari last year), the latter wins you races.

[FittingMechanics]

It is likely that Red Bull kept back some of the development for this year because of how dominant of a season they had. Why show all your cards?

It's quite likely that they will stay ahead next year but hopefully McLaren can be in the mix - maybe continue to outdevelop during the year. We should have some "low hanging fruit" to pick with the addition of the new experts to the team.

[mwillems]

I believe the 60% model size in the Cologne wind tunnel was physically possible but in practice the size encroached too closely on the walls of the tunnel, which would give aberrations.

There was a jauntiness in a recent interview that Stella gave where he was being unusually optimistic about what they were seeing in the new tunnel and in the simulations. Not known for his excesses of optimism I felt Andrea was barely holding back his excitement about the 2024 car. (MCL61?) Of course there's every reason to believe that RedBull have had every chance to make major strides with their new car given how much good data they have collected from the RB19. Just how much and what kind of gains will be necessary to go wheel to wheel with Max next season is an interesting idea for discussion.

I would say that if Mclaren are seeing astronomical gains still, then it shows that this concept is not plateauing. It's good news for Mclaren, but it's also good news for RB since the concepts are very similar.

There was a recent interview with Stella in which he detailed that there is a lot of time yet for them to find, I did post it in here recently but can't remember when or where it was. So yes, the team think they know where to find plenty more time.

[mwillems]

It is likely that Red Bull kept back some of the development for this year because of how dominant of a season they had. Why show all your cards?

It's quite likely that they will stay ahead next year but hopefully McLaren can be in the mix - maybe continue to outdevelop during the year. We should have some "low hanging fruit" to pick with the addition of the new experts to the team.

They held back because they could and because they have a budget cap penalty restricting their dev time, so given how dominant they were, they appeared to curtail some of the in season development, which we can't prove flattered Mclaren, but you'd imagine RB will be fast out of the box next year and make strong gains.

[LionsHeart]

So, Singapore spec
https://x.com/AlbertFabrega/status/1715 ... 63667?s=20

Perhaps this approach is used because of the large number of slow turns. The same can be said for the other teams. Everyone chooses to use more downforce. And I was thinking earlier that maybe someone would dare to use a medium downforce.