Tomsky wrote: ↑02 Nov 2023, 09:52
billamend wrote: ↑31 Oct 2023, 01:02
djos wrote: ↑31 Oct 2023, 00:20
I can't find it now, but I read yesterday that Lando is still unhappy with the cornering behaviour - he wants to drive a U shape, but is still forced to drive a V shape through corners.
He has been complaining about that since... ever?
"To be honest, it's a combination of factors. One is the width of the track, being such a wide circuit, the distance from the entrance to the apex is very, very big, which makes the arc of the corner extremely long. Therefore, you need to have a very good exit. When you want a good exit, you want to be able to turn the car early, which we can't do because our front end at low speed is very, very poor. And our traction is also not excellent, which is one of the worst aspects of our car. Our traction stage is worse than most of the grid,' added the British driver.
https://it.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-no ... /10538665/
To add to what that traction phase issue is, a quote from a little further down:
"In any low-speed corner, our minimum speed was always too low, we couldn't turn the car and therefore couldn't accelerate in a straight line."
Because if you can't get the nose to behave the way you want, you will struggle through every aspect of the corner. The rear of the Mclaren is actually very good.
But what was highlighted in another interview, was that it isn't that the car is necessarily bad in Corner X or Corner Y, but that the cars issues now move around based on setup, very much linked to ride height. Which is actually a good thing because we can tailor the car (more than we realised) to tune out some of the deficit, or to actually to shift the deficit to areas where we lose less time on a given track.
Since Mexico it would appear that there is a step change in understanding of how to set up the car, and this may be what has altered Lando's perception of what can be achieved in the following races. Although that said, the cars low speed abilities took a big step forward in Singapore and the car hasn't demonstrated poor performance here anywhere since except for Austin, who's track characteristics are an outlier.
What is clear is that the nose of the car holds back the MCL60, via the front suspension and the way the car works with the tyres through cornering and braking. But given the identification of further variables that can help the car overcome these issues through setup (Even if it does just shift the problem), it also feels like the team lucked into some extremely valuable data that will help them overcome the issues next year. So as well as getting a valuable piece of setup knowledge, this could well be even more important in the battle to grant next years car the platform it needs to challenge Red Bull.
Se despite not getting upgrades, this weekend was hugely important and something to be excited about.
