2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

[mwillems]

Regarding the low effectiveness of DRS. Could the cause of the problem be related to the floor edge or underbody ducts that flush the airflow sideways? It's just very curious that the team can't manage this problem for the third season in a row. Why do Haas and Ferrari have the difference between the open and closed position of the top rear wing flap giving the maximum effect? I don't think it's all about the rear wing. It's something else. And it's certainly not a beam wing plus diffuser. Otherwise the problem would have been solved earlier.

My guess is that the way the air is vented to the side to seal the floor edge affects drag. If this is an erroneous judgment, then the problem concerns the front wing, the rear wing range and the amount of air that flows under the floor. In this case, I believe Red Bull's solution is very effective. Their front wing has a low angle of attack, the upper flaps point almost horizontally, while the McLaren's flaps shoot upward. This is clearly visible when looking at the cars from the front. But if such a wing creates less drag, then there should be less downforce at the front, right? In this case, the floor plays a key role in generating downforce on the front axle, and even in slow corners.

I saw Stella say that the main problems with balance and handling will be resolved in 2025. Honestly, I'm disappointed. Apparently there is something in the chassis and aerodynamic body that hinders the car. And Sanchez and Marshall could see it.

It's hard to speculate on any of this, but It's likely a combination of several things from front to back. But it does seem to point to the beam wing and diffuser perhaps not stalling as required during DRS use. Getting the beam wing to stall with DRS open is one thing, but having that domino effect for the beam wing to then stall the diffuser is a challenge.

The car balance does look improved on last year, no question of that. The team were very open before testing that solutions to address all car weaknesses would not be ready for the first few races. To be this competitive with a relatively simple baseline evolution from last year is definitely encouraging.

In this regard, yes, it is encouraging. I always hope for the best, but Stella's words today have plunged me into darkness. On the other hand, I’m still waiting for updates, and it’s all the more interesting what they will be like and how effective they will be in the end. This is what I thought: if McLaren wins back 0.7-0.8 seconds at once, then there is no need to modify the DRS. Just start from pole and get ahead of everyone at race pace.

Whilst we may not fix the DRS issue straight away, and I agree with Xero that it is probably about the interaction of the BW, RW and the diffuser under DRS, the team are working actively on making the car more efficient with the new package, so we can still find KPH over the complete straight as well as helping the car enter the straight at a higher speed. So don't get too depressed

Whether it is diffuser stall or not I don't know, it may well be to do with how the airflows are interacting behind the wing that are affecting and tugging on the car, but you'd think it is stalling as this seems the more complex of the issues to fix.

I am curious as to the overall effect of Red Bulls second higher waterslide which effectively brings more airflow to the BW and increases overall airflow to the Rear of the car. I don't understand this aero enough to know if this is part of the next evolution of DRS efficiency. What do you think?

Around the side of the car, you may have a point... and you know I love to point at the front wing As pure conjecture the issue we seem to have at low speed in dealing with how dirty air interacts with the floor may still be there to some degree at high speed with DRS open, quite possibly if the floor does stall as expected but then the airflows from the floor are no longer able to deal with dirty air from the front of the car. So you can certainly conceive that if the front of the car worked better handling dirty air then it could help in several situations and not just low load/ low DF Configs.

Ultimately it is likely to be not just one thing and it may well be a combination of all of these things.

[Vanja #66]

McLaren was up there in medium-high speed with RB and Ferrari on both circuits so far, but wouldn't call them class of the field. They still needed bigger wing than RB in both races (and were about equal with Ferrari in Jeddah) which is a clear sign their floor is not as good as RB and even behind Ferrari now as a matter of fact.

They carry too much drag because of the bigger wing and they are missing a bit in traction zones definitely. Not bad at all, I think they will now confirm to be a 3rd best car in Australia, but I expected more after their strong 2023 finish. Feels like they missed a chance to work on drag reduction between seasons, that's the low-hanging fruit for them right now.

If Stella is aiming for really big improvement with that major upgrade package, it's usually worth waiting to do it right. They won't fight for titles this year, so better to focus on improving the car and hope RB will withhold upgrades in second half of 2024 and you wait for a chance to grab some wins.

[mwillems]

McLaren was up there in medium-high speed with RB and Ferrari on both circuits so far, but wouldn't call them class of the field. They still needed bigger wing than RB in both races (and were about equal with Ferrari in Jeddah) which is a clear sign their floor is not as good as RB and even behind Ferrari now as a matter of fact.

They carry too much drag because of the bigger wing and they are missing a bit in traction zones definitely. Not bad at all, I think they will now confirm to be a 3rd best car in Australia, but I expected more after their strong 2023 finish. Feels like they missed a chance to work on drag reduction between seasons, that's the low-hanging fruit for them right now.

If Stella is aiming for really big improvement with that major upgrade package, it's usually worth waiting to do it right. They won't fight for titles this year, so better to focus on improving the car and hope RB will withhold upgrades in second half of 2024 and you wait for a chance to grab some wins.

Were Mclaren running a bigger RW at Jeddah? I don't think they were, only at Bahrain where I think they suggested they wanted to protect the rears in the race.

https://www.racefans.net/2024/03/08/how ... in-jeddah/

[Cs98]

McLaren was up there in medium-high speed with RB and Ferrari on both circuits so far, but wouldn't call them class of the field. They still needed bigger wing than RB in both races (and were about equal with Ferrari in Jeddah) which is a clear sign their floor is not as good as RB and even behind Ferrari now as a matter of fact.

They carry too much drag because of the bigger wing and they are missing a bit in traction zones definitely. Not bad at all, I think they will now confirm to be a 3rd best car in Australia, but I expected more after their strong 2023 finish. Feels like they missed a chance to work on drag reduction between seasons, that's the low-hanging fruit for them right now.

If Stella is aiming for really big improvement with that major upgrade package, it's usually worth waiting to do it right. They won't fight for titles this year, so better to focus on improving the car and hope RB will withhold upgrades in second half of 2024 and you wait for a chance to grab some wins.

Were Mclaren running a bigger RW at Jeddah? I don't think they were, only at Bahrain where I think they suggested they wanted to protect the rears in the race.

https://www.racefans.net/2024/03/08/how ... in-jeddah/

They were not running as draggy as Ferrari. Their DRS is ineffective but in the race they were lower drag than Ferrari. Their high speed performance is also slightly better than Ferrari. They suffered in low-medium speed.

[Vanja #66]

Were Mclaren running a bigger RW at Jeddah? I don't think they were, only at Bahrain where I think they suggested they wanted to protect the rears in the race.

https://www.racefans.net/2024/03/08/how ... in-jeddah/

It's a new wing for McLaren of course, compared to Bahrain. Still bigger than RB and Mercedes in Jeddah clearly, and about the same size as Ferrari.



It's a lower drag design than RB and Ferrari with DRS off though (see the flap angles bellow), but it cost them a lot on overtaking compared to those two teams.

[mwillems]

Were Mclaren running a bigger RW at Jeddah? I don't think they were, only at Bahrain where I think they suggested they wanted to protect the rears in the race.

https://www.racefans.net/2024/03/08/how ... in-jeddah/

It's a new wing for McLaren of course, compared to Bahrain. Still bigger than RB and Mercedes in Jeddah clearly, and about the same size as Ferrari.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GH_D0L-W4AA ... ame=medium

It's a lower drag design than RB and Ferrari with DRS off though (see the flap angles bellow), but it cost them a lot on overtaking compared to those two teams.

https://i.ibb.co/j8fyRd3/9837-CDA8-8-BB ... 4320-B.jpg

I felt the Mclaren main plane was flatter than RBs and that the Mclaren was running a wing well within the range you'd expect, so I guess I'm just questioning whether the wing at Jeddah was reflective of a need to regain grip at the rear or whether this was trying to get the DRS flap to do more work to increase DRS efficiency. We don't seem to lack grip in med-high corners so I'd be surprised if they were adding downforce at the rear at the expense of top speed at this track.

I think the team also suggested that their biggest gain over the winter was grip at the rear.

Edit: looking again, it is probably not flatter. But I do recall that last year we had a limited number of rear wing configurations and we largely ran something similar to Silverstone Spec or Zandvoort/Singapore spec, and we didn't really try to give ourselves many options here.

[LionsHeart]

The car in the highspeed corners is an absolute monster look at the delta Norris gains over Lewis in the highspeed .2 after turn 1 increases to 1.2 over a few corners

https://x.com/mercedesnewsuk/status/176 ... CA5OmEDv0w

I felt this was because Norris was bringing his tires in and then when Hamilton got too close he bolted. But looking at how things were in next laps it looked like they were both playing a game of cat and mouse. Norris would get away 2-3 seconds then Hamilton would catch up. Possibly it was due to tires overheating or similar issues.

I do think we are much better in the high speed corners than the Mercs and I think that Toto has subsequently come out and said how poor they are here, so I think we just have a really strong trait in the car through Medium and High speeds.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/merce ... tty%20much.

Super excited to see how Australia is for us.

Melbourne has some tight slow corners. I think it's going to be tough out there. In addition, in these slow corners, the steering wheel is turned for a long time, and this will negatively affect the race distance.

[Emag]

I felt this was because Norris was bringing his tires in and then when Hamilton got too close he bolted. But looking at how things were in next laps it looked like they were both playing a game of cat and mouse. Norris would get away 2-3 seconds then Hamilton would catch up. Possibly it was due to tires overheating or similar issues.

I do think we are much better in the high speed corners than the Mercs and I think that Toto has subsequently come out and said how poor they are here, so I think we just have a really strong trait in the car through Medium and High speeds.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/merce ... tty%20much.

Super excited to see how Australia is for us.

Melbourne has some tight slow corners. I think it's going to be tough out there. In addition, in these slow corners, the steering wheel is turned for a long time, and this will negatively affect the race distance.

They are not that slow actually, because those types of corners at Melbourne open up in the exits. If I recall correctly, the biggest weakness McLaren had last year, were corners which require > 100 degree of rotation before exiting out. It was particularly obvious on T11 at Texas last year.

Melbourne T3 and the penultimate corner are kind of 90 degrees, so the steering wheel is opened up earlier. It shouldn't be as big of a problem.

[Farnborough]

Were Mclaren running a bigger RW at Jeddah? I don't think they were, only at Bahrain where I think they suggested they wanted to protect the rears in the race.

https://www.racefans.net/2024/03/08/how ... in-jeddah/

It's a new wing for McLaren of course, compared to Bahrain. Still bigger than RB and Mercedes in Jeddah clearly, and about the same size as Ferrari.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GH_D0L-W4AA ... ame=medium

It's a lower drag design than RB and Ferrari with DRS off though (see the flap angles bellow), but it cost them a lot on overtaking compared to those two teams.

https://i.ibb.co/j8fyRd3/9837-CDA8-8-BB ... 4320-B.jpg

I felt the Mclaren main plane was flatter than RBs and that the Mclaren was running a wing well within the range you'd expect, so I guess I'm just questioning whether the wing at Jeddah was reflective of a need to regain grip at the rear or whether this was trying to get the DRS flap to do more work to increase DRS efficiency. We don't seem to lack grip in med-high corners so I'd be surprised if they were adding downforce at the rear at the expense of top speed at this track.

I think the team also suggested that their biggest gain over the winter was grip at the rear.

Edit: looking again, it is probably not flatter. But I do recall that last year we had a limited number of rear wing configurations and we largely ran something similar to Silverstone Spec or Zandvoort/Singapore spec, and we didn't really try to give ourselves many options here.

Certainly looked that way from sitting in LH seat this chassis, McL, was properly hauling itself through that first half of lap as he was looing view of Piastri after being right behind into turn #1.

It shows confidence that a driver can blatantly apply that much torque all the way through corners like that.

Higher rear grip ultimately can be balanced by piling on front load, keep pushing the torque until the rear just starts to move outward and give neutral stance, the total rear grip going up begats more front load can be used, which in turn allows even more throttle before this equation balances out. The pace in this particular speed range was obvious and pretty effective in keeping position too.

Uses less front tire to, as lock can be minimal with that slight yaw stance, differential loss goes down too as rears are closer in speed across the chassis.

Compounded benefits

[Tomsky]

[LionsHeart]

It's hard to speculate on any of this, but It's likely a combination of several things from front to back. But it does seem to point to the beam wing and diffuser perhaps not stalling as required during DRS use. Getting the beam wing to stall with DRS open is one thing, but having that domino effect for the beam wing to then stall the diffuser is a challenge.

The car balance does look improved on last year, no question of that. The team were very open before testing that solutions to address all car weaknesses would not be ready for the first few races. To be this competitive with a relatively simple baseline evolution from last year is definitely encouraging.

In this regard, yes, it is encouraging. I always hope for the best, but Stella's words today have plunged me into darkness. On the other hand, I’m still waiting for updates, and it’s all the more interesting what they will be like and how effective they will be in the end. This is what I thought: if McLaren wins back 0.7-0.8 seconds at once, then there is no need to modify the DRS. Just start from pole and get ahead of everyone at race pace.

Whilst we may not fix the DRS issue straight away, and I agree with Xero that it is probably about the interaction of the BW, RW and the diffuser under DRS, the team are working actively on making the car more efficient with the new package, so we can still find KPH over the complete straight as well as helping the car enter the straight at a higher speed. So don't get too depressed

Whether it is diffuser stall or not I don't know, it may well be to do with how the airflows are interacting behind the wing that are affecting and tugging on the car, but you'd think it is stalling as this seems the more complex of the issues to fix.

I am curious as to the overall effect of Red Bulls second higher waterslide which effectively brings more airflow to the BW and increases overall airflow to the Rear of the car. I don't understand this aero enough to know if this is part of the next evolution of DRS efficiency. What do you think?

Around the side of the car, you may have a point... and you know I love to point at the front wing As pure conjecture the issue we seem to have at low speed in dealing with how dirty air interacts with the floor may still be there to some degree at high speed with DRS open, quite possibly if the floor does stall as expected but then the airflows from the floor are no longer able to deal with dirty air from the front of the car. So you can certainly conceive that if the front of the car worked better handling dirty air then it could help in several situations and not just low load/ low DF Configs.

Ultimately it is likely to be not just one thing and it may well be a combination of all of these things.

To be honest, I don't really understand this regulation either. I already talked about it last year. Regarding the water slides at Red Bull at engine bonnet level? More like feeding the flows under the rear wing. And those waterslides that go at sidepod level, they feed more into the beam wing and accelerate the flows over the diffuser to in turn accelerate the flows under floor. I'm also sure that something needs to be changed in the front wing. And every time I come to the agreement that we need to follow the Red Bull concept. This is one of the places where drag can be reduced.

Haas copies Ferrari's solutions and their DRS is effective. Last year the Haas were fast too. And this year they are fast. What is McLaren doing wrong that for the third year in a row it cannot solve this problem? The beam wing and rear wing are interconnected, but I think people overestimate this area a little. There must be other variables that prevent additional speed from being extracted when the top flap is up.

I re-watched the race yesterday and saw Oscar easily driving behind Lewis in the corners. But he is not able to keep up on straight lines even with an open wing. Pain and suffering. But Lewis could not keep up in the corners behind Lando. Mercedes already has problems in fast corners, and they also reduced downforce in favor of straightaways. All this worsened their capabilities. Returning to the weak points: the main problem is the understeer at the entrance to slow corners, as well as the balance of the chassis, which goes somewhere when the tires slowly lose their effectiveness.

This is where things get a little complicated. As the tires wear out, the balance goes away. The fuel in the tank decreases - and so does the balance. We need a stable platform. I think this is the main problem. Red Bull easily took the titles in 2011 and 2013 with a low top speed. They took everything in the turns. But the leader in the race does not need DRS.

[LionsHeart]

I do think we are much better in the high speed corners than the Mercs and I think that Toto has subsequently come out and said how poor they are here, so I think we just have a really strong trait in the car through Medium and High speeds.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/merce ... tty%20much.

Super excited to see how Australia is for us.

Melbourne has some tight slow corners. I think it's going to be tough out there. In addition, in these slow corners, the steering wheel is turned for a long time, and this will negatively affect the race distance.

They are not that slow actually, because those types of corners at Melbourne open up in the exits. If I recall correctly, the biggest weakness McLaren had last year, were corners which require > 100 degree of rotation before exiting out. It was particularly obvious on T11 at Texas last year.

Melbourne T3 and the penultimate corner are kind of 90 degrees, so the steering wheel is opened up earlier. It shouldn't be as big of a problem.

I am partially ready to confirm your words, but the turns themselves are slow, which means that the steering wheel itself takes a long time to turn, and this interferes with the racing distance, since the chassis suffers from understeer. And the more laps you complete on one set of tires, the longer the car will be in a slow turn.

The slow corners themselves are not a problem for McLaren on one fast lap. All these problems arise with full tanks. The heavier the car, the longer the car turns, the worse the balance is. This is where the main problem lies, if I understand Stella's words correctly. Also at a racing distance, this problem at the entrance to a turn interferes with the optimal exit. A chassis that is good at exiting corners cannot play to its strengths because the entry into a slow corner is broken and not optimal.

[Dafnalina]

Interesting thread regarding development. Also, I didn't notice they had different setups, but it would explain the difference between s1 and s2 between the 2 cars.

[Vanja #66]

***
I'd be surprised if they were adding downforce at the rear at the expense of top speed at this track.

I think the team also suggested that their biggest gain over the winter was grip at the rear.

Edit: looking again, it is probably not flatter. But I do recall that last year we had a limited number of rear wing configurations and we largely ran something similar to Silverstone Spec or Zandvoort/Singapore spec, and we didn't really try to give ourselves many options here.

I'm not saying they were, but the fact remains their chosen low-level wing is bigger than Red Bull. Ferrari tried adding downforce with the same wing as Bahrain and failed to make it work, Perez made Leclerc look like an F2 car while blowing past. McLaren didn't do this, but the wing was still a bit too big and had an inefficient DRS.

[mwillems]

To be honest, I don't really understand this regulation either. I already talked about it last year. Regarding the water slides at Red Bull at engine bonnet level? More like feeding the flows under the rear wing. And those waterslides that go at sidepod level, they feed more into the beam wing and accelerate the flows over the diffuser to in turn accelerate the flows under floor. I'm also sure that something needs to be changed in the front wing. And every time I come to the agreement that we need to follow the Red Bull concept. This is one of the places where drag can be reduced.

Haas copies Ferrari's solutions and their DRS is effective. Last year the Haas were fast too. And this year they are fast. What is McLaren doing wrong that for the third year in a row it cannot solve this problem? The beam wing and rear wing are interconnected, but I think people overestimate this area a little. There must be other variables that prevent additional speed from being extracted when the top flap is up.

I re-watched the race yesterday and saw Oscar easily driving behind Lewis in the corners. But he is not able to keep up on straight lines even with an open wing. Pain and suffering. But Lewis could not keep up in the corners behind Lando. Mercedes already has problems in fast corners, and they also reduced downforce in favor of straightaways. All this worsened their capabilities. Returning to the weak points: the main problem is the understeer at the entrance to slow corners, as well as the balance of the chassis, which goes somewhere when the tires slowly lose their effectiveness.

This is where things get a little complicated. As the tires wear out, the balance goes away. The fuel in the tank decreases - and so does the balance. We need a stable platform. I think this is the main problem. Red Bull easily took the titles in 2011 and 2013 with a low top speed. They took everything in the turns. But the leader in the race does not need DRS.

This is why I replied to Organic with the Mclaren top speed as a percentage of the top speed in Qualifying for the top 4 cars for the 5 races ending this year and the 2 races starting this year.

We were close to the fastest cars, but still a little behind. So I don't think we've been behind for three years, but we can't consistently catch up. It is worth looking at the Beam Wing brought to Vegas as this was apparently to help with DRS efficiency. Not sure it did much though.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/mclar ... /10547434/