2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

[FittingMechanics]

As usual, I am more optimistic. I think Monaco proved that the car exceeds expectations and that it rides the kerbs well.

I predict a McLaren 1-2

But to be a bit more serious, I think the car will remain slightly faster than Ferrari and the question mark is Red Bull. So for me, the podium is realistic and a fight for a win possible.

I'm not of the opinion that the pace will swing massively depending on the track. The cars don't seem to be that way (Ferrari and McLaren).

[FittingMechanics]

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

Apparently about 5 teams has a suspension that is able to lower the rear at speed. McLaren is still skeptical of the solution as it can be dangerous if it doesn't work properly.

[taperoo2k]

Fuel pumps are a spec part. I don't think they would do anything funny there. Would be pretty stupid after the Ferrari fiasco in 2019.

If they are indeed doing anything, they deserve to be disqualified from all races this season so far.

Incredibly dumb to play with stuff like this.

Just like Ferrari were disqualified from all races the participated in 2019, before it was discovered?

We don't know what exactly Ferrari were doing in 2019, but obviously it was significant enough since 2020 was a disaster for them. Either way, I stand by my statement. If you're so stupid that you decide to cheat on an area which already was looked at and punished before, you deserve to be disqualified.

I think the rumour at the time was Ferrari found a trick to deliver fuel at a faster rate than allowed but for it not to be detected. I could be wrong, but I think there's a second fuel flow meter that looks at different parameters with the data encrypted so only the FIA can view the data.

The rumours about McLaren are absolute rubbish, I dare say the content creator who posted it will find themselves blacklisted by all F1 teams and might find themselves in legal trouble with McLaren. UK Defamation, Libel and Slander laws are no joke.

[mwillems]

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

Apparently about 5 teams has a suspension that is able to lower the rear at speed. McLaren is still skeptical of the solution as it can be dangerous if it doesn't work properly.

Paywall for me. But interesting as LionsHeart was asking about this earlier.

[CjC]

Switching to torsion bar springs
Only in the third year did the competition react. Ferrari, Mercedes, Haas and Toro Rosso now have similar systems. The one from Ferrari is supposed to be even better than the original. Toro Rosso already benefited from this in the last third of the 2023 season, when they took over the 2023 rear axle from Red Bull. Haas has been using Ferrari technology since the Miami GP.
First of all, the mentioned teams switched from their ancient disc springs to torsion bars. They are much better to dose than the accumulation of ring shells. The fine adjustment of the vehicle height during driving is a decisive factor for Groundeffect cars. "We are talking about differences of half a millimeter here during the setup," reports a team boss.
Previously, the rear was set to a ground clearance of between 140 and 180 millimeters. As a result, the car had about 100 millimeters of freedom of movement over one lap. Of these, about 80 millimeters were accounted for by the suspension travel, the rest by the tires. Today, the cars are between 60 and 70 millimeters above ground when stationary on the rear axle. The suspension over the tires is significantly lower with the 18-inch rims. So there is much less leeway.
An advantage even in slow curves
In the meantime, it's no longer just about buying a little more top speed. The systems are becoming more and more sophisticated and allow an optimization of the ground clearance in the rear in certain speed ranges. The top speed gain is just one of several advantages.
The effects in the other areas are far more profitable. If you have mastered the technology correctly, you can adjust the suspension so that the rear end is relatively high in slow and medium-speed corners and thus has room to cushion curbs and bumps somewhat gently.
With increasing speed and contact pressure, the ground clearance stops at a predetermined minimum in order to get the optimal downforce for fast turns. Only at maximum load on the straights does the suspension go on block and stall occurs.
The steps, from which point in time how far is lowered, must be set before the start of the journey. The necessary technology for this will cost a couple of kilograms, but it pays off. Ferrari has perfected its suspension compared to last year. No other car swallows bumps and curbs as well as the SF-24 and is still competitive in fast corners.
McLaren, Aston Martin, Williams, Sauber and Alpine are still conventionally on the road or they are currently tinkering with dampers and springs, the stiffness of which can be varied better. McLaren team principal Andrea Stella does not trust the peace: "We do not have an explicit lowering device. This can become critical at low ground clearance. You quickly have a loss of downforce in places where you don't want it."
https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... ndes-heck/

Mclaren seem to be doing quite well with the conventional suspension though?

[CjC]

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

Apparently about 5 teams has a suspension that is able to lower the rear at speed. McLaren is still skeptical of the solution as it can be dangerous if it doesn't work properly.

Paywall for me. But interesting as LionsHeart was asking about this earlier.

Tomsky posted it a page earlier in translation

[FittingMechanics]

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

Apparently about 5 teams has a suspension that is able to lower the rear at speed. McLaren is still skeptical of the solution as it can be dangerous if it doesn't work properly.

Paywall for me. But interesting as LionsHeart was asking about this earlier.

Tomsky posted it a page earlier in translation

Ah sorry - didn't realize.

[mwillems]

Switching to torsion bar springs
Only in the third year did the competition react. Ferrari, Mercedes, Haas and Toro Rosso now have similar systems. The one from Ferrari is supposed to be even better than the original. Toro Rosso already benefited from this in the last third of the 2023 season, when they took over the 2023 rear axle from Red Bull. Haas has been using Ferrari technology since the Miami GP.
First of all, the mentioned teams switched from their ancient disc springs to torsion bars. They are much better to dose than the accumulation of ring shells. The fine adjustment of the vehicle height during driving is a decisive factor for Groundeffect cars. "We are talking about differences of half a millimeter here during the setup," reports a team boss.
Previously, the rear was set to a ground clearance of between 140 and 180 millimeters. As a result, the car had about 100 millimeters of freedom of movement over one lap. Of these, about 80 millimeters were accounted for by the suspension travel, the rest by the tires. Today, the cars are between 60 and 70 millimeters above ground when stationary on the rear axle. The suspension over the tires is significantly lower with the 18-inch rims. So there is much less leeway.
An advantage even in slow curves
In the meantime, it's no longer just about buying a little more top speed. The systems are becoming more and more sophisticated and allow an optimization of the ground clearance in the rear in certain speed ranges. The top speed gain is just one of several advantages.
The effects in the other areas are far more profitable. If you have mastered the technology correctly, you can adjust the suspension so that the rear end is relatively high in slow and medium-speed corners and thus has room to cushion curbs and bumps somewhat gently.
With increasing speed and contact pressure, the ground clearance stops at a predetermined minimum in order to get the optimal downforce for fast turns. Only at maximum load on the straights does the suspension go on block and stall occurs.
The steps, from which point in time how far is lowered, must be set before the start of the journey. The necessary technology for this will cost a couple of kilograms, but it pays off. Ferrari has perfected its suspension compared to last year. No other car swallows bumps and curbs as well as the SF-24 and is still competitive in fast corners.
McLaren, Aston Martin, Williams, Sauber and Alpine are still conventionally on the road or they are currently tinkering with dampers and springs, the stiffness of which can be varied better. McLaren team principal Andrea Stella does not trust the peace: "We do not have an explicit lowering device. This can become critical at low ground clearance. You quickly have a loss of downforce in places where you don't want it."
https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... ndes-heck/

Mclaren seem to be doing quite well with the conventional suspension though?

Every mm closer to the ground is significant downforce gains I think, any way they can get the car close to the ground and still manage the difference circuit characteristics is valuable. Stella was quoted as saying that this is one of the most significant ways to find time in this Formula.

As far as I recall we had moved away from springs at the rear, but perhaps the suggestion is that there is more time to find for Mclaren as they learn how to use them better.

[CjC]

3 things……
IF Mclaren are running a conventional suspension and doing so well then if they switch to the trick suspension they could do extremely well?

However, because they are doing so well, like you say are they already running it?

Lastly I recall Horner saying towards the end of last season that McLaren run the closest in similarity to Red Bull rear suspension wise?

[Emag]

3 things……
IF Mclaren are running a conventional suspension and doing so well then if they switch to the trick suspension they could do extremely well?

However, because they are doing so well, like you say are they already running it?

Lastly I recall Horner saying towards the end of last season that McLaren run the closest in similarity to Red Bull rear suspension wise?

If you go towards the end of the shared article you'll see this quote from Andrea Stella :

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella is not confident that this will be the case: "We do not have an explicit lowering device. This can be critical with low ground clearance. You can quickly lose downforce in places where you don't want it."

So it's not something they haven't considered, whatever this is. Tricky business playing around with suspension. Ferrari is one of the teams which stuck with their own approach for 2024 and it absolutely was the right decision for them.

And to be honest, the whole flow-stalling thing is not credible and that's not what makes RedBull efficient on a straight line. Also, RedBull barely has a straight line advantage this year, and if they do, I wouldn't consider 1-2 kmh a significant advantage to the point where you consider tinkering around with the mechanical platform of the car.

McLaren has been pretty much on par with them on this area after Miami.

[mwillems]

3 things……
IF Mclaren are running a conventional suspension and doing so well then if they switch to the trick suspension they could do extremely well?

However, because they are doing so well, like you say are they already running it?

Lastly I recall Horner saying towards the end of last season that McLaren run the closest in similarity to Red Bull rear suspension wise?

I'm not suggesting they are running whatever system it is. But the article is written as if we aren't using torsion bars as it starts with listing the teams that are using torsion bars and we aren't included. But I'm pretty confident that we moved to torsion springs this year.

As for whatever the trick is to lower the suspension, I'm sure the team do believe in it and would use it, it is just Stella talking about the pitfalls of not getting it working right that is probably lost in translation and comes across as if it's something we wouldn't do.

[organic]

I don't trust what AMuS writes about this.. at all

[BMMR61]

3 things……
IF Mclaren are running a conventional suspension and doing so well then if they switch to the trick suspension they could do extremely well?

However, because they are doing so well, like you say are they already running it?

Lastly I recall Horner saying towards the end of last season that McLaren run the closest in similarity to Red Bull rear suspension wise?

I'm not suggesting they are running whatever system it is. But the article is written as if we aren't using torsion bars as it starts with listing the teams that are using torsion bars and we aren't included. But I'm pretty confident that we moved to torsion springs this year.

As for whatever the trick is to lower the suspension, I'm sure the team do believe in it and would use it, it is just Stella talking about the pitfalls of not getting it working right that is probably lost in translation and comes across as if it's something we wouldn't do.

Torsion bar suspension has been used at least as far back as the Lotus 72 in 1970. The car also started with anti-dive and anti-squat geometry, later removed as they weren't able to find a good setup. Eventually in 1975 the ageing Lotus 72E after 5 seasons and 2xWDCs reverted to coil spring suspension. Of course weight jackers and ride height systems have been tried and used to some effect (including current MotoGP bikes) but these variations come and go frequently just like various pushrod and pullrod systems. I don't think McLaren will necessarily rush to go this way just because RedBull has gone that direction. As RedBull appear to be getting near the ceiling of performance with these regulations I can imagine McLaren will be looking for their own approaches in general to try to leapfrog the champions. The steady but not slow progress they are making over the last 11 months vindicates a careful approach to developing what shows in the WT and simulator, confirmed at every step by the stopwatch and other measurements of on-track performance.

I'm one on this forum who quietly claims I can actually see the different front end attitude of the car since day 1 at Miami, and I'm a little surprised at others here who believe it's too subtle to see. To me it's turn in on slow corners looks far more positive. From early FP1 I was quietly screaming "Yes, now we have something we can compete with!" With the very significantly improved performance on the tracks we've seen since Miami, it remains to be seen whether the more than respectable high speed corner performance we saw at Silverstone last year will still be there with this car. Nothing can be assumed, they may have altered the circuit specific performance of the 38B away from what we saw on the 60B. I was pretty disappointed with how the 38 without the updates went at Suzuka this year given 2023's incredible pace.

If I was a betting person I'd comfortably bet we are right in the top 5 fight for podium(s) at Canada, with a win on the cards if we make a good start on Friday.

[mwillems]

To be fair we've only finished outside the top 5 once out of eight races so that's a reasonably safe bet

[BMMR61]

To be fair we've only finished outside the top 5 once out of eight races so that's a reasonably safe bet

Yeah well we've seen plenty of egg on faces haven't we? I just think this team are becoming a lot more solid in their sim and setup work which many underestimate the importance of. Miss the setup in a big way in FP1 (as RedBull have done recently) and there's a lot of risk in getting back to where you need to be. In private (I'll put it out there) I think a win is well on the cards with either driver. Oscar has phenomenal raw pace and Lando is great on the Pirelli front.