Mclaren Mercedes MP4-25

[xpensive]

ASK bazanaius he works at macs too i know this from the pm he sent me im sure he will confirm it without giving anything away
goony

Busted baz! Your credibility is from now on just a tad separated from zero.

Me? I work my arse off for USF1, but don't tell anyone for Christ's sake!

[Richard]

paint buck is what they use to try out different colour schemes and will probably be used as a show car later

Interesting, they don't use any kind of CAD for that at McLaren? Maybe a package like, Autodesk Showcase Pro?

I imagine they run off a few prototypes to get the manufacturing process perfect. They can then use these as paint mock-ups for marketing.

[Fil]

ASK bazanaius he works at macs too i know this from the pm he sent me im sure he will confirm it without giving anything away
goony

Busted baz! Your credibility is from now on just a tad separated from zero.

Me? I work my arse off for USF1, but don't tell anyone for Christ's sake!

Do you butter the bread, or just work the toaster buttons?

[xpensive]

I'm the bloody web-master for crying out loud! Didn't I say I work my arse off?

[astracrazy]

paint buck is what they use to try out different colour schemes and will probably be used as a show car later
goony

unless they are changing the current colour scheme, would this not be the same as previous years?

And goony: Does the MP4-25 (from what you have seen) look any thing like the MP4-24? And without saying which, have any parts been more or less carried over? Just interested to know if it is completely different or if it is a brawn/red bull.

From what you are saying (regarding deadzone) we could have another Brawn on our hands at the start of the season.

Will you answer this for my goony, please

[mstar]

i wonder if Mclaren has spies in other teams...

[marcush.]

i wonder if Mclaren has spies in other teams...

in fact this is a really intriguing aspect to have someone positioned in a competitors company.But ,what about the embarrassment if this gets dragged to daylight...
In reality some guys are journeymans so I assume a lot of bits and little tweaks as well as misconceptions will make their way through the teamsanyways.
I guess in an area like Banbury/Bicester it will not be too easy not to have any friends in competing teams so it seems obvious some leakage is unavoidable ...as can be seen in all those mobile shots we find online even here on F1 tech.
Honestly I´m surprised people dare to take those pics and d put them online .So I guess the spoken word is even less protected with these people.
I´m quite sure no company will find something like this acceptable or tolerable.

[mstar]

personally mclaren CANNOT afford this happening so i see mclaren being good as gold in this area
if mclaren get caught with another scandel (which btw seems to be every season these days) they will be thrown out for sure by Todt

[ISLAMATRON]

It does not have to be moveable aero, merely designed to feed the DDD in yaw but not in the straights... same with the rear wing.

Ah, now I'm really confused....

So goony reckons this will give downforce in corners and reduce drags in straights. But because the floor is generating most of the downforce (and drag?) this is the area where this tech would be applied (is that right?). Now, @ISLAMATRON, you're saying that the DDD will be designed only to work in yaw. Is this not extremely dangerous - what if you need to swerve - will the downforce immediately come on line? And if it's not, surely the car would have no reliable balance.

I'm no aero guy, just throwing things out there, but I know for sure that the DF/drag of the diffuser/underbody is much less than that of the wings. The "floor" makes the most DF and the least drag, but that may have changed with the DDD. The teams will maximize "ground effects" DF and trim out rear wing for balance & a higher terminal speed.

[compo]

[mstar]

goony u moving to Torro Rosso?? why

[compo]

[mstar]

goony totally i agree i work for a well known supplier of f1 kit, nothing to do with the cars etc, more commercial. So i know what your saying mate i dnt have any preference to any team but i work closer to mclaren team as they require my companys assistance more.

I thought you was a perm, not contract based as your knowledge transfered to other teams etc. From my contacts anyway Mclaren engineers are paid well (from what the commercial people tell me in those teams anyway).

[Pup]

While I'm very doubtful that a McLaren employee would be on a public forum talking about some super secret development - no offense, goony, its my nature - I'll add my personal two cents, just because it's fun.

Assuming its true, my guess would be that McLaren discovered this mystery dead zone by accident, when this year's car didn't have the downforce they expected. Testing revealed that the airflow which should have been hitting the rear wing, or flowing atop the diffuser, was somehow stalling out - creating a zone of dead air where it shouldn't be. All the crazy aero testing we saw this season was geared around figuring out what was happening, how they could eliminate it, and in the process also how they might create and use it.

With that in mind, I might suggest the DZ has more to do with the rear wing than the diffuser, and more to do with what happens at speed rather than in the corners. That is, suppose there were a way to create a zone of relatively still air (relative to the car, of course) that only appeared above a certain speed. Then suppose that such a zone could be created large enough to encompass the rear wing. Voila! Cake + Eating of the Cake.

Now, weren't there some rumors of one team accusing another of bypassing the rev limit in some Friday tests this year? Going faster on the strait than what should be possible?

[ISLAMATRON]

I was having those same exact thoughts about them finding out how to take the air away from the rear wing(or maybe the "bridge" wing) at high speed in a straight line, but still having it available while cornering. I cant even begin to think how to start modeling that.

Good post Pup