Mclaren Mercedes MP4-25

[Raptor22]

Diesel is correct. The car is not designed for a driver style, that's like saying an f22 raptor was designed for an individual pilot's flying style.

No, that's not how it works. While a F-22 might not be designed with one pilot in mind that does not mean that it doesn't favour a certain group of pilots who like to do certain things, and in reality, once it's up in the air, that's what counts. Besides, it has to cater to a large cross-section of pilots whereas a car caters to one or two drivers, so no, the comparison is not really accurate.

This was discussed already and i think we came to the conclusion that a driver's style does not influence the design process of the car.

It certainly does. Once a driver says "I want a car that does this...." it certainly heavily influences the way that future cars on the drawing board are designed. The longer a driver is around the more ingrained that becomes. You cannot just pluck a car built with a certain philosophy and have the driver muck about with the set up for several months trying to get the car to overcome its natural tendencies. It just wouldn't be a sensible thing to do to go against that.

This was explained above.

A driver's style is not something quantifiable, so it cannot be a parameter for actually building the car from scratch.

You don't build a car from scratch. You use the sum of your experiences, you use the experience of previous set ups and you use the experience of what you were trying to get the car to do when you went through those. Yes, a driver's style is quantifiable because it is the sum of all of those things (certainly if he's winning) - and that goes into the design of the next car, whether knowingly or unknowingly.

The car is designed neutral, similar to a fighter plane.

The car never ends up being neutral when it gets on to the track and is driven and the driver has input, that's the bottom line. It either has a natural tendency to one side or the other as a driver gets it to do certain things to gain an advantage, and that's where it starts favouring a certain driver's style. That's the only way you can gain an advantage.

Fighter planes also aren't designed to be neutral. They are designed to be somewhat unstable to gave them an edge in agility.

Repeating that a car is designed to be neutral won't stop it from favouring the style and tendencies of one driver over another. We've seen this time and time again and results also bear it out.

i apologise up front, but segedunum, an F1 car is not designed to oversteer or understeer. It is designed to lean more in one direction than another through built in suspension adjustments that allows the car to be set up for a particular driver.
every designer aims for as neutral a car as they can design and to cater for a tyre characteristic that needs to be favoured.
They favour neutral because it represents the best controlled characteristic and development starting point.

Rory Byrne always aimed to design the most neutral car he could. The fact that schumacher could cope with an oversteering set up is a driver characteristic that can be catered for a neutral well balanced car. The same car will also be able to be configured for a understeer preference aka. Renault's 05 and 06 title winning cars.
Adrian Newey also designs cars to be neutral. Thats his starting point. not over steer, not understeer, not mid corner unstable, not corner entry unstable or exit unstable, a designer also does nto design a car to pitch senstive (which hampers stability under braking), they design cars to be neutral.

Often a car does not emerge from production quite as intended. thats when a driver ho can drive around a characteristic and still achieve lap times is worth their weight in gold.
even Mr. Schumacher prefers a neutral car, so does Mr. Alonso and Mr Massa and Mr. Hamilton Jnr.

So please, long winded posts is not going to alter this fact.
F1 cars are designed to be neutral but to have sufficient adjustibility in them to cater for drivers leaning toward either a bit of oversteer or a bit of understeer.
Most prefer a hint of safe understeer btw.

under 2010 rules with the narrow front tyre, you will find that drivers with a preference toward a slight oversteer will get more from their tyres because these will determine wear rates. There is usfficient ballast to move around to acheive that inconjunction with suspension settings.

but the cars still start life, in the software as neutral.

[ESPImperium]

There is one of these devices under the car too. Check out the front on shot, and the clips on the side of the car above.
If what ESPImperium says is true, do they have a CFD or Wind Tunnel collaboration problem?

What i think is happening is this:



The blue line is what i think is happening, the yellow one is what i think is what they would like to happen, and the red box is what could be the stall zone, or what was once vaunted "the dead zone" once uppon a time. I think that if there is a problem its with turbulent air coming from the stall zone and falling on the rear wing, decreasing efficency from the rear wing, thus effectivly giving up valuable percentage points of downforce from the rear wing, and thus making their diffuser less stable from above, thus making the rear end a little less stable.

Its the front aero map that governs the rest of the cars efficency and downforce levels, and they may well have the best front aero map for pure downforce, but the way it affects the air that travels behind it could be where the fault lies, so they may have to compromise on eht front aero a little to get what they want from the rear areo map. The car that altered its front end aero the most last year was Force India, and with tremendous results at Spa and Monza, and led them to have a great base to build on for their new VJM/03 that was launched yesterday.

Im trying to think lateraly here, as it could be the simple thing that is affecting the major thing.

[horse]

But they're collecting information in the horizontal plane, not the vertical, from the look of that sensor array.

[Richard]

That equipment is not a sign of panic. Its a serious piece of kit that must have taken some time to engineer, and is not a simple bolt on from the wind tunnel.

It has to withstand the g-forces and vibrations of a car on the track, has an actuator to move the sensor arm up and down, and there is a very neat cableway leading into the airbox. Also remember that the this is fitted to a working car, not the empty mock up used in the wind tunnel where you have space for cables and controls wherever you want, and no worries about heat, rain or movement.

Until now, I'd assumed the allowance for full scale track aero testing was driven by small teams looking to save cash on wind tunnel models and testing. I wonder if McL have used that as a trojan horse - perhaps they think insitu data on a dynamic car is richer than a controlled wind tunnel? Why bother with calibrating wind tunnels if you have the sensor and computational equipment to measure the real thing in more detail?

[thestig84]

We saw stuff like this last year, they've got big problems. There's no point saying otherwise, it's what everyone did last year until the final test where they finally came out and said they were well off the pace.

Please you cant come out with post like that with nothing to back it up.

Im sorry people guess/make up the problems as much as you like, this is just collecting data for CFD. After the 1st test I heard from my person at the MTC that they were very relived that the numbers were as expected and cautiously think there are no issues like last year.

[Raptor22]

One of the main reasons Bourdais was dropped from F1 was because his driving style, he just couldn't adapt to lack of rear grip when last years rules changed and took mainly rear downforce... I believe if he kept his place in f1, and with this years thicker front tyres and harder tyres, the overall car balance could be favourable to him in race stint.

This year will be interesting to see Button's super smooth style versus Hamilton/Vettel/Alonso/Shumi's agressive style, especially talking race stints.

are you assuming that the driver does not adapt their style to suit the car they are given...?
unless I'm mistaken, I think you're very much mistaken.


example: Schumacher hops from Mercedes sports car c91 to Jordan Ford EJF1-91
Completely different handling cars, differnet weight and requiring different styles of set up and operation on track...

alonso and renault found they could get the best out of the Michelin tyre by going for a very understeery type set up, he following ear the car was more neutral as michelin changed the tyre characteristic.

A good driver can adapt, a mediocre one can't

[Richard]

But they're collecting information in the horizontal plane, not the vertical, from the look of that sensor array.

The sensor arm moves up and down to build give a cross section map of the air flow from the front tyre.

[horse]

he sensor arm moves up and down to build give a cross section map of the air flow from the front tyre.

They must reckon Button can do very similar laps!

[bonjon1979]

We saw stuff like this last year, they've got big problems. There's no point saying otherwise, it's what everyone did last year until the final test where they finally came out and said they were well off the pace.

Please you cant come out with post like that with nothing to back it up.

Im sorry people guess/make up the problems as much as you like, this is just collecting data for CFD. After the 1st test I heard from my person at the MTC that they were very relived that the numbers were as expected and cautiously think there are no issues like last year.

Yep, there's no way this is a panic measure. Look at how it's attached to the car! There's a removal panel with mounting points on the chassis. This will have been intended ever since they designed the car. While last years birdcaged looked like something they botched up. This looks really professional. I wonder if last year they realised that they can develop the car quicker if they know more accurately what the airflow is like in track conditions rather than the wind tunnel. I think this is great stuff from Mclaren showing a really detailed, scientific approach. Would we expect anything different?

[bonjon1979]

There is one of these devices under the car too. Check out the front on shot, and the clips on the side of the car above.
If what ESPImperium says is true, do they have a CFD or Wind Tunnel collaboration problem?

What i think is happening is this:



The blue line is what i think is happening, the yellow one is what i think is what they would like to happen, and the red box is what could be the stall zone, or what was once vaunted "the dead zone" once uppon a time. I think that if there is a problem its with turbulent air coming from the stall zone and falling on the rear wing, decreasing efficency from the rear wing, thus effectivly giving up valuable percentage points of downforce from the rear wing, and thus making their diffuser less stable from above, thus making the rear end a little less stable.

Its the front aero map that governs the rest of the cars efficency and downforce levels, and they may well have the best front aero map for pure downforce, but the way it affects the air that travels behind it could be where the fault lies, so they may have to compromise on eht front aero a little to get what they want from the rear areo map. The car that altered its front end aero the most last year was Force India, and with tremendous results at Spa and Monza, and led them to have a great base to build on for their new VJM/03 that was launched yesterday.

Im trying to think lateraly here, as it could be the simple thing that is affecting the major thing.

Yeah, I've a feeling that it's a little more complex than this and I'm not sure how you can have decided that's what's happening.

[meves]

Presumably from this cross section of flow from the front wheel will allow them to infer the vertical movement of the air from that point?

Also the other discussion about neutral balance of car design (it’s been had year in year out), can you move that to the general forum please.

Also the nose vent (on the top with a yellow inside) that was bolted on at the last test now looks more permanent. There is a screw on plate at the same place on the other side on the nose, I just wondered if anyone could say what that was access for or if that was in case they wanted to bolt it onto the other side?

[thestig84]

Yep, there's no way this is a panic measure. Look at how it's attached to the car! There's a removal panel with mounting points on the chassis. This will have been intended ever since they designed the car. While last years birdcaged looked like something they botched up. This looks really professional. I wonder if last year they realised that they can develop the car quicker if they know more accurately what the airflow is like in track conditions rather than the wind tunnel. I think this is great stuff from Mclaren showing a really detailed, scientific approach. Would we expect anything different?

Totally agree, very good points. Im pretty sure the rest of the teams would like to see the data!!

[Richard]

Look at how it's attached to the car! There's a removal panel with mounting points on the chassis.

It even has its own cooling duct

[axle]

LOL at the panic flap from some posters...TBH I'm amazed more teams don't do this kind of work as it must help McLaren build incredibly detailed CFD models and verify the data they have. Always better to be able to point at real data and prove what you've simulated is correct than assume/hope.

[horse]

I've suddenly had the thought that the mechanism is probably to stabilise the sensor rather than change its orientation. If it was orientation they were worried about then why not just bolt it to the car? I suspect this is like those fancy cameras used for car chases that self stabilise themselves called the Ultimate arm. I'll even go so far as saying that without this the results would be rubbish as the sensors would not be stable.