Mclaren Mercedes MP4-25

[raymondu999]

I think F1 cars can produce much more than that much downforce

[mith]

Of course they can, but it's obvious he meant tons rather than kilograms.

[jwielage]

Will you guys let up on the "ride height system" thing? This is just getting crazy.

You know we've had F1 cars for decades now producing 3-4kg of DF and controlling ride height was never an issue. Now you add 300 lbs of fuel and everything changes? Think about it ..

I beg to differ.

I have ready somewhere that the downforce to weight ratio can reach 3:1 at the highest speeds. So if the cars weigh in at 1300 lbs, they can produce up to 3900 lbs of downforce, not quite 3-4 tons but an impressive sum none the less. Downforce would be additive to the cars weight so the loading on the suspension would be 5200 lbs (1300 lbs in car weight + 3900lbs in downforce). If we assume that the fuel load weighs 300 lbs that brings our total up to 5500 lbs, with our fuel load equaling about 5.5% of that total load.

While 5.5% isn't huge, it's not immaterial when we consider the margins teams are working with.

[jason.parker.86]

Would this explain why the other teams thought the car had a ride height system?

Yes, since under high DF, the car will lower due to suspension setup. This is unrelated to bleeding of dampers. This also would make the car have a higher ground-clearance at low-speeds or at standstil (ie parc-fermé), which triggered the whole "ride-height" discussion in the beginnning. Obviously FIA checks the minimal required heights of ground-clearance. Do they also report back when this seems "higher-then-usual". I would expect the RB6 to have a "higher then usual" ground-clearance when empty and the minimal required during "full-load". Also a pull-rod suspension would be more usefull to achieve this compared to the typically in F1 used "push-rod". Again another good reason to guard the back of the car since the devil would be in the detail of this pull-rod suspension.

If they would combine this with the flexing of the rear-wing and possibly allow part of the diffuser to flex with the rear-wing (rear-wing attached to the diffuser and diffuser is mounted where it starts), through specific tubing/forming of your carbon-frame, you could perfectly tune where and how-much (ie under what load) the complete setup would flex. Obviously, they can't flex the sharkfin along with it because that is connected to the engine-cover which would explain what we see in the said video in the RB6 thread. This would be neigh-impossible to detect under static-loads and only visible if you would trail the car very closely at different speeds keeping a very very close eye to the ground-clearance between diffuser and ground and check for any differences.

This is what I think would make their version of the F-Duct/blown-wing very difficult to achieve. For that to work you must have a rear-wing that stays exactly in place at high speed so the precise aerodynamcs involved with F-ducts/blow-wing can work their magic. I for one am very curious to find out how Neway will implement that.

Any of the more educated forum-members to shoot holes in this theory (or confirm it if you will )? As long as not confirmed, I consider this purely academic, but highly plausible

I think you could be onto something. I am not going to pretend to understand all of what you are saying, but certainly would explain why Red Bull have employed body guards to guard the rear end of their F1 car on the grid... would also explain the fact that the car sits very high on the grid... however I did read somewhere that the Red Bull was using some kinda frozen Wax to achieve the "ride height difference", but for Macca to start development on a ride height system and be within a race of implementing it just goes to show how little the other teams seem to know about this mystery speed they have.

Would also explain why Torro Ross is so crap... as I beleive the suspension is different.

[PlatinumZealot]

I beg to differ.

I have ready somewhere that the downforce to weight ratio can reach 3:1 at the highest speeds. So if the cars weigh in at 1300 lbs, they can produce up to 3900 lbs of downforce, not quite 3-4 tons but an impressive sum none the less. Downforce would be additive to the cars weight so the loading on the suspension would be 5200 lbs (1300 lbs in car weight + 3900lbs in downforce). If we assume that the fuel load weighs 300 lbs that brings our total up to 5500 lbs, with our fuel load equaling about 5.5% of that total load.

While 5.5% isn't huge, it's not immaterial when we consider the margins teams are working with.

What is the maximum lateral G an f1 car can produce? 4.5 (5)? I guess if you had a rough idea of the coefficient of friction of the tyres you can sorta work out a rough Down-force.

I know most street sports car tyres the coefficient is about 1 because they can corner around 1g with about no down-force at all.

I got a value of about 1.7 from this website: http://www.grandprix.com/ft/ft00308.html it might even be higher right now.

So the force over the tyres in N *1.7 = 4.5*G * mass of car N
1.7*(downforce + weight) N = 4.5*G * mass of car N
1.7*(downforce + 600*G N) = 4.5*G * 600 N
downforce + 600*G N = 1588.23*G N
downforce = 988*G N

So I get the downforce to be about 9,700N.. or 988kg if you prefer. in pounds that is 2178 lbs. That is for 4.5max g's..How does that sound?

[madly]

[wesley123]

new wing shape, it has an huge nose up angle it seems

[madly]

[mstar]

interesting definitely a new rear wing, but i cannot get hold of the barcelona RW so cnt compare. I wonder the advantages to this new RW.

[ringo]

rectangular f duct hole in the foreground?

[autogyro]

That looks a well steep angle.
It worries me that they are getting desperate with this to catch RB and it could result in a system that is difficult to control safely without losing DF suddenly when needed.

[segedunum]

To me it looks completely different to anything they've run before.

I had a feeling this wing would change rather a lot in successive races because they're trying to ensure they're not compromising downforce with it. They're still tuning the thing.

[ringo]

There is no compromise. Ferrari's system was completely different.
I am yet to hear Mclaren say the system is a compromise.
When the thing is off, it's like any other F1 car without an f duct. When it's on, it give an advantage so i don't see where it's a compromise. In fact Mclaren can give their car an unfair advantage in balancing the car for high downforce and low-downforce tracks like turkey. It's like free points and should take some of the hassle from getting a balance.
Remember this one has better control than the F10's.

It will be a net gain for redbull too, and this is why they are using it in turkey.

[BreezyRacer]

There appear to be three aspects to these blown wings ..
1. blowing a low volume of airflow to aid in downforce by allowing higher wing angles (basically emulating a 3 element wing, which used to be, but is not now legal)

2. blowing massive amounts of airflow to create a high pressure pocket behind the wing. This flattens out the underwing flow and when properly engineered reduces drag and downforce. Get it wrong though and you can reduce downforce without reducing drag.

3. Not aiding airflow thru the blown slots, as in no driver input into the blowing of the wing.

I guess in thinking this thru these wings need almost continual driver input to maximize these two ends of the wing performance envelope. Maybe that's what Newey was referring to when he mentioned the safety issue.

It seems to also imply that the "unaided" airflow with these wings is probably greatly compromised. It would seem difficult to come up with a single wing profile that would work well in all three conditions. I wonder if the blown wing is a handful for a driver in a long fast corner like we have this Turkish weekend in turn 8, for instance.

lastly, as an option, a designer can choose to create a blown wing using only two of these possible three options. For instance a wing that when not blown, creates an optimal amount of downforce, and then when blown reduces drag and reduces downforce.

I believe that this new McLaren blown wing tries to take advantage of all three possible aspects, thus the very steep wing angle. This should be interesting to see how it all works.

[segedunum]

There is no compromise.

You keep repeating this, but I see no evidence that it isn't. 'Leaking' is still a problem that will require tuning out and teams might no be aware that it is happening and McLaren look as if they have a few levels to what they are doing.

Ferrari's system was completely different.

Ferrari's system needs much more development.

I am yet to hear Mclaren say the system is a compromise.

I'm yet to hear them say otherwise.

When the thing is off, it's like any other F1 car without an f duct.

Given that teams, and especially McLaren, are designing different rear wings to what they would otherwise have with the assumption this system will be in place than I don't see it. Flexible wings yes, but not a system like this. When you disrupt airflow like this there is and it's yin and yang there is always crossover.

It will be a net gain for redbull too, and this is why they are using it in turkey.

Red Bull already have the downforce and cornering speed they feel they need so it's sensible for them to play about in the one area where they are short. However, the payback for straight line speed in terms of lap time is pretty small over the course of a season in reality. What they're looking at is a handful of specific circuits like Monza where you can gain an advantage this season. This is going to need some further development and Red Bull might not even run it this weekend.

I have yet to be convinced that this is a productive use of time for teams that need to concentrate on cornering speed, and I haven't as soon as I saw it in winter testing. Gary Anderson at Autosport went a bit further and thinks it's a waste of time for the payback you get in average lap time.