Mclaren Mercedes MP4-25

[Confused_Andy]

Same thing happened with Brawn last year, its not sad, its how they deal with situations out of their control.

[timbo]

Same thing happened with Brawn last year, its not sad, its how they deal with situations out of their control.

DDDs were deemed legal, so situation was exactly opposite.
OTOH I don't think new tests would change situation as much.

[ringo]

I think that, if the FIA's new floor test reduces the RB6's downforce (as it is likely to do) then McLaren must feel quietly confident for the rest of the season. The RB6 has downforce because of some clever work by Newey's team. If the FIA remove much of that downforce then the RB6's inherent lack of top speed is going to hamper it everywhere because they'll need to either crank on more wing (and drag) to get back the cornering advantage (and lose even more top-end speed) or be no quicker in the corners and just as quick (or even slightly slower) on the straights.

With equal performance packages between RB and McLaren, it's likely that RB's only hope is Webber; Vettel won't be competitive in such situations because he'll keep losing his cool.

If the FIA tests equalise the cars' performances then the title is McLaren's to lose.

I think Monza and Brazil are both McLaren tracks in this case with Suzuka and Abu Dhabi being more suited to McLaren than Red Bull too. If the RB6 keeps most of its current medium-speed downforce advantage then it will definitely be too close to call.

Of course, all of this presupposes that Ferrari don't do a repeat of 2007 and slip by to win at last breath whilst everyone is busy watching the McLaren / RB duel...

It should be a great remainder of the season...

That reminds me - I'm going to miss the last race. I'll be on an airplane going on my holidays. Bugger.

Those floor tests wont reduce the down-force much! It may reduce it a little, but the redbull still has the best body and suspension combination on the grid.
When Hamilton said the bull has almost twice the downforce, he could be wrong, but it has to be pretty enormous for him to say something like that.
Anyone say how Vettel was eating Button alive at spa in sector 2?
A little splitter restriction can't evaporate that kind of dominance.

What I am hopeful for though is that the Mclaren EBD seems to have given the car good grip on turn exit. It may also allow the team to maximize the engine's power.
I saw how Button outran Vettel on the up hill sections, and it was pretty amazing.

Aside from the EBD, they need to improve their damping, and also shrink their DDD fairings. The rear end needs cleaning up.

[aral]

Same thing happened with Brawn last year, its not sad, its how they deal with situations out of their control.

DDDs were deemed legal, so situation was exactly opposite.
OTOH I don't think new tests would change situation as much.

Yes, but the Bull has passed ALL tests, so IS legal. Mclaren want to have new tests imposed. But the McLaren front wing was also seen to be flexing, so maybe they ARE trying to copy?

[Boost]

I think that, if the FIA's new floor test reduces the RB6's downforce (as it is likely to do) then McLaren must feel quietly confident for the rest of the season. The RB6 has downforce because of some clever work by Newey's team. If the FIA remove much of that downforce then the RB6's inherent lack of top speed is going to hamper it everywhere because they'll need to either crank on more wing (and drag) to get back the cornering advantage (and lose even more top-end speed) or be no quicker in the corners and just as quick (or even slightly slower) on the straights.

.

Yes, but isn't it sad that when Newey has produced a quick car, that McLaren, in a fit of pique, complain over and over again, to try and have any legal innovation nullified, so as to give them a chance. When they started the year with their "advantage feature", the f-duct, some teams queried it, but when told it was legal, the others went ahead and developed their own versions.

It's also a shame when McLaren develop a driver controlled fiddle brake system and have it declared illegal after Ferrari complain, and Renault and McL both have mass dampers, again declared illegal after complaints from the team in red.

In the case of the Red Bull the car is clearly illegal as it has visibly flexing aero surfaces which must remain fixed in relation to the chassis, however there is a blind spot in the testing which has allowed Red Bull to get their system through.

[Phillyred]

I'm a biased Mclaren fan, but I have to hand it to Adrian Newey for finding these "loop holes" in the rules and regs. Sure, one can argue the whole "spirit of the rules" angle, but his implementation of the segmented plank, stay dampers, and sliding splitter attachments is pretty clever or ballsy.

[timbo]

again declared illegal after complaints from the team in red.

That is, in fact wrong, it was not Ferrari who pushed on mass-dampers ban. And, actually McLaren never developed mass-dampers as they had inerters.

In the case of the Red Bull the car is clearly illegal as it has visibly flexing aero surfaces which must remain fixed in relation to the chassis, however there is a blind spot in the testing which has allowed Red Bull to get their system through.

It is not "clearly illegal". The talk is that every team would have to modify undertray including McLaren.

[Boost]

So which team complained about the Renault mass damper then? I always remember it as Ferrari as they certainly didn't have one at that time, but then my memory is going these days.

McLaren did have a mass damper as Renault submitted its design to the FIA after theirs had been declared illegal to see if the McL system would still have been allowed.

There is a difference between a floor which has some flexibility (as all teams have to prevent the car from launching itself if it grounds out) but which exceeds the new test, and something which folds out the way to allow the front of the car to drop.

[747heavy]

I`m pretty sure Ferrari did have an TMD (mass damper) at the time.

[timbo]

So which team complained about the Renault mass damper then? I always remember it as Ferrari as they certainly didn't have one at that time, but then my memory is going these days.

Well, the insider who told me this didn't name the team, but he told it was not Ferrari.
I remember interview from Toyota's designer from that time where he complained about mass-damper, might be them.

And by your logic F-duct must have been banned as it is clearly an active aero solution. There's no difference between driver pushing the button or putting his knee against some pipe. In fact, all those fluidic gizmos were invented to emulate electronics without electricity.

[ell66]

I think that, if the FIA's new floor test reduces the RB6's downforce (as it is likely to do) then McLaren must feel quietly confident for the rest of the season. The RB6 has downforce because of some clever work by Newey's team. If the FIA remove much of that downforce then the RB6's inherent lack of top speed is going to hamper it everywhere because they'll need to either crank on more wing (and drag) to get back the cornering advantage (and lose even more top-end speed) or be no quicker in the corners and just as quick (or even slightly slower) on the straights.

With equal performance packages between RB and McLaren, it's likely that RB's only hope is Webber; Vettel won't be competitive in such situations because he'll keep losing his cool.

If the FIA tests equalise the cars' performances then the title is McLaren's to lose.

I think Monza and Brazil are both McLaren tracks in this case with Suzuka and Abu Dhabi being more suited to McLaren than Red Bull too. If the RB6 keeps most of its current medium-speed downforce advantage then it will definitely be too close to call.

Of course, all of this presupposes that Ferrari don't do a repeat of 2007 and slip by to win at last breath whilst everyone is busy watching the McLaren / RB duel...

It should be a great remainder of the season...

That reminds me - I'm going to miss the last race. I'll be on an airplane going on my holidays. Bugger.

Those floor tests wont reduce the down-force much! It may reduce it a little, but the redbull still has the best body and suspension combination on the grid.
When Hamilton said the bull has almost twice the downforce, he could be wrong, but it has to be pretty enormous for him to say something like that.
Anyone say how Vettel was eating Button alive at spa in sector 2?
A little splitter restriction can't evaporate that kind of dominance.

What I am hopeful for though is that the Mclaren EBD seems to have given the car good grip on turn exit. It may also allow the team to maximize the engine's power.
I saw how Button outran Vettel on the up hill sections, and it was pretty amazing.

Aside from the EBD, they need to improve their damping, and also shrink their DDD fairings. The rear end needs cleaning up.

Hamilton made that comment last year, its obviously not the case this time round. and as fr button being slow in the sector 2, the damag to hi front wing end plate had everything todo with that, did you even watch the race?

[adrianjordan]

You know as a McLaren fan I actually prefer to take Christian Horner at his work and think that, rather than the FiA test taking away some of Red Bull's advantage, that the McLaren engineers have managed to improve the car so that McLaren have caught up with Red Bull a bit...

[wesley123]

Well, as twice the amount of downforce is a big word i think they call such things by a certain rule in the team.

You start with 10000N downforce(for example), and then add points, where every point can be 500N for example, then when you say, we got 20 points of downforce, you have 20000N of downforce, at this point the double points then would be 30000N. That seems much more logical to me.

[marcush.]

the points game ...


I don´t see how you could have double the downforce ..the difference in lap time is not even 1 % so doubling downforce accounting for 1 % in improvement + a mechanical advantage they hold undoubtedly ... that would make up for a totally non aero sensitive Formula 1...I think a lot of people here would applaud this!

[ringo]

It's not double, but it's a considerable amount. No one truly knows, obviously, but judging on the car's movement on track, it's almost in a different class than most of the cars on the grid.
Button's end plate damage was not as bad as rosberg's. The car is simply not as fast as we think in twisty sections.
Spa was flattering the car, because of the straight sections.
The car had no real improvement since Hungary, maybe the ebd mapping, but nothing else. Mclaren still have a huge down-force deficit.
They can't sit around hoping that Redbull fail a test, they need to improve their car.
They have till after monza to revamp the car.