Mclaren Mercedes MP4-25

[marcush.]

for sure df is also under the rule of diminishing returns...if your tyres cry enough,adding downforce will not make you quicker.
the key will be more how much thedf is fluctuating ..as we see the faintest sign of traffic transforms the RB6 into a car that is not that special..

[ell66]

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.

rosberg just lost a bit o the end fence, jenson's was far more damaged. I know hamilon was faster all weekend, but he was pulling away at over a second a lap.

but back to the car, i really think a large part of redbulls supreority comes from the way they've packaged there cars.
Mclaren need to find a decent chunk of time from there singapore update and then hope these new floor tests peg back the bulls some what.

[Richard]

I wouldn't take Hamiltons comet of double downforce literally. He was just being figurative to indicate lots more, rather than precisely 2.0.

[ell66]

I wouldn't take Hamiltons comet of double downforce literally. He was just being figurative to indicate lots more, rather than precisely 2.0.

stop bringing up this double comment!! he said that LAST YEAR!

[feynman]

If they haven't gone away or been bored to death by the banal squabbling ... would any of the aero-heads that helped figure out the f-duct over the winter, care to comment on its potential use at a track like Monza.

Just because it can 'trick the universe into thinking that big wings are only medium-sized', I'd suggest there is absolutely nothing in that statement to assert that it can efficiently make a medium wing look like a flat Monza wing.

Do the basic underlying principles of airflow and seperation even still work when you have such shallow angles of attack, or are we way out of the envelope here?

If I had to take a bet, I'd say that it can't be done efficiently enough, and costs you more downforce than you get back from drag-reduction ... but that's just a gut feeling, we'll all see what rolls out Friday morning.
Be interesting to see a 25 without a sharkfin.

Of course if they can magic it up, a fat wing round the parabolica, and full steam down the straight, they'll need to dig way down the dusty bottom of the toolbox to find a 7th gear long enough.

[marcush.]

I could imagine more than one ways to reduce drag and downforce on the rear wing .... instead of having a full witdth nothing you could sure as well reduce span considerablyand work the thing from this side.This would at least open the option to have a wingprofile that would respond to blowing a slot...

[PlatinumZealot]

these are some of my random brainstorming.

Maybe:

1. The wing profile is physically too thin to practically implement the F-duct?
2. The flow behavior behind the skinny wings doesn't get triggered the same way as a full wing?
3. If the stalling of the wing works.. maybe it is canceled out by turbulence around where the F-duct attaches to the wing?
4. The F-duct trigger hole cannot get activated on a low DF setup?

[timd]

I know this is a random idea and feel free to shoot it down but would there be an advantage to running a narrower than standard wing with higher angle of attack and an f duct. Say minimum functional F duct AoE and then scale width down to taste.

How would that sit with drag ?
Do they have a minimum width rule ?
If the idea couldn't work please tell me why so i learn something

I dont know aerodynamics as you can tell

(If they do it I said it first [-o< )

[ringo]

Narrow wings are more inefficient. It wont produce the theoretical amount of force; the ideal being a wing of infinite length. In fact a wing has something called an effective span. End plates affect this, but the span itself does so as well, which is related to the tip vortices.
For instance a 2m wing with endplates that gives a certain theoritcal downforce may in reality behave like it's effectively 1.8m instead, giving less than expected force.
While a 4m wing may behave like it's 3.8 for example. The % difference to theoretical is less for the wider wing.
The bigger the span the closer the effective span is to the actual span. So narrower is undesirable. Of course endpate design and tip design play a part as well in the effective span.

Oh yeah, another problem is that you effectively shrink the size of your wing, since the regulations stipulate that the wing cross section lies within a 300mmx 400mm box, if i remember correctly. So you wont be able to make your wing taller than 300mm or deeper than 400mm to compensate for your width reduction, effectively ending up with a smaller less efficient wing.

[marcush.]

but that is not the question here.
the question for sure is will a wing with reduced spanwidth(as I proposed earlier on) but more camber fitted with an fduct carry equal amounts of drag than a full width teatray design .You could for sure reduce car crossection by reducing the wingspan ..so it may not be the most efficeient wing but it could posssibly help to reduce the aerodrag and give more downforce than a conventional Monza setup...

its the drag you need to get into the ballpark not efficiencyof downforce production?

[ringo]

Oh i see. I guess it can be done. It will be more inefficient, but since it's smaller frontal area it could have numerically less df with less drag anyway.

I don't think it could get the same exact downforce and be less draggy than the wider shorter wing but as it relates to the F duct reducing the drag, this is where it could work really well.


It's hard to predict the aerodynamics. However aside from just looking at drag, i think it won't be of help to the diffuser, seeing as though the wing would be considerably narrower and the diffuser has a relationship with the wing.

The transient Yaw behavior of a much narrower wing with end-plates, with closer vortices is another unknown.

[enkidu]

Does anyone know why the Mclaren sounds crazy off throttle? Have they changed the engine map to give downforce all the time?

[myurr]

Does anyone know why the Mclaren sounds crazy off throttle? Have they changed the engine map to give downforce all the time?

Yes. Yes.

[marcush.]

Oh i see. I guess it can be done. It will be more inefficient, but since it's smaller frontal area it could have numerically less df with less drag anyway.

I don't think it could get the same exact downforce and be less draggy than the wider shorter wing but as it relates to the F duct reducing the drag, this is where it could work really well.


It's hard to predict the aerodynamics. However aside from just looking at drag, i think it won't be of help to the diffuser, seeing as though the wing would be considerably narrower and the diffuser has a relationship with the wing.

The transient Yaw behavior of a much narrower wing with end-plates, with closer vortices is another unknown.

of course ,it was just a bit of lateral thinking of how to get drag down and still have a wing profile suited to f-duct blown slot...obviously if you start of with minimum angle of attack use of the f-duct will not much sense .

[Twaddle]

these are some of my random brainstorming.

Maybe:

1. The wing profile is physically too thin to practically implement the F-duct?
2. The flow behavior behind the skinny wings doesn't get triggered the same way as a full wing?
3. If the stalling of the wing works.. maybe it is canceled out by turbulence around where the F-duct attaches to the wing?
4. The F-duct trigger hole cannot get activated on a low DF setup?

With the caveat that I'm by no means an aero-bod, my understanding of it is this:

The reason that the f-duct works is that the force produced by the upper element of a typical F1 wing has a significant rearward component as a result of the wing being so steep*. With a more classic design of wing, such a a typical aircraft wing, drag increases when the wing is stalled. This still happens with an F1 wing, but the rearward component of the force produced by the unstalled wing is greater, resulting in a net loss of drag. The shallow angle of a Monza style F1 wing means that is doesn't produce a rearward force large enough for the f-duct to be effective.

This means that the decision on whether to run the f-duct or not comes down to whether a second element that's steep enough to allow the f-duct to be effective can be introduced without losing too much top speed. The main benefits being higher speed through the parabolica and faster, more stable braking. I expect it's mostly going to come down to the effect on top speed rather than lap time, since if you're giving away too much on the straights you'll just get mugged for track position even with your better braking and cornering.


* Don't confuse this with a steep angle of attack. The way the two elements of an F1 wing interact mean that the effective angle of attack of the upper element is nothing like as steep as it looks.