McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

[Blackout]

Please excuse if this is a stupid suggestion but isn't the exhaust in the slot at the back of the engine cover?

It's the Gbox radiator's hot air exit channel.

[timbo]

I think it's funny that the moment Ferrari switches to the McLaren style front suspension, McLaren switch back.

This is not a switch "back" they have steering arm really low, closer to the lower wishbone.

[luca]

#mp4-26 its suspension looks less extreme than its rivals, which might be good for the Pirelli tyres

Source: http://twitter.com/ScarbsF1/statuses/33515519587917825

[horse]

I think it's funny that the moment Ferrari switches to the McLaren style front suspension, McLaren switch back.

I guess some of that also is to do with the sidepods. Ferarri get McLaren sidepods and the suspension to control the flow to those sidepods.

McLaren move to wide side pod entrances that must need something else from the aero about the suspension (technical, ay?).

[Tamburello]

By the by, weren't both designed by Byrne, or did he get to Ferrari too late to make a difference?

I think that was a Barnard design, obviously inspired by the Benetton. Both cars were very unpretty IMO.

[RacingManiac]

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/7554 ... 221240.jpg

Looks like the rear wishbones are attached to the engine, not the Gbox !

More likely the bellhousing between the engine and the gearbox...

[feynman]

Me, I am just very, very glad to see the front suspension is back to five elements ... I don't care what anyone says, I never ever trusted that turbulent bird cage of separate steeering arms that they have had for the last two years.

The front-suspsension arrangement also appears clearly much lower and much less aggressively angled than last year (hence how they could recombine the steering arm) ... If Pirelli wear and drop-off is a major concern as indiciated, then perhaps this may prove to be a useful configuration.



Either way, the car will look very bonny in red supersoft Pirellis:




(jesus christ, that took about ten minutes to finally get posted, someone tighten the elastic on the server hamster wheel )

[segedunum]

I have a feeling this is going to be junk. Way, way, way, way, way too complex. It's not from Colin Chapman's philosophy book at any rate. When you have a lot of shape changes and edges on your aerodynamic elements you need to be damn sure that you know where the air is going after it gets there. If you don't have that understanding then you'll spend half the season working out what the car is doing without adding any performance. What looks great in a windtunnel and on CFD turns out not to be so great when you're chasing performance.

I smell some personnel changes at McLaren. Of course it could run off into the distance.......

[kilcoo316]

Why go with the L-sidepods...?


Surely it is better to vertically drop the airflow (conventional sidepod) so you've a higher effective angle of attack over the lower beam wing - and then you can improve the camberline of said wing so you have a larger component of your pressure vector acting vertical.


They are also making a bit of an aerofoil section out of the monocoque (planform)... guess which way that (maybe very weak to be honest) pressure vector will be acting in a fast corner? Yeap, toward the outside. Oh, and that will be impossibly hard to pick up in a wind tunnel (probably even CFD given the length of a simulation to do it); going around somewhere like Becketts I think an F1 car has a yaw rate of something like 50 or 60 degrees/second!



They've a wind tunnel, I don't, so no point second guessing them I suppose; but... can't say I'm convinced.

[ringo]

I think the nose should have been a little higher, and the side pods trimmed down a little more.
Though i do think the sidepods that house the new exhuast will be much tighter, similar to redbull.

The L shape is genius however, the air has a less cambered path to the back, so the pressure drop will be minimal, meaning more net down force between top and bottom of the car.
This also makes for much direct air flow to the lower wing, which i think is more critical this year than the upper surface of a single diffuser.

Over all it's an ugly son of a gun, i hope it's fast.

[ell66]

I have a feeling this is going to be junk. Way, way, way, way, way too complex. It's not from Colin Chapman's philosophy book at any rate. When you have a lot of shape changes and edges on your aerodynamic elements you need to be damn sure that you know where the air is going after it gets there. If you don't have that understanding then you'll spend half the season working out what the car is doing without adding any performance. What looks great in a windtunnel and on CFD turns out not to be so great when you're chasing performance.

I smell some personnel changes at McLaren. Of course it could run off into the distance.......

I think its funny how you rag on ferrari for not being as innotive as others, yet rag on mclaren because its to different?
oh and your last statement is complete rubbish.

Back on topic, i expect them to route the exhousts like redbull have, i think they had to try something new to have a chance on beating the bulls on pure pace.
time will tell if this solution works.

[horse]

Surely it is better to vertically drop the airflow (conventional sidepod) so you've a higher effective angle of attack over the lower beam wing - and then you can improve the camberline of said wing so you have a larger component of your pressure vector acting vertical.

Well there looks like there is almost a clear path to the beam wing now giving less turbulence and better performance I should imagine. If you lose effective angle of attack then make it steeper.

[RacingManiac]

Well much of the attention for everyone this year was making the beam wing more effective by cleaning up the flow leading to it. The extreme coke bottling used by most and pullrod and the re-packaged pushrod all kinda does that effect. When you look from the front 1/4 view you can now see a lot more of that lower beam wing in the line of sight. McLaren went about it from the sidepod and kinda opened a direct line of sight to the lower beam wing from front view. I think it looks like they have sacrificed a bit of the coke bottling in the process.

[jason.parker.86]

I think them wings are fake too

[kilcoo316]

Well there looks like there is almost a clear path to the beam wing now giving less turbulence and better performance I should imagine.

How?

The damping effect of the upper surface of the sidepod reduces turbulence to small scale stuff anyway; this "tunnel" will do something similar. Sure, there may be some BL growth, but drop the sidepod upper surface far enough so that is channeled underneath and clear of the beam wing.


But I'm now also concerned about the vortex spilling off the upper nose surface during fast cornering - thats potentially going to run the length of the car now and screw up the beam wing (as well as being a low pressure zone in a very bad place).

Again, that is something not easily analysed in a windtunnel or by CFD, as its a highly dynamic event.

If you lose effective angle of attack then make it steeper.

No can do, your limited by design-space (regulations).