McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

[f1gang]

RBR5 in wintertesting 2009:

what are they trying??for what??

[murtoidf1]

new front wing better shown here.

[gibells]

I think gibbles referred to the suspension of the measuring device, and not front wheel suspension...It's more aerodynamic than a RBR's was in 2010...it was just a box on the nose IIRC.

No I'm referring to the MP4-25's stiff suspension. Without going too in-depth they couldn't get any flexi wings to work because the secret of the RB6 was the way in which the flexi-wings worked together with it's supple suspension. McLaren needed stiff suspension to make their DDD work as they lost too much time in low fuel conditions, and hence would have had to alter the core design of their car.

This is what I was waiting to see in the '26.

[FrukostScones]

[Herr_Koos]

new front wing better shown here.

That is a gorgeous car...

[gray41]

What are these strakes comming out from the bottom of the rear wing?

[marcush.]

nsmikle -bang on the money-copy whatever you can find anywhere and you should be ok...

as for the 4 string arangement they obviously can measure tension only in the 4 strings and have to work out which is which...Bending ,twisting,shifting ...holy crap I ´d prefer not to have to deal with the maths to sort that out...especially when you can see on the REDBull picture the strings have no tension at all on one side..

I would have done that very different: build a support above the wing (whole width) and put string potis or maybe even rideheight sensors to it measuring the distance to the wing profile.

Or why not measure just the rideheight to ground at the leading and trailing edge of the wing? with one reference sensor in the middle you´d get all info you need.

the Rearwingendplate treatment is really an old hat. toyota had those in 2009 already.

[timbo]

What are these strakes comming out from the bottom of the rear wing?

Similar solutions were used by Toyota couple years ago.
Should increase diffuser efficiency.

[raymondu999]

I believe it increases the effective length of the diffuser. IIRC RBR were the first to do that with endplates, then Toyota followed suit.

[marcush.]

toyota TF109:

[HungryHebbo]

Won't they also help to direct air into the low pressure region behind the rear wheels, so helping to reduce drag? I don't know if that's classified as making the diffuser more efficient or not!
Ignorance is bliss :p

[zgred]

[raymondu999]

Imagine if that lump turned out to be race-spec. This would be officially one of the worst looking cars. And I mean, ever.

[gray41]

I see that jenson is using the white pirelli tyres, does this mean pirelli are using colour coded compounds at these tests?

[Sawtooth-spike]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RrTwqfYqKw[/youtube]

This video is all about the new nose.

Might make more sence to those in the UK.