McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

[segedunum]

heard today that they are building a new chassis as this one isnt very good

Well, I don't think anyone will be suprised to hear that.

Are chassis still homologated this year, and if so, would McLaren be able to come up with anything radically different?

[boci]

heard today that they are building a new chassis as this one isnt very good

Well, I don't think anyone will be suprised to hear that.

Are chassis still homologated this year, and if so, would McLaren be able to come up with anything radically different?

I hope its radically different from what they have now (similar to everyone else)!

[wesley123]

Like i said before;

They are building a new tub, not an radically revised car

[segedunum]

Unless something major is changing I can't see what benefit building a new tub is going to have.

[PlatinumZealot]

IT won't be broken. The tub might be a weak cure so there have to make a new one.

[segedunum]

I think it should be pretty obvious that you're not going to get much air into an opening like that.

Sure.

Try finding a shape like that lying around, take a deep breath, blow some air towards it and stick your hand around the back to feel how much actually goes through.

[Richard]

Considering that they've blocked the hot air exit by 75% to allow for the cold conditions, it would appear that it is possible to have too much air going through there.

It looks to me that they've plastered the intake areas with flow viz to see the flow inside the engine cover.

[CHT]

Try finding a shape like that lying around, take a deep breath, blow some air towards it and stick your hand around the back to feel how much actually goes through.

For a scientific analysis, this means blow winds through the shape at 200mph and find that a few thousand hours worth of McLaren employees time was wasted.

They should've listened to Seg!

Ron...Martin, Are you reading?

Ron just got his driving license suspended, sure he is not in the mood right now.

[segedunum]

Honestly, the basic stuff always gets missed first. They seem to need all the help they can get right now.

Air comes off the edge and sits there as a block preventing much further air going through. Most of it then takes the path of least resistance over and around. That's what that flo viz seems to be showing. At the moment all that thing seems to be doing is creating drag.

[forty-two]

Has anyone seen any shots of the rear of the McLaren today?

If so, what exhaust layout were they using?

[i70q7m7ghw]

heard today that they are building a new chassis as this one isnt very good

Well, I don't think anyone will be suprised to hear that.

Are chassis still homologated this year, and if so, would McLaren be able to come up with anything radically different?

I suspect conni is just being intentionally vauge to stir sh*t up, only for McLaren to announce they've built a third (assuming they already have two) tub at which point he/she can soak up glory and appear to be a credible source.

If McLaren are building a new tub it will be just another MP4-26, possibly because they've detected a manufacturing fault in one of the current ones.

Unless something major is changing I can't see what benefit building a new tub is going to have.

Teams build new tubs throughout the year, and drivers are often quoted describing a new tub as an improvement. Yes technically speaking there shouldn't be any difference if no fault/damage is detected, but some things just can't be explained

[tjaeger]

According to Scarbs on Twitter: McLaren running flow viz on the roll hoop area! Not a typical place for this stuff, perhaps checking all those complicated inlets

Looks a bit,.........er stalled to me..

I suppose, there would not be much of high speed air getting in there. The entry is relative close (distance, height wise) to the airbox, air right at the edge of the airbox gets disturbed/deflected and turbulent, sort of 'death stream' area, probably even Vortex.
Well, but maybe it still does, see on the outer edge of it the flow viz moves pretty well, just not on the inner surfaces. But the inner surfaces a retracted slightly, therefore there would not be high velocity on these surfaces, but overall air might still stream in very well.

[speedsense]

@speedsense, forty-two, etc: I thought the same thing when I saw that picture and was staring at it trying to figure out the slot/gurney/odd paint strip. But the "flatness" might just be a trick of the camera. The steepness of the third element looks very asymetrical on the left and right side in this shot:

Very good point. I think the shape of the inner edge of the element is making it look flatter than it really is.

The RWing second element is definitely flattened compared to the Left wing. No camera angle involved. Look at the edge (closest to the nose) of the main element and draw a line along it, to the second. It's a straightline and can't be if the wing had any angle. (also note the "break" in the Q logo)
As far as this disrupting the car in anyway... No, not really, just some minor differences in speed on left hand turns vs right, really not a big deal. Downforce is Downforce to the wing mountings, the mounts don't care which side of the wing that DF comes from (yes, there's some leverage amounts added but's it's not a enough difference to effect what the driver feels.) IMHO

[Just_a_fan]

It's an optical illusion caused by the angle that the inner end of the flaps is cut relative to the longitudinal axis of the car. Look at the wing from the front or above and you will see the angle.

[Coefficient]

I think Macca are suffering a mild form of Mp4-18itis. At least they're putting the flow-vis in the right places this year.

In contradiction to all the nay sayers, I think Mclaren are being very adventurous with their design. If you remember, the Mp4-18 was only conceived as a reaction to the almighty and dominant Ferraris. Mclaren were the only team that realised that they had to come up with something totally radical to compete. The problem was it was so new from and engineering perspective that they found it was very difficult to get it to work. In short, the technology didn't exist at Mclaren to make the18a work. They had bonding issues galore and when that happens you can forget the other problems.

Anyway, the 18A was the embryo of the car that eventually brought Hamilton his title. Mclaren obviously feel the need to go radical again order to catch Red Bull. So, perhaps this year the 26 will become respectable but a have a feeling the overall concept, once refined will be very good indeed.

BTW, the flow vis on the air box is fine. The heavy flow into the channel is acceptable as long as its not cyclonic. Why? Well, that's because it's designed to cool their weird exhaust which doesn't work yet but it will by Race 3.

Hopefully they'll figure out that the front wing needs to tilt longitudinally to circumvent the regs rather than just flex down!!!