McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

[ianwit]

The exhausts also seem to be raised slightly above the floor instead of being completely integrated in the floor.

That could be down to the time they had to re engineer the floor and exhaust, it will be interesting to see if they are still the same in Malaysia.

[Onch]

Indeed. Pretty sure they will have an exhaust cover by next race.
Don't think this will bring massive aero improvement, but every little helps...

[Pup]

They must have found that the thing was very effective to have gone to all of the effort of effectively designing the car around it.

And to have used up every test they had trying to make it work.

[SiLo]

Is it me, or is this the easiest car to drive on the grid? Even when watching the Red Bull it is only similar/little bit more twitchy.

http://vimeo.com/21491368

It definitely looks absolutely planted. Almost as if it has much more rear downforce than at the front, which is something that Button alluded to earlier in the weekend. Bringing front end downforce to the car should be a lot easier than increasing it at the rear.

If that's true then the car can be made quite a bit faster quite easily. I think people don't understand exactly what Mclaren are doing at the rear, as all we see are comments about raising the rear beam wing. I think that they are trying to get more air over the top of the diffuser, to pull more air out from the diffuser, thus increasing the efficiency of it. The beam wing itself can only be raised so far as it depends where the turbulent air is off the sidepods, clearly the turbulent air is lower on the Mclaren than other cars otherwise I'm sure the bean wing would of been raised.

There is also the fact that they may already be the same height, it's just that Mclaren raised the crash structure to get more air over the diffuser, and this makes it look like the beam wing is less efficient/lower or whatever.

[zgred]

[astracrazy]

They must have found that the thing was very effective to have gone to all of the effort of effectively designing the car around it.

And to have used up every test they had trying to make it work.

exactly. you have to wonder where the car would be now had they have had this exhaust design originally and then spent testing trying other developments (such as improving front downforce which was mentioned earlier). In some ways its a shame - but they clearly thought it worth it

i fully expect to see this crop up many times on friday practice to try and get it to work. I'd like to know how much they feel it is worth compared to the system they used this weekend

[kalinka]

Interesting comparison. I didn't realise until now how much higher is the RBR's nose is. Also it seems the driver position is considerably higher too. I'd say at least 4-5cm.



What's that vertical ridge that going across the top of the dissuser and continuing down under the crash structure ? What's the purpose of it? It looks like it's directly in way of the airflow...or it's just some kind of optical illusion

[Just_a_fan]

The McLaren appears to be running at a slightly lower ride height which is interesting considering what was discussed last year about ride height control.

[bot6]

forty-two -> That's just the bend where the diffuser and floor meet. No ridge there, just a bend in the carbon fiber.

And the next one who says the word asymmetrical...



I will frown at him very hard.

For the picture comparison, only the front wheels are aligned. The rear of the car is slightly off, and considering the fact that suspensions are mobile, the tubs certainly aren't aligned.

Gives a bit of info on how the suspensions are set up though...

[fsliv]

Is it me, or is this the easiest car to drive on the grid? Even when watching the Red Bull it is only similar/little bit more twitchy.

http://vimeo.com/21491368

It definitely looks absolutely planted. Almost as if it has much more rear downforce than at the front, which is something that Button alluded to earlier in the weekend. Bringing front end downforce to the car should be a lot easier than increasing it at the rear.

I could be wrong but wasn't that the problem last year. They couldn't get the front downforce to match the rear, hence they did not get the front wing right until Dubia

[kalinka]

forty-two,bot6 -> I see now how it's an optical illusion, I just have to adjust my eyes and mind to it. That's only a bend+tricky lighting.

[myurr]

@fsliv - I don't think that was the problem last year. The front end of the McLaren was very solid last year, with the few times that Hamilton was being held up by a Red Bull highlighting a much better turn in.

[Richard]

Just realised how sophisticated that Russian site is, You can drag the divider back and forth to compare.

The frear wings and airbox are mandated at the same heights from underside of tub. The reason they differ in the pics is because of suspension travel.

As we saw last year, the RB has a much higher steeper pitch than other cars.

[furious_g]

[Formula None]