McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

[beelsebob]

Why do they not have a gurney flap on their rear wing? The one on RB is quite prominent.

Because gurneys are a very inefficient way of generating downforce. Got a link to the pic of the RB one?

[shelly]

@ speedsense: if you think that drs use ends the statement, you have not understood the statement.

About lift from the sidepod: there is a lift generation on the top leading edge of a conventional sidepod, which is not in the wake of the front wheels.

It is more difficult now to minimize it because of the 75mm radius rule, and teams are looking into that (see the slots on the leading upper edges of the sidepods). It may be that the U shape is less pron to this problem, bein th upper leading edge lower.
Also, there is no venturi effect of the scoop to forget about, because air is slowing down (stream tube cross section increasing) while approaching the radiator duct.

Hope I have explained better now

[SiLo]

Just checked some older photos of the Mclaren rear wing, looks like they may have removed the gurney flap for this race.

[bill shoe]

The large McLaren wing appears clearly taller (thicker cord) than other frontrunner Canada wings. I am comfortable assuming it makes more downforce and drag.

I still like raymondu999's comment that McLaren may be using more wing to create less sliding/wear on the tires during the race.

If you look at P3 both McLarens were about 1 sec off Vettel's time. The fastest car through the trap was a Toro Roso at 327 kph. Vettel (typical frontrunner wing) was 320. Button was 317, Hamilton was 308!!!

I think Hamilton and Button must have been running a split wing strategy if they had similar lap times with such large trap differences.

Will be interesting during qualy to see McLaren wing sizes and compare trap speeds.

[Pierce89]

... you can crank up the wings and not face the drag penalty.

That's impossible

Comparing with cars without U side-pods obviously.

You can run higher AoA on the flap because the body of the car has less drag than cars without U sidepods. Very straight forward.

From Drag increases with the square of speed, and is proportional to the CSA. So it is easy to cut a big azz chunk out of the Cross sectional area of the car to lower the drag.

A nice graph from Wiki (I know, right?) This is from an aeroplane so you have to do some interpretation as the wings of an F1 car are fixed in normal circumstances.



Just subtract whatever percentage you want from the green graph, and you see the effect on the total drag. ESPECIALLY at high speeds the biggest difference is seen. (look how high the form drag is at high speeds! much higher than induced drag). So you can see the U-pods is a very potent weapon.

Now with that done - and you car is accelerating pretty fast down the straights and you have the perfect balance of speed through the turns... Why take away the down-force?

n_smikle, the graph you posted is relative to an airplane which has to sustain its weight with lift. It can then use lower cl at higher speed, thus reducing induced drag.
So it can not be interpreted for f1 cars: it just does not apply to them, because as you said, their wings are fixed.

Agree that if your bodywork has less drag, you can use that bonus for adding downforce via the wings.

U shaped sidepods have less frontal area, but that does not automatically imply that they are less draggy than conventional shaped sidepods, being Drag= S*c_d.

By the way I agree that they are probably less draggy than ferrari's for example.

On interesting aspect is that u sidepods could also produce less lift than a conventional shape, because of the limited low pressure zone on the top leading edge.

Mclaren worked a lot in this zone also last year with "normal" sidepods, introducing that upper slot that ferrari has recently copied (see f150 thread) and that should have the main function of destroying lift generated by the upper part of the sidepod

N_Smikle ignores the fact that airplanes trim wing as speed increases I think we can all agree that's quite illegal in F1 making the graph worse than useless. The induced drag also increases with the square of speed in an f1 car(ignoring the DRS of course).So, while the U pods may help with drag(I doubt it, as they have just as large of openings as other top teams)but they're main purpose is to get more flow to the beam wing, increasing it's usefulness.

[bill shoe]

The large McLaren wing appears clearly taller (thicker cord) than other frontrunner Canada wings. I am comfortable assuming it makes more downforce and drag.

I still like raymondu999's comment that McLaren may be using more wing to create less sliding/wear on the tires during the race.

If you look at P3 both McLarens were about 1 sec off Vettel's time. The fastest car through the trap was a Toro Roso at 327 kph. Vettel (typical frontrunner wing) was 320. Button was 317, Hamilton was 308!!!

I think Hamilton and Button must have been running a split wing strategy if they had similar lap times with such large trap differences.

Will be interesting during qualy to see McLaren wing sizes and compare trap speeds.

It looked like both McLarens used the smaller rear wing. Hamilton was only 4-6 kph slower than the frontrunners, not a big difference. Therefore McLaren appears to be converging toward the same downforce/drag tradeoff as everyone else. OK, I'm still rooting for Hamilton!! Or maybe Massa until he is told to move over for Alonso!!

[donskar]

Whether its the wing or not, I'm amazed that with all its simulators, supercomputers, and savants, McL can't even get the right gears. Hamilton quoted in autosport.com:

"I tried to use the tow of another car because we're so slow on the straight. We have the wrong gearing, so we're 10km/h - maybe more, maybe 12-13km/h - slower on the straight. So we're losing a couple of tenths just on the back straight."

Smokescreen?

[Princey]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/formula ... 740225.stm

wonder what the bad news on the car is?

some weather reports say small chance of rain.. some say thunderstorms.. we will have to wait and see.

[Pierce89]

Hamilton way negative. From Autosport: "I tried to use the tow of another car because we're so slow on the straight. We have the wrong gearing, so we're 10km/h - maybe more, maybe 12-13km/h - slower on the straight. So we're losing a couple of tenths just on the back straight.

"But I pushed as hard and that's as good as we can get."

He fears that polesitter Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull are beginning to look uncatchable, and that McLaren's form has stagnated.

"Vettel's gone, he's on his way," Hamilton said. "They're very, very hard for us to catch at this rate.

"But I'm still positive and I'm still hopeful. I don't know when we've got anything coming, but I really, really hope sometime soon we'll have something positive come to the car.

"We didn't really come with any upgrades, the car's not really progressed a lot. While we've been bringing a lot of different updates every now and then, they're not making the car faster generally.

"So we've been at a bit of a standstill for a while. The guys are working as hard as they can, and it's just a matter of time."

[Pierce89]

The large McLaren wing appears clearly taller (thicker cord) than other frontrunner Canada wings. I am comfortable assuming it makes more downforce and drag.

I still like raymondu999's comment that McLaren may be using more wing to create less sliding/wear on the tires during the race.

If you look at P3 both McLarens were about 1 sec off Vettel's time. The fastest car through the trap was a Toro Roso at 327 kph. Vettel (typical frontrunner wing) was 320. Button was 317, Hamilton was 308!!!

I think Hamilton and Button must have been running a split wing strategy if they had similar lap times with such large trap differences.

Will be interesting during qualy to see McLaren wing sizes and compare trap speeds.

It looked like both McLarens used the smaller rear wing. Hamilton was only 4-6 kph slower than the frontrunners, not a big difference. Therefore McLaren appears to be converging toward the same downforce/drag tradeoff as everyone else. OK, I'm still rooting for Hamilton!! Or maybe Massa until he is told to move over for Alonso!!

Edit: removed my crappy Massa joke.It wasn't funny anyways. But , back on topic: Mclaren seem lost this weekend. No top speed, but no grip in the corners either, strange, very un-Mclaren.

[Pierce89]

Rather than getting the compromise wrong and having to much top speed, or to much downforce, it seems like something small went wrong somwhere on their Canada package and hurt their aero efficiency. They don't have any top speed or any downforce. It's really strange. I really believe there is some small error in their Canada specific low drag package, or they've made some error in set-up, but Lewis didn't seem to think things are working right.

[PlatinumZealot]

N_Smikle ignores the fact that airplanes trim wing as speed increases I think we can all agree that's quite illegal in F1 making the graph worse than useless. The induced drag also increases with the square of speed in an f1 car(ignoring the DRS of course).So, while the U pods may help with drag(I doubt it, as they have just as large of openings as other top teams)but they're main purpose is to get more flow to the beam wing, increasing it's usefulness.

You are ignoring the fact, that I have already stated that fact in that post. Talk about glossing over posts.

[Pierce89]

N_Smikle ignores the fact that airplanes trim wing as speed increases I think we can all agree that's quite illegal in F1 making the graph worse than useless. The induced drag also increases with the square of speed in an f1 car(ignoring the DRS of course).So, while the U pods may help with drag(I doubt it, as they have just as large of openings as other top teams)but they're main purpose is to get more flow to the beam wing, increasing it's usefulness.

You are ignoring the fact, that I have already stated that fact in that post. Talk about glossing over posts.

Then why the worthless graph with zero relevance to F1?

[PlatinumZealot]

Again You didn't read the post but I will redraw the graph to please you. I will change the red line and black line.

Which one do you think is higher in F1, Form drag or Induced drag? Tell me so I can redraw the graph.

[PlatinumZealot]

Rather than getting the compromise wrong and having to much top speed, or to much downforce, it seems like something small went wrong somwhere on their Canada package and hurt their aero efficiency. They don't have any top speed or any downforce. It's really strange. I really believe there is some small error in their Canada specific low drag package, or they've made some error in set-up, but Lewis didn't seem to think things are working right.

Hamilton says the 7th gear is too Long. The car is drag limited and not to mention it's top speed is lower.

Too much wing then lol. I want to see how this works out tomorrow.