A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
myurr wrote:Give it a rest Ringo. Did you not notice how Charlies last minute sop to Horner hurt McLaren disproportionately as they suddenly weren't allowed the engine overrun necessary on those cars to balance engine braking and KERS harvesting? Or how they had only 20 mins or so to make all the changes to their cars software and setup to accommodate that change, whereas all the other teams had been running in FP3 with the configuration they took into qualifying? Or that because of this Hamilton ended up ditching the new rear wing, presumably for a better known package with more down force, so he entered qualifying have never driven that aero setup before?
This whole weekend has been an utter farce, principally because Horner has thrown a juvenile strop trying to find an advantage for his team and Charlie has been trying to placate him. Only one engine manufacturer had to enter qualifying using different rules to those they were expecting to run this weekend - Mercedes. All the other teams were using the setups and configurations that they had intended to before they arrived at Silverstone, only the Mercedes teams were told they could run in a different configuration prior to the weekend.
We've also had so little running time that this weekend was never going to be a true indicator of relative performance. I said that before the weekend started and I stick to it now.
Mclaren ran a practice with 10% throttle and a practice with 50% throttle so what change did they go into quali without running? Oh and Mclaren never complained till they showed up and got slapped by Ferrari and a straight up beating from Red Bull. When they thought the rule change would bring them closer to Red Bull they liked it. Lastly Red Bull IS running different from how they thought they would. They didn't get their 50% cold blowing till Friday, while Mercedes had 10% hot blowing coming in to the weekend, if they ran 50% in quali, I highly doubt it hurt them.
“To be able to actually make something is awfully nice”
Bruce McLaren on building his first McLaren racecars, 1970
“I've got to be careful what I say, but possibly to probably Juan would have had a bigger go”
Sir Frank Williams after the 2003 Canadian GP, where Ralf hesitated to pass brother M. Schumacher
I think it may be a tyre issue, with getting heat into them. We will see come tomorrow, if they have some pace then, it was a heat issue, if not, well then the car is just plain slow.
L-shaped sidepods means more flow above the beam wing while U-shaped sidepods means more flow under the beam wing.
With a normal exhaust system, the U-shaped sidepods design has more downforce.
If you have the L-shaped sidepods and could nevertheless make the flow go under the beam wing with the same efficiency as U-shaped sidepods, you have the jolly because you have more flow above the beam wing.
Octopus exhausts definitely realised this
- Part of the hot gases was used to make the flow around the L-shaped sidepod go where you need it (lateral exhausts slots)
- Part of them was blown under the beam wing and should have speed up the flow under the beam wing so the beam wing had more downforce
- Part of them was blown inside the diffuser to increase diffuser efficiency
L-shaped sidepods + Octopus should have worked wonderfully well
Their rear pull-rod suspension was thought for THAT level (high) of downforce, and in that case would have been wonderfully efficient and tyre-saving
But this did not work, for reasons I don't know. So they switched to RBR-exhausts which made their diffuser extremly efficient but didn't exploit their top-beam wing flow. I think that the Octopus config could have 20% more downforce than RBR one, meaning they could even run without a rear wing.
McLaren MP4-27 ? I think that they'll go for U-shaped sidepods and maybe they'll switch again to push-rod suspension (without blowing there is no need for pull-rod).
The title is already gone, little of this car can be taken next year, so they should consider (if they haven't already done: except wings, no big updates since Barcelona) stop working on MP4-26.
If they are interested (but this could be a waste of time) they could try again the Octopus, for "what could have been if ..."
I agree with some of your post, but definitely disagree with the bit about running without a rear wing.
With the change in exhaust position for next year we could see the L shaped side pods come into their own again. If this proves to be the case then maybe McLaren with their extra year of experience will be competitive at the front again, but as you say this year is over. They should be diverting resources to next years car but not making the mistake that other teams have in the past by doing this behind the scenes. Get revised parts on the car, do FP1 with next years exhausts, and get some real world data on what is going on so that they can have the most refined and efficient design for next year.
Whilst Jenson and Lewis may wish they could fight for it this year, I'm sure they'd trade a few podiums this year for a real shot at the title next year. Leave it to Ferrari to keep pressure on Red Bull and back port advances that would work with this years car, but the real focus should be on next year. Exhausts aside the car should be an evolution of this years so the test data should be invaluable.
Coefficient wrote:You aren't aloud any downforce devices in that area.
Not sure about that, but it would contravene this:
3.8.4 Any vertical cross section of bodywork normal to the car centre line situated in the volumes defined below must form one tangent continuous curve on its external surface. This tangent continuous curve may not contain any radius less than 75mm :
a) the volume between 50mm forward of the rear wheel centre line and 300mm rearward of the rear face of the cockpit entry template, which is more than 25mm from the car centre line and more than 100mm above the reference plane ;
They already have winglets there
Indeed they do have winglets there but they are Aero Neutral, simple flow straighteners. To design the sidepod as an extra wing is illegal. We have seen no development in this respect because its not legal. Pre 2009 the cars had winglets sprouting out all over the sidepods but this was banned to reduce costs. Teams were running massive wind tunnel programmes to develop silly little winglets that meant nothing to the average viewer and made the cars look weird so the FIA boxed the sidepods off which is why we see so many iterations of front wings these days. All those cascades etc appear and are constantly modified because it's on of the only things they can develop as far as negative lift is concerned.
"I started out with nothing and I've still got most of it".
I don't understand the perspective that if a car needs to conserve fuel then something went "wrong".
In the long run you want your errors to be like this: More fuel than optimum 50% of the time, less fuel than optimum 50% of the time. The penalty for either error is simply less speed on your way to the finish.
That may be true, but it makes a difference at the end of the race, and judging by the end of most races this year, it's where it is won and lost a lot of the time. It seems very important to be fast at the end of the race this year, instead of the beginning. Although I'm not saying you should be slow in the beginning, just that it seems there is a much higher chance of winning the race in the last ten laps than there has been in the past.
The real problem with the McLaren appears to be how they condition air traveling through the sidepods and out of the cooling orifices, as the exit of these hot gasses can combine with the flow of the relatively cooler ambient air. The difference in temperature creates a pressure gradient that other teams seem to be better at exploiting. Part of this comes from the unintended consequence that their L shaped sidepods are actually very efficient at cooling, and therefore, do not need nearly as much ventilation as the other teams.
Basically the exhaust would go into (but not connect to I believe to try and keep it legal) a box. From that box would be more exhaust pipes going to the different areas which would benefit. What they were trying to do was find a loop hole in the rule which only allows 2 exhausts.
I think it would have been worth a lot of time had it worked, but it didn't for what ever reason. I also don't think it was legal at the time due to the material it was made from - correct me though if i'm wrong, this is just memory.
The octopus it still only rumour. When I mentioned it to the Mclaren guy that sorted out my Canada garage tour he didnt have a clue what octopus was all about. He described the failed exhaust as just very flat, thin long exits.
thestig84 wrote:The octopus it still only rumour. When I mentioned it to the Mclaren guy that sorted out my Canada garage tour he didnt have a clue what octopus was all about. He described the failed exhaust as just very flat, thin long exits.
We never saw where they were though :L
Motorsport Graduate in search of team experience ;)
