McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

[Marco Alves]

Paddy Lowe McLaren ""We have a new front wing and something we hope to take forward through to the last few races of the season"

[aral]

I guess it's just a pity Pirelli don't supply front wings to teams.

The McLaren pitwall were happy to let us spend half a week labouring under the illusion that Hamilton had punctured a rear in Japan, before the tyre company interjected with facts to put us straight.

Now we have that same pitwall insisting phantom chunks of rubber and unspecified damage to both front wings, on both cars, at the same time, and to the same detrimental effect on laptime ... apparently.

They took a best guess on dry setup, and landed a mile-off, good for a lap, voracious on fronts soon after.

I take mclaren's word seriously though. The airfoil can be easily spoiled by foreign matter under the wing. You don't need a huge 1 inch chunk of rubber to do it. Simple small lumps of rubber just behind the leading edge can disrupt the air flow significantly, direct loss of down-force and increase in drag.

The camera's will never be able to catch such things like rubber lumps under the front wing of all places, unless the camera guy has the wing put down on a work table.. so all this doubt based on the pictures is unfounded.

And were's your evidence to back up your latest theory? If the McLaren wing can pick up rubber so easily, then so will every other wing of every other car. Or does the McLaren have some secret rubber magnet under the back of the wing?

[PlatinumZealot]

Mclaren engineers! and the fact that drivers struggled with understeer which got worse as the race continued.

If you can explain differently or link to some source how ten points of down-force was lost from the front axle I am all ears.

[raymondu999]

gilgen I guess right now there's no evidence supporting the marble theory, but no other credible theories either right now; and the marble one is the most credible at the moment.

[Richard]

Yes there was a comment about marbles blocking the front wing, but it is odd that this has never been reported before by any team. Also Hamilton said he had a very good look at the front wing and couldn't see anything wrong. Also F1 teams often cite spurious claims in order to disguise things from other teams.

Personally, I can't understand why marbles have suddenly become a problem for one team at one race when no other team at any other race has noted this before.

One can only conclude it was either saying something to feed the press ...

... or there was something unusual about the McLaren front wing at this race. A thin slot perhaps. As Whitmarsh said about Mercedes, if you are not developing something like that now, then you are too late for the start of next season.

[PlatinumZealot]

Wait, leeds, neither you nor I would see anything on the front wing even if we in parc ferme. You get me? Hamilton can't see anything on that wing. Only the mechanics and the engineers who pull apart the car. You just need some hot rubber sticking to the underside which is not visible from eye level.

[raymondu999]

... or there was something unusual about the McLaren front wing at this race. A thin slot perhaps. As Whitmarsh said about Mercedes, if you are not developing something like that now, then you are too late for the start of next season.

From the tone of this paragraph... are you saying they were perhaps testing the front wing f-duct, and it kind of failed, and this is how it bit them back?

[Mandrake]

Wait, leeds, neither you nor I would see anything on the front wing even if we in parc ferme. You get me? Hamilton can't see anything on that wing. Only the mechanics and the engineers who pull apart the car. You just need some hot rubber sticking to the underside which is not visible from eye level.

Well, given that some cars run a whole race without a part of an endplate without any significant loss of performance I'm sure if something on the front wing was making the car lose 10 points of DF, it would be clearly visible.

I'm still with Richard that it's either been a setup issue or some experimental part on the FW (although we have no evidence that something was different on the front wing)

RE Lowe's statement about the new FW: I believe McLaren have now switched to development for 2012 as well. Both championships are over which means that the remaining races (despite running for price money) have no impact on WDC/WCC standings. It will be interesting to see if that new FW sports elements of the MGP FW to exploit the possible benefits of such a blown wing. If they do not test it now it's gonna be too late. (And yes, building a basic FW with a hole in the nose and vanes leading to the lower end of the wing is possible in such short time. The efficiency will of course not be at the same level as with a long developed wing)

[aral]

Mclaren engineers! and the fact that drivers struggled with understeer which got worse as the race continued.

If you can explain differently or link to some source how ten points of down-force was lost from the front axle I am all ears.

So, McLaren engineers are another source of "reliable" info for you?
There has been no comment whatsoever from them about your latest "theory". I am sure that if there was such an unlikely problem, it would have been mentioned by them.
In fact, the problem was in the tyres. The team had increased the balnce to the front wheels, making the car more pointy. This caused overheating in the fronts, raising tyre pressures and thus ride height. Lack of dry running in practice had disguised the problem.
There is little to be gained from making wilf theories, theories that are discrediting the skills of the McLaren engineers, whom, according to you, seem to have little knowledge of design. I guess they won.t be offering you a job, to sort out their problems.
.

[raymondu999]

Why would their fronts be overheating though? If anything a pointy front would be overheating rears.

[feynman]

Even if it was chunks of rubber and mystery rocks, I don't see why they would so loudly announce it.
Now their rivals have two men with pointy sticks checking front wings in every pitstop, instead of finding out for themselves the hard way.
Just announce it as an "issue identified", and declare it resolved.

With misdirection and misinformation being the currency of F1, just as good practice I'd automatically look everywhere else except for a lump of mischievous rubber.

If I was trying a new flexi wing design, or aero tweaks, or front suspension components that failed to function as anticipated, but were still of interest for 2012, I'd try to get people looking elsewhere too.
Or if I'd made a massive miscalculation from prodigious Friday pace, to very ordinary Sunday pace, perhaps to sacrifice front-end for rear-longevity ... and I was struggling with a clearly agitated driver that had already obviously lost confidence in that team, I'd surely come up with a similarly random, external explanation.

And yes, it could have been a bit of rubber and an unseen rock that put the kibosh on both cars at once and with the same fault-mode, of course it could, but until it happens again, to cars that had proper dry-running, I respectfully reserve the right to be dubious about any unlikely and improbable sounding, unverified, team-generated explanation.

[megasyxx]

I hope they'll invent something like a gizmo that scoops up marbles, burn em and turn it to extra downforce or extra fuel

[PlatinumZealot]

Wait, leeds, neither you nor I would see anything on the front wing even if we in parc ferme. You get me? Hamilton can't see anything on that wing. Only the mechanics and the engineers who pull apart the car. You just need some hot rubber sticking to the underside which is not visible from eye level.

Well, given that some cars run a whole race without a part of an endplate without any significant loss of performance I'm sure if something on the front wing was making the car lose 10 points of DF, it would be clearly visible.

I'm still with Richard that it's either been a setup issue or some experimental part on the FW (although we have no evidence that something was different on the front wing)

I also believe that it could be an experimental part on the front wing. Not so warmed to the setup being a problem though. They could even have an F-duct front wing on and the ducts got clogged.

[Owen.C93]

Wait, leeds, neither you nor I would see anything on the front wing even if we in parc ferme. You get me? Hamilton can't see anything on that wing. Only the mechanics and the engineers who pull apart the car. You just need some hot rubber sticking to the underside which is not visible from eye level.

Well, given that some cars run a whole race without a part of an endplate without any significant loss of performance I'm sure if something on the front wing was making the car lose 10 points of DF, it would be clearly visible.

I'm still with Richard that it's either been a setup issue or some experimental part on the FW (although we have no evidence that something was different on the front wing)

I also believe that it could be an experimental part on the front wing. Not so warmed to the setup being a problem though. They could even have an F-duct front wing on and the ducts got clogged.

I don't see how that would lose you 10points of DF though.

[Shrieker]

If an f-ducted front wing is configured to stall only above a given speed (say, 300km/h) it might end up getting stalled all the time when it gets clogged. I don't think that was the case with McLaren in Korea though. But in theory yes, a clogged part can cause an f-ducted front wing to stall all the time.