Vodafone McLaren MP4-27 Mercedes

[dren]

What we need, but McLaren will hope does not happen for obvious reasons, is for an engine to go all smokey during testing. Then we'll get to see where the exhaust and surrounding flows are going.

Looking at the sidepod design from the rear 3/4s
we can see that the sidepod is very undercut at the front and this undercut is mirrored, in some part, by the exhaust pod. The leading edge of the floor has a delta-shaped winglet that is, I guess, designed to create a powerful vortext that runs along the side of the floor. There is a cut out midway along the floor where the sidepod is at its widest. Perhaps the idea is to allow/force the vortext to run under the floor at this point and thus feed back towards the diffuser?

The undercut and pod will, I'm sure, be aimed at giving good flow to the rear floor and thus the top of the diffuser. Note the step shape in the barge board in front of the sidepod undercut. This will produce another strong vortext that, presumably, is supposed to flow along the undercut and then to the pod. Perhaps the vortex interacts with the exhaust flow to turn it towards the beam wing? Or perhaps the exhaust engergises the flow on its way to the beam wing? Getting the beam wing working hard will help the diffuser to work too, especially if there is good top flow over the diffuser thanks to the undercut.

At the front, the snowplough is retained. This is likely to generate a pair of very strong vorticesthat will run back towards the sidepods and interact with the barge boards there. The tea tray is also quite well developed in order to direct good quality air under the leading edge of the floor below the sidepods.

The rear of teh car is more open than last year and should help with keeping good flow above the diffuser.

Overall, I reckon there are some interesting details/ideas in this car.

And the fact that they've avoided the horrible 'broken nose' look should, I think, be awarded with 10 bonus points before the season even starts!

Good notes. I agree, that is what it looks like is going on. I am curious about the role the exhaust is playing. I am not convinced that is going to be the final solution.

[Crucial_Xtreme]

Scarbs drawing of the MP4-27

[aleks_ader]

Thx Srabs you stole my thoughts! =D> That i think is goig about! Exhaust will be much higher (look this replacemend part)...

[Mr.S]

Conservative, fat, and ugly. Wow, I mean, even with a smoothe nose they managed to make this thing look stupid. The Caterham had something about it, something that was likable and added character, but this looks bland and uninspired. I hope they can challenge Red Bull this year, but I have some serious doubts. This car doesn't look to be a winner, at least not yet.

But then again, we have to wait and see what everyone else is bringing to the table.

And to anyone who says this is the most beautiful car this year; you've only seen two. Please keep the fanboy-ism to yourselves, thanks....

Great Post. I could not care more about the love-fest going on here with the DONT post.

This is not a winner. Solid & Conservative Car.

[Caito]

Fangio once said "pretty cars are the ones who win"

[Just_a_fan]

Conservative, fat, and ugly. Wow, I mean, even with a smoothe nose they managed to make this thing look stupid. The Caterham had something about it, something that was likable and added character, but this looks bland and uninspired. I hope they can challenge Red Bull this year, but I have some serious doubts. This car doesn't look to be a winner, at least not yet.

But then again, we have to wait and see what everyone else is bringing to the table.

And to anyone who says this is the most beautiful car this year; you've only seen two. Please keep the fanboy-ism to yourselves, thanks....

Great Post. I could not care more about the love-fest going on here with the DONT post.

This is not a winner. Solid & Conservative Car.

Perhaps you two could enlighten us on the specific areas of the car that you feel need to be changed and how you'd do so. After all, that would be a technical input in to a technical discussion on a technical forum. Hint: the words "fat" and "conservative" are not actually very useful in this dicussion...

And if the car does win races, will you be back in here saying "oops, I was wrong, the car is a winner after all?"

[Raptor22]

Is Scarbs suggesting the exhaust Horn housing will be replaced by a radiator exit?
That could be smart to speed up airflow toward the rear and still providing more energy to the diffusor exit.
In the Merc thread I proprosed something similar for the W03 but with a U shape rear to the side pods, or rather "L" shaped if you view them singularly.

That would be a ver logical solution. Diffuse the radiator exhaust gas through a divergent nozzle to speed up the flow, dump it into the exhaust stream to add energy and you fill the volume above the rear floor with faster moving hot air.

I wish I had a CFD tool now...

[Crucial_Xtreme]

About the nose:

The detachable nose cone is able to sit below the 55cm maximum height that the rules allow without an ugly step.

McLaren's technical director Paddy Lowe explained that "this approach places the mass of the nose lower and enables it to fit its preferred front suspension geometry."


No U shaped sidepods:

This allows a large undercut beneath the radiators, to feed air to the rear of the car. Again Lowe explains that McLaren's desire for a slim rear end and top central cooling outlet made it hard to package the "U" sidepod.

In fact, it is the new rules on exhausts that have created the strangest add-on to the MP4-27 - the exhaust bulge. Exhausts must now exit at least 20cm above the floor, and the final 10cm of exhaust is defined in terms of the angle it can point upward at.

McLaren has chosen to place the exhaust as low and far from the car's centreline as possible, and then angled it steeply upwards to point towards the rear wing. It is possible that this design will help create a blown rear wing, bringing a useful gain in downforce when so much grip has been lost from the banning of exhaust blown diffusers.

Lowe confirmed the exhaust fairing and its outlet position will be changed, as different ideas are tried in testing.

via Scarbs

[Just_a_fan]

Any thoughts about the white line on the beam wing? Have they figured out a legal way to blow the wing? Is this one of Whitmarsh's "legal, honest" bits?

Or is it just something simple like a reflection/joint/something else?

[Mr.S]

Conservative, fat, and ugly. Wow, I mean, even with a smoothe nose they managed to make this thing look stupid. The Caterham had something about it, something that was likable and added character, but this looks bland and uninspired. I hope they can challenge Red Bull this year, but I have some serious doubts. This car doesn't look to be a winner, at least not yet.

But then again, we have to wait and see what everyone else is bringing to the table.

And to anyone who says this is the most beautiful car this year; you've only seen two. Please keep the fanboy-ism to yourselves, thanks....

Great Post. I could not care more about the love-fest going on here with the DONT post.

This is not a winner. Solid & Conservative Car.

Perhaps you two could enlighten us on the specific areas of the car that you feel need to be changed and how you'd do so. After all, that would be a technical input in to a technical discussion on a technical forum. Hint: the words "fat" and "conservative" are not actually very useful in this dicussion...

And if the car does win races, will you be back in here saying "oops, I was wrong, the car is a winner after all?"

No I wont. It's not a winner. I am willing to get embarassed. It is 80 % carried over. Even with updates,there is nothing that will help them make those 1.5s for EBD loss. Nothing. I would not be surprised to see a 4th place finish. I will reply to this after Ferrari,RBR & Mercedes launch their cars. Till then bye

[Owen.C93]

Any thoughts about the white line on the beam wing? Have they figured out a legal way to blow the wing? Is this one of Whitmarsh's "legal, honest" bits?

Or is it just something simple like a reflection/joint/something else?

I thought it was a reflection off the drive shaft. You can't see it in this image.

[Shaddock]

I've photochopped the exhaust bulge off the 27.

In simple terms of exposed floor surface area, the 27 has the 26 and 25 easily beat. The 27's sidepod tapper starts earlier and is more pronounced.

The width (fatness) of the bodywork around the rear wheel centre line does show that the 27 is the slimest of McLearens recent cars.

Would be nice to see an overhead of last years RB and this years Caterham side by side.

[Crucial_Xtreme]

Any thoughts about the white line on the beam wing? Have they figured out a legal way to blow the wing? Is this one of Whitmarsh's "legal, honest" bits?

Or is it just something simple like a reflection/joint/something else?

I think what you see is just a reflection.

[N12ck]

Great Post. I could not care more about the love-fest going on here with the DONT post.

This is not a winner. Solid & Conservative Car.

Perhaps you two could enlighten us on the specific areas of the car that you feel need to be changed and how you'd do so. After all, that would be a technical input in to a technical discussion on a technical forum. Hint: the words "fat" and "conservative" are not actually very useful in this dicussion...

And if the car does win races, will you be back in here saying "oops, I was wrong, the car is a winner after all?"

No I wont. It's not a winner. I am willing to get embarassed. It is 80 % carried over. Even with updates,there is nothing that will help them make those 1.5s for EBD loss. Nothing. I would not be surprised to see a 4th place finish. I will reply to this after Ferrari,RBR & Mercedes launch their cars. Till then bye

Judging on the fact that Mclaren have won races in 2009 when they had that awful preseason, won races in 2010 won races in 2011 with that awful preseason, you are saying the car isn't a winner, I will keep my judgement back until I see the first race, however, even if its not a winner now, McLaren as we all know will probably make it a winner, however we still dont know what relative performances are so we cant make them assumptions This car may even be the fastest car in 2012, we dont know until the qualifying in Melbourne

[marcush.]

if one could be sure of something then it was :fancy new outlandish looks usually don´t pay off.spectacular solutions more often than not face unsurmountable tradeoffs and Mclaren have chosen a road of evolution ,correcting details in their concept which have not paid off last season methinks.
Judging from last years performance I think this is a valid approach as usually they were close ,closest to RB..Of course they have to hope Newey has not found the next magic bullet...or someone else has...

As for the exhausts..I don´t think there is much left to find with these ....It just does not make sense to put all that effort into an area especially regulated to avoid making gains.the magic bullet is to be found somehwere else ..an area that was not en vogue recently...exactly like exhaust were not really en vogue after everyone had changed to periscope ones a few years ago...