Mclaren MP4-29H

[F1NAC]

Interesting. McLaren have been careful to only provide shots from the side and and above/side. No shots from the front or rear of the car. I think this is partially to do with the fact that they want to show off the "Honda" sign on the car and also so that people looking at the pictures have no idea if they changed the size of the cooling intakes/exhausts.

I was hoping to get some pictures from the front and rear to compare that for the specific reason to try to tell if the Honda unit needs more, less or the same cooling as the Merc. If we could see this then it might give some insight into the heat rejection requirements of the Honda unit.

As it stands now, it APPEARS that the same cooling intakes/exhausts are used as on the Merc powered car, even down to the chimneys on the edges of the sidepods. This would indicate that the Honda unit has similar cooling requirements as the Merc unit. McLaren openly said that they weren't running the car hard and as such cooling demands would be lower, I don't think that tells the whole story though. There must have been at least a few full throttle runs and as such will require the same cooling capacity as a car ready to race (at least as far as the ICE is concerned), this leads me to believe that the cooling capacity they used is sufficient to race with.

Cooling required for this seasons power units roughly corresponds to the efficiency to some degree because of the fuel flow limit.

From what I can see and the available information I would make a guess that the Honda unit isn't that far behind the Merc unit as per cooling requirements and maybe efficiency. This bodes well from what I can see of the Honda unit.

A second option, and being a McLaren/Honda fan would be very good to hear, would be that some of the cooling intakes/exhausts have been blocked off inside the bodywork and that the Honda power unit actually requires less cooling than required by the Merc power unit. Should this be true that should indicate that the Honda power unit turns more fuel into energy to the crank than waste heat that needs to be rejected by the cooling system. This would be a dream ideal but is impossible to tell if it is even remotely possible with the current pictures.

As it stands it appears that the cooling requirements are generally similar to the Merc power unit and to me gives me a little more confidence that Honda are progressing quite well.

P.s. Would a mod mind putting a sticky on this topic to allow this thread to go to the top of the list when it is posted on?

But Mclaren has this season massive sidepods if you look better. But in the other hand they didn't put too much stress on engine. So there wasn't need for changing too much radiators

[CHT]

Wonder what kind of livery will Mclaren/Honda use for next season.

[mikeerfol]

The only information I need is wether Mclaren has already built a new gearbox for this test car or not... if no, that means the Honda Pu has a Merc split turbo design and has atleast the same dimensions as the Merc.
BTW, it's me or the rear top wishbones look different? anyway they look as big as any other Merc engined car rear wishbones...

I believe I read somewhere that the transmission was different but I can't find it now..

[marcush.]

so you are Honda ,and you happen to have access to the dominant PU currently in use in the championship you want to compete in .

The Dominant competitor has a very firm stance on keeping the PUs freezed as they are for as long as possible....I ´d think not many R&D department would think very long about the comcept layout in that case...if they had not something head and shoulders better than that up their sleeve.

Let´s assume the Daimler PU is a bit close to the spirit of the rules when it comes to the Turbo/Generator unit it does make indeed sense to follow the concept totally -as this will not be contested by FIA or Mercedes ....and even if Ferrari or Renault would have insight to prove nothing could be done ..Nobody will dare to take that title away from Merc

so the Honda PU will be a close cousin to the DAI unit itis simply a no brainer ....especially when thinking about the japanese thought process of taking something good and hone and refine it (kaizen)..

They are perfectly placed to do exactly their thing .

Mercedes will have a hard time next year -Mclaren will have top RedBull aerodynamics plus a "blueprinted" or "golden" Daimler AMG PU to go with it .. and don´t forget the 5tenths already in the bag
with Fernando Alonso ....

-coincidently RedBull had not much going on with Aero this year plus a car which was not able to compensate the PU weakness ....a first hint of who brought performance to the car at RBR in recent years now that Peter P. is not with them anymore? Sure it is a big questionmark how the guy performs when not inspired by Newey ...

[xpensive]

It's reasonable to assume that Honda has access to the power characteristics of the MHPE PU to the minute, why benchmarking should be easy enough, but that would only be for the units delivered to McLaren, Mercedes' own such is a different matter.

[f1rules]

looking at this picture, the upper wishbone is right underneath the 3cooling gills, whereas on the 29H its in front, or?

but the again that picture respresents the first vers. 29, without the shortened sidepods that was introduced during the season, so im not so sure

Nope, everything looks the same

Those vents have been there off and on all year.

The car looks pretty much the same, which is sensible, because there's no reason to introduce new variables unless it's absolutely necessary.

http://i.imgur.com/uQo1yxV.jpg

The real challenge for Honda is going to be systems integration. If anything trips them up next year, I think it will be that. Frankly, I'd be very surprised if it doesn't.

[xpensive]

First rule of any development-testing is to never change more than one thing at the time.

[McMrocks]

Wonder what kind of livery will Mclaren/Honda use for next season.

That's what we all wonder. But it doesn't matter as long as it is painted on something fast

[turbof1]

First rule of any development-testing is to never change more than one thing at the time.

That has become obsolete ever since testing got restricted. Nowadays you can't afford to run seperate tests for every single change since all your testing channels, windtunnel or on track, are very limited. It forces everyone to make the most of what they have.

The biggest concern is that you should be able to completely seperate the variables and if not, can calculate accurately what the interference between them are. If you can meet those conditions, you can and really should test more then one thing. After all, mclaren only had 100km of track running.

I hear a lot of people taking that line by heart. They fear it makes things over complicated and forces some of the focus away from the main reason of the test. However, data is simply gathered by sensors and transmitted to the pitwall, where it is inmediately stored on hard drives. Also, since aero wouldn't inmediately influence engine performance, there's little interference. For instance a wing stalling or the floor bottoming out isn't any matter to engine performance. Only very radical aero changes like a tightening of the coke bottle or vortices diverting air away from the sidepod inlets would create interference. So in short you can absolutely ignore the aero variables and fully focus on the engine; the aero data gets picked up by sensors and can be examined a few days afterwards.

Especially since this more a system check then a performance test. The main purpose of the test was to get malfunctions on the radar. There's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't test other changes.

[xpensive]

This was of course no real test in anger, but if you wish to get an accurate back-to-back test of the Honda vs MHPE PUs,
there's no way you can change anything but the engines, is there? But perhaps we are talking about different things here?

[turbof1]

This was of course no real test in anger, but if you wish to get an accurate back-to-back test of the Honda vs MHPE PUs,
there's no way you can change anything but the engines, is there? But perhaps we are talking about different things here?

What's going to be accurate about a comparison between the Honda and Mecedes PU? The engine they ran isn't the final product they'll run in 2015. The test was to get any gremlins detected now that there's still time to fix those, and to see if all the components perform as expected. Still fail to see how aero plays a role in that.

They can change anything they want during such a test (or officially called a filming day). The only limitations are 100km and show tyres, designed to slow the car down. As such things like lap times or top speeds are irrelevant. What matters is your points of downforce picked up by sensors, PU output picked up by sensors, heat picked by sensors and the car simply not breaking down.

[xpensive]

This was of course no real test in anger, ...

Other than that; "First rule of any forum is to never debate with the moderator."

[turbof1]

This was of course no real test in anger, ...

Other than that; "First rule of the forum is to never debate with the moderator."

I'm debating this as a member . You are more then allowed to show that I'm wrong and humiliate me as long as it's done professionaly .

I simply don't agree with the notion. My standpoint is that if you are in F1, and you are serious about it, everything you do is "in anger". It's getting the most out of your rare oppertunities. Dennis' mantra is perfection, knowing that he'll try to get everything and anything out of that filming day. It bugged him out that tiles in his fancy tech centre had a slightly different tint of gray; wanna know how he feels when he hears that the team didn't try out some new aero solutions and gathered data from it?

[Hobbs04]

http://t.co/GMwQSoohcg

Notice this picture of the Mercedes recent photo, the gills are missing. Not sure if this is USA or Brazil gp though.

[Mesteño]

That chrome/blue look of the car is amazing.