McLaren MP4-30 Pre-launch Speculation

[PABLOEING]

Promodrou was working "in house" for McLaren before September......the MP4-30 is his toy.

[Sebp]

Don't they start designing the car a lot earlier?

[Burgess]

Yes some teams might have multiple design teams who are working on next years car before the current one even starts its championship.

[WaikeCU]

Yes some teams might have multiple design teams who are working on next years car before the current one even starts its championship.

I think it's pure resource allocation. For example an IT company has a set of developers. There are few that are developing stuff for the next release (read: next season), while there are developers working on current fixes for defects, incidents and/or problems (read: current season).

I think there's a similar image in F1. Also, because F1 has changed from analogue technology to a more digital technology where software has a big influence on the performance of a car. So therefor F1 could be seen like a IT/technology company.

[Sebp]

So what will Prodromou have been able to influence since september? Front wing endplates? Monkey seat?
Surely not the basic aerodynamic concept of the new contender.

[mclaren111]

They normally have two design teams, and work in cycles.

MP4/29 design team will design and race MP4/31.

MP4/30 design team will now race and develop it, and move on to MP4/32.

[astracrazy]

They normally have two design teams, and work in cycles.

MP4/29 design team will design and race MP4/31.

MP4/30 design team will now race and develop it, and move on to MP4/32.

I'm sure they stopped that a few cars ago

[mclaren111]

Anyone who can confirm/advise which is correct ???

[Thunder]

So what will Prodromou have been able to influence since september? Front wing endplates? Monkey seat?
Surely not the basic aerodynamic concept of the new contender.

Hmm since they brought a completely new PP Front Wing (not just Endplates) to Abu Dhabi already i would say he has a pretty big influence.

[Sasha]

MP4-30 will have full PP thinking AERO.

Honda always liked air-cooled over water-cooled,so the air-to-air intercooler was already designed in before PP started.

Honda engines are almost always over built(heavy) it's first version(first year)so they must find ways to get the CG lower
(air-to-air intercooler in sidepod does that).

[raymondu999]

They normally have two design teams, and work in cycles.

MP4/29 design team will design and race MP4/31.

MP4/30 design team will now race and develop it, and move on to MP4/32.

I'm sure they stopped that a few cars ago

Correct - they did so in 2011.

[PlatinumZealot]

It would be stupid to put air-air intercoolers at the back of the sidepods, like RBR did, or even at the front of the sidepods, with the Merc architecture.

Yup.
I would strongly tend to think that these bulky AA Intercoolers were a bit of an Achilles Heel for the RB10. RB broke its legacy of having the tiniest and slimmest sidepods with RB10 and I'm quite sure that is why the W05 was at least on par or probably even better aerodynamically.
If I were asked for conclusions from this year I would probably say:
- Use split Turbo architecure on the engine.
- Don't use AA Intercoolers.
- Don't waste precious resources on fancy silver bullets (Butterfly Suspension). The W05 did not feature anything really fancy. Just a couple of sound fundamental layout decisions and thorough Detail Engineering.

A bit faulty reasoning there. Mercedes were the only merc engine with unconfirmed intercooler type. It is assumed to be air to water. However, all the other merc engined cars were air to air and that worked well for them. Air to air is more efficient and in theory air to water could give a smaller frontal area. I could not tell you which in real life takes up less space though. Williams were the most powerful machine and they had air to air. I can see why honda used air to air as well.

[akshat21]

MP4-30 will have full PP thinking AERO.

Honda always liked air-cooled over water-cooled,so the air-to-air intercooler was already designed in before PP started.

Honda engines are almost always over built(heavy) it's first version(first year)so they must find ways to get the CG lower
(air-to-air intercooler in sidepod does that).

Wouldn't that be counter productive.. Right now they have a free hand in developing the engine to its mightiest. Next year, they will be restricted in how they can develop the Engine. Ferrari and Renault can change over 40% of their engines for 2015 IIRC. For 2016, the change i think is around ~25-30% (Am not sure on the exact number).

If Honda develop intentionally an underperforming / overweight engine to begin with, they may be stuck with a certain handicap that they may not be able to overcome.

[mclaren111]

I read an article a while ago where Arai apparently said that the most important thing is to make the PU as powerful as possible at the start, since you are allowed to make changes to the PU for Reliability during the year.

A very good approach I think - if true ?? !!

[djos]

Sounds sensible to me.