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.
Q: The car has a new front wing – how does that work?
FA: There is a lot going on in with the car right now. Big steps on the aerodynamic side – then a better understanding of the power unit and the interaction with everything in the car – so every lap that we do is a learning curve for us. In terms of sheer driving I feel great: the car is easy to drive and gives you confidence to push to the limit.
I have not seen anything different on the FW (must be small changes)
Can anybody show some pictures of the differences please
Q: The car has a new front wing – how does that work?
FA: There is a lot going on in with the car right now. Big steps on the aerodynamic side – then a better understanding of the power unit and the interaction with everything in the car – so every lap that we do is a learning curve for us. In terms of sheer driving I feel great: the car is easy to drive and gives you confidence to push to the limit.
I have not seen anything different on the FW (must be small changes)
Can anybody show some pictures of the differences please
mclaren111 wrote:Interview with FA - 25/03/15 (FOM):
Q: The car has a new front wing – how does that work?
FA: There is a lot going on in with the car right now. Big steps on the aerodynamic side – then a better understanding of the power unit and the interaction with everything in the car – so every lap that we do is a learning curve for us. In terms of sheer driving I feel great: the car is easy to drive and gives you confidence to push to the limit.
I have not seen anything different on the FW (must be small changes)
Can anybody show some pictures of the differences please
He doesn't mention the front wing, that only comes in the question.
If you read the answer it's pretty clear they are making changes and learning everywhere, not just fw. Still incredibly early in the development process for them. If there's improvements every weekend it's encouraging.
"As soon as we can extract more power from areas and not have to turn things down we will hopefully find more than we expected in terms of power and lap time," he said.
"There is one engine that has more power than the others [Mercedes], there is one that is close to it [Ferrari] and there is another one that is quite a long way away from it [Renault] ... and then there's us.
"The biggest problem is that if you have a power deficit it is a [negative] snowball effect. We are all allowed to use the same amount of fuel, we spend more time at full throttle than the Mercedes so we use more fuel, which means you have to save more fuel, which means you are going even slower.
just a thought, regarding the comments from jenson about cooler conditions could hurt them this week, could it be related to, with their higher df, in hot conditions the tires dont overheat because of increased grip, whereas in the colder temps, no teams have problems with overheating tyres = tyre degradation
f1rules wrote:just a thought, regarding the comments from jenson about cooler conditions could hurt them this week, could it be related to, with their higher df, in hot conditions the tires dont overheat because of increased grip, whereas in the colder temps, no teams have problems with overheating tyres = tyre degradation
It has do to whit the fact that others will have to open the back of their cars less and thus have less negative impact on aero,and that negates Mclaren's "size zero" rear end packaging advantage to some extent.
Although Mclaren might loose slightly on aero due to cooler temps,i think their PU might benefit a lot more from it.
"I have no idols. I admire work, dedication & competence."
@Muramassa from Autsporforum provided this Japanese media quotes regarding Honda PU and MP4-30
Honda applied to FIA for number of "reliability upgrades" proposals after Melbourne and brought them for Malaysia. IT IS SAID THAT one of proposals was aggressive to the extent that it included revision to layout of MGU-H and turbine which broke down at installation lap of the race in Melbourne, but it was rightly turned down by FIA. Honda brought several different specs of PUs into Malaysia so that they would be able to cope with any situation no matter what proposal(s) would get the nod, and final decision was made on Thursday.
The cause itself of trouble (for Kevins blowup at installation lap of OZ race) was hydraulic(oil), but ended up making damages to ICE as a result. We understand what went wrong, so we took countermeasures to the problem. We think the same problem will not occur. (Arai)
(on Melbourne's "conservative" running that was forced by environment esp hot temp and lack of data from testings)
The actual data figures were so separated from the estimation. At Melbourne we foresaw the situation on friday (it seems it was hotter at track than meteorological records, recording 29C). Originally we should be dealing with such conditions by tweaking things here and there, but we could not gamble by making alterations to things that had not been verified and confirmed yet and put ourselves into situation where we couldnt collect data, so we had no choice but to run it with extremely conservative setting. Here in Malaysia it will be even hotter, but we have brought settings that was made based on analysis of data gathered at Melbourne, and on chassis side we, working with mclaren, have made changes that are not recognizable by looking from outside. (Arai)
(on Thursday Alonso made course inspection walk with team engineers including Arai)
We made conversation just on all sorts of things. Alonso was chatting with chassis engineers about those things, about tyres, about how to construct a race, setup preferences etc, he kept talking about these things as if half talking to himself. Like, he wants to make shiftdown in this way at this corner, etc. He made questions to us as well as gave encouragement to Honda. I'm determined that we have to meet his expectation. (Arai)
30552f0b9239d23c64c4e0eb107b7779.jpeg
Friday
We have more output on both MGU-K and ICE than Melbourne. We could try out many things such as making the amount of energy recovery to max 2MJ per lap, adjusting max fuel usage to the race more properly, checking cooling etc, as well as consume various chassis programs such as aero and vehicle settings. (Arai)
Sat
Regarding quali, there are many things we have to work on and can be a lot better, not just on PU but also car's whole control system (Imai, an ex-Bridgestone Japanese engineer at Mclaren, senior in special projects devision)
Sun
during the race JB hurt tyres while stuck in traffic (Imai)
ERS cooling was not working sufficiently on Alonso car so team retired him at lap 21 in order to prevent mechanical trouble.
We thought we could have good race today....., but when you're battling with other cars, you do tricks each other with competitors so you use machine in completely different way, like making more rapid acceleration and deceleration, compared to running on your own. So something must have happened under such condition. Surely you'd wonder "how come you're still saying such things now", but we of now lack experience to that extent. Yet in such situation we were able to learn some things, and it was productive to be able to make a battle. (Arai)
JB slowed down at lap 41 and retired in the pit for turbine trouble. JB's PU was incorporated with same updated component as FA's PU but 2 PUs suffered troubles
.
we know what we are lack of more than anyone else do. So we aren't panicking, nor disheartened. We know what we should do. But it's also a fact that it's not a situation/condition where you can make recovery in one race. Still there's so much you can do in 2 weeks, so we will bring more updates to China GP. (Arai)
"I have no idols. I admire work, dedication & competence."
It doesn't work like that, Mc's missing HP is from the ERS systems, so they're more fuel hungry than they should be, and they don't have the drivability/boost on the way out of corners during the heavy acceleration from the apex to exit, which is where a massive amount of time is.
Outright top end HP which is just from the engine is probably worth that little, but that's not as relevant as in Mclaren's case.
Last edited by PhillipM on 07 Apr 2015, 21:03, edited 1 time in total.
