McLaren MCL32 Honda

[mrluke]

How can you tell? You want them to race without wings?
Taking away downforce would mean compromising/scrifying cornering speed.

General complexity of the front wing, brake drums, loads of elements around the barge-boards. I'm not implying removing wings, just simpler geometry - see RB13

They most probably based their work on the numbers Honda supplied them.

Difficult to just remove / change everything as it all works together.

Wazari confirmed that Mclaren ran high down force last season because they had traction issues with their rear suspension. From the available evidence low speed downforce still appears to be a weakness of the Mclaren.

[diffuser]

The car is already built with a ton of Rake. Rake allows it to shed downforce on straights, the rear of the car squats, therefore reduces the angle of attack of the rear wing.


That was one of the problems they had last year was the rear suspension angle was messed up in that when they ran high rake they had traction issue, they couldn't setup the rear suspension the way they needed it to be.


The other thing is the problem isn't just top speed right. It's just flat out acceleration that is lacking. As you take DF off the faster you accelerate(less drag) but the longer you have to wait out of a slow corner before you can accelerate flat out (without wheel spin).

[Thunder]

Red Bull Correlation Talk has been deleted. There are seperate Threads for the RB13 and the Red Bull Team. Please use them to discuss Red Bull things.

This Thread is here to discuss the Technical Aspects of the MCL32.

[mclaren111]

Did they race with the new RW ??

[F1NAC]

Did they race with the new RW ??

yup they did

[makecry]

Is there anything people have to say about the floor? It's just too simple compared to the other teams. Do we think they are on to something or it's just underdeveloped?

[godlameroso]

Is there anything people have to say about the floor? It's just too simple compared to the other teams. Do we think they are on to something or it's just underdeveloped?

Hmm good question, it depends do the slots toward the rear end of the floor work with their aero concept. Or are they trying to gather more data before they begin throwing details in that area.

[mrluke]

Is there anything people have to say about the floor? It's just too simple compared to the other teams. Do we think they are on to something or it's just underdeveloped?

Its underdeveloped.

No doubt as the season progress we will see the complexity increase.

[the EDGE]

Is there anything people have to say about the floor? It's just too simple compared to the other teams. Do we think they are on to something or it's just underdeveloped?

Its underdeveloped.

No doubt as the season progress we will see the complexity increase.

I'm no expert but I would disagree with that

Please correct me if I am wrong, but cut-outs to the floor are made out of necessity not choice. The necessity being to seal the edge of the diffuser. Without the need to do this it would be better for downforce not to make the cuts in the floor

McLaren and all other teams are of course well versed in this, as they have been doing this for some years now, since they banned EBD's I believe and to suggest McLaren have not done this any reason other than choice is simply crazy. If they have to seal the diffuser, which they do... then that was 1 way it was done, something very very simple for their aero department to do, and absolutely no reason for them to have not done so from the word GO. This is not something that would need experimenting, researching, or developing

In my opinion therefore the reason there are no cuts in the floor is because they do not need them. they have found other ways to successfully seal the diffuser through the new regulations and clearly it is working

but as I said, I am no expert and please feel free to correct me if you disagree

while were on the subject of McLaren's floor, does anybody know what the strange little semi-circular pipe is on top of the floor directly in front of the rear tyres is/does??? my first thoughts were a sensor of some kind, but could this be aero related instead?

[PhillipM]

I honestly just think given the limited running they haven't bolted on much in the way of floor upgrades whilst they make sure everything else correlates, the new bargeboards are so much more complex that understanding exactly how that is behaving before further work on the floor happens is essential. Hence the slots slowly appearing up front, I'd expect more development around the rear of the floor once they get more miles on the car.

[Jef Patat]

What's underdevelopped on the floor? The only thing I notice is that there are no slots to control the rear wheel tire squirt. Maybe they succeed in controlling that area better in other ways. I'd rather see clean airflow from the front that a million winglets as on the FI. MCL is among not many teams to have those two swords sticking out at the front edge of the floor. They may not look like part of the 'underdevelopped' floor but they help seal from the front of the floor. Suppose one could seal the floor perfectly then why would you need anything other that a flat plate?

[Jef Patat]

Tech analysis: McLaren's plan to increase rear downforce
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/tech ... ce-895775/

[wesley123]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but since when does introducing higher pressure into an area of lower pressure(because that's how a wing works) increase downforce?

[ncassi22]

Compared to the black MP4-31 WOJ the slots on the end-fences don't run up all the way to the main and DRS plane. New one seems to interfere less with the low pressure pocket directly underneath. Old one probably caused some issues bleeding off DF.

[ncassi22]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but since when does introducing higher pressure into an area of lower pressure(because that's how a wing works) increase downforce?

Ah! I just posted something related above... They do it slightly further down. Reducing drag and possibly helping to energize flow over the diffuser.

*edit
The slots at the leading edge of the floor seem to work in a similar way; adding energy to (or rather reducing the energy loss of) the vortices' that seals the side of the floor.