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McLaren has unveiled its 2019 Formula One race car, named MCL34. As with the 2018 car, the covers were taken off at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, UK.
A few on the sides as well if my eyes don't deceive me.DiogoBrand wrote: ↑15 Feb 2019, 18:39https://i.imgur.com/uxiMOYb.png
Looks to me like the air valve is placed on the spoke, so most likely they're using hollow spokes like Mercedes.
I didn't see the new rear suspension in as much detail as I'd like yet, but if that's the case, that may be a result of the late switch to Renault engines not allowing them to place the pullrod where they'd like it, rather than a design flaw.
there was an interview in latest issue of racecar enginering where i think was simon roberts outlining the problems with mcl33, and he said the rear suspension was basicly 1/1 transferable withoutany hastle‘We didn’t change the rear suspension concept. The gear casing was designed and tooled before we decided to change,’ Simon Roberts, McLaren Racing’s chief operation
officer says. ‘We might have moved some of the legs around slightly but it was not major, the gearbox and suspension layout was essentially as originally intended. Internally it is a mechanical layout, we have not gone the hydraulic route, we just have nice packaging.’
At the front the suspension is a conventional double wishbone layout with pushrod actuated torsion bars and dampers. But Roberts is reluctant to go into detail, preferring instead
to discuss the general principles of suspension systems in Formula 1 at present. ‘Most of the suspension travel is in the tyre, so what the suspension really does is get the right mechanical balance in the car, and to a certain extent hold the car where you want it for the aero, but that is where you can get in a mess,’he says. ‘I think the differentiator on the grid is that you have cars that have got highly developed wide aero maps, which can allow a lot more suspension travel and still retain a high degree of performance; then there are cars which have very sophisticated devices linked to suspension which allow them to hold the car at certain attitudes. In the last two years there has been quite a bit of that.We played around the edges of that, but generally speaking we have not raced it because it’s a trade off of performance vs weight vs complexity and reliability. I think if you go the hydraulic route you have a lot more freedom to play in some of those spaces, if you go mechanical you have other benefits. It’s a trade off between those additional pipes, weight, issues with the car and things like that. It’s a compromise and you have to decide where you want to sit on that.’
‘It is easy in hindsight to look back and say that it was not a great F1 car, but the work that went into it and the dedication of the team was tremendous,’he says. ‘A couple of times during the season I foundmyself stood at the front of the garage looking at the thing thinking what a beautifully engineered racing car it was, and wondering why it just wasn’t faster. In the detail it’s a really nice car but as a complete package it just missed the mark in terms of performance.
‘There are parts of the car that worked really well, there are some things that we are really proud of on it,’Roberts adds. ‘Some of the good things I can’t discuss because I don’t want to give away any competitive advantage.
‘Other teams have copied bits of our nose,’ Roberts says. ‘Nose concepts are interesting as you commit to it and optimise the racecar around it, I think that went very well for us on this car. When you are racing people don’t see what is going on behind the scenes, but our nose crash programme went really well, it showed the depth and breadth of experience we have here at McLaren.’
Another of the parts of the MCL33 which did work really well, according to the team, also highlights one of the biggest weaknesses of this design. ‘Ironically, the front wheel blowing was probably class leading, [but] unfortunately that was not something this car needed, it needed a lot of other stuff,’ Roberts says. ‘In hindsight we focussed on something, took it to the ultimate degree, but it did not yield the results we had hoped for. Other teams who do not use it at all spent time and effort on other things which turned out to be more productive, it was really good engineering, and really good execution, but not right for this car. ‘Unfortunately there were other parts that did not work at all, things we would have done differently had we known then what we know now,’Roberts adds. ‘We followed a philosophy that other teams did not follow.We were not trying to be different or clever, we just went down an avenue, and fundamentally could not generate enough outwash on the car to deal with the wheel wakes. That, in a nutshell, is where we struggled. In a straight line it was okay, but as soon as you got to a corner and started turning in you started having issues.’
The MCL33 looked very similar to the MCL32. The car featured just a small engine air intake on the roll hoop, as well as relatively small ducts in each sidepod. In fact, it not only looked simple, but also under-cooled. The press and public were not the only people to be surprised by the MCL33’s cooling layout.
‘Renault were shocked when they saw our car, with the size of the air intakes,’ Roberts says. ‘They really questioned us strongly, asking if we were sure we had got it right, and if we were getting enough air. I don’t want to say that the cooling system is class leading because that sounds a bit arrogant, but the guys did a really good job, especially in terms of efficiency, it was great. Had the car been quick everyone would have loved it, but it wasn’t, and if a car is not quick then people kind of miss those details.’
As for the centreline cooling layout and the short sidepods McLaren decided against using them for reasons beyond the thermal demands of the rear end of the car. ‘We didn’t
use centreline cooling due to concerns over centre of gravity, which is higher with that layout,’ Roberts says. ‘If you look at some of the cars using centreline cooling they also have quite large sidepod inlets. I think more teams have converged on our type of solution in terms of coolers. Certainly the teams with the lower Ferrari style central crash tubes have had to.’
Well not really..f1rules wrote: ↑15 Feb 2019, 20:29not the inlet but, sidepod shape are pretty similar
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dzd2hYcWwAAmmOK.jpg
ok, similar, the vertical shape with very little downwards ramp, and the transition into the hotair outlet, but yes the fer turns in more agressivelyNot really trying to get into a debate here but at the end of the day it is Mclaren speaking... when was the last time they said something accurate about the performance of the car...DiogoBrand wrote: ↑15 Feb 2019, 22:33Interesting that several people spent the entire year saying "McLaren's cooling create too much drag, that's why they're so slow", then comes someone from McLaren and says that it was pretty much class leading. Goes to show how many guesses are spread around as if they were the absolute true around here.
When it comes to their expectations I never really trust them, but I see no reason for them to lie about a car everyone already knows was a dog. As inaccurate as his comments may be, I'd still trust them any day over people guessing on the internet with no evidence at all.TheFluffy wrote: ↑15 Feb 2019, 22:36Not really trying to get into a debate here but at the end of the day it is Mclaren speaking... when was the last time they said something accurate about the performance of the car...DiogoBrand wrote: ↑15 Feb 2019, 22:33Interesting that several people spent the entire year saying "McLaren's cooling create too much drag, that's why they're so slow", then comes someone from McLaren and says that it was pretty much class leading. Goes to show how many guesses are spread around as if they were the absolute true around here.