McLaren MCL35 Speculation Thread

[the EDGE]

Question on the 2020 car is: How much different both as a concept and aesthetically will it be from 2019?? I hope James Key will make the difference and move them even closer to the top 3!

Yes, I'm thinking of the same, if you change the front end, then by the domino effect you need to redesign most of your aero going backwards towards the RW and the diffuser, so it will be interesting to see how they will deal with this ''problem''

There's been a lot of talk about the FW redesign but I'm not no sure anymore. They should no sign of going towards the Merc solution. In fact the opposite happened, with the entire grid.

Mercedes run a completely different aero philosophy to everyone else, so I’d be highly surprised if they followed this route

[Ground Effect]

Last year they could qualify within ~1.2 seconds off pole.

McLaren wants to half that gap, quite possible and that would be enough for occasional lucky podiums. To me having McLaren be less than a second off means they're not getting lapped any more.

Maybe around really short tracks.

The real test would be race pace. They qualified well usually but were more than 1.5 sec off leader pace per lap on Sundays.

Do you think that pace deficit comes from the Renault engine not being as efficient as the others?

Don’t you think the race pace being a couple of tenths higher than qualy has to do with tyre management, protecting themselves on the midfield runners on fresh rubber/free choice? They tend to manage their pace on Sundays.

[M840TR]

Yes, I'm thinking of the same, if you change the front end, then by the domino effect you need to redesign most of your aero going backwards towards the RW and the diffuser, so it will be interesting to see how they will deal with this ''problem''

There's been a lot of talk about the FW redesign but I'm not no sure anymore. They should no sign of going towards the Merc solution. In fact the opposite happened, with the entire grid.

Mercedes run a completely different aero philosophy to everyone else, so I’d be highly surprised if they followed this route

I agree. But their Hockenheim upgrade edged a little closer to the tapered arrangement. Which brings us to my point, that with the season's progression teams seemed a bit unconvinced by the conventional design. Redbull, Renault & Williams even tested and ran tapered FW towards the end.

[AMG.Tzan]

There's been a lot of talk about the FW redesign but I'm not no sure anymore. They should no sign of going towards the Merc solution. In fact the opposite happened, with the entire grid.

Mercedes run a completely different aero philosophy to everyone else, so I’d be highly surprised if they followed this route

I agree. But their Hockenheim upgrade edged a little closer to the tapered arrangement. Which brings us to my point, that with the season's progression teams seemed a bit unconvinced by the conventional design. Redbull, Renault & Williams even tested and ran tapered FW towards the end.

From the rumors over at the W11 thread, it seems that Mercedes are also going to change their aero philosophy and go for higher radiator inlets! Maybe that points to a whole aero philosophy change and that means a FW like the rest of the field for Mercedes!

So Mclaren's FW won't be redesigned to work like Merc's! Instead they may find a better performing FW to the one they used in 2019 (which looked really nice btw )!!

My guess is they can find a lot of performance from the bargeboard and radiator area! Their sidepods must get smaller i think because they were a bit big compared to the top 3! Their nose i believe needs a bit of a tidying up to become "slicker"...maybe they can go more towards Mercedes's nose concept since their nose is already slim compared to others!

And oh...there's Renault in all of that! They have to find horsepower and reliability cause the other 3 engines are all looking great right now!

[SmallSoldier]

Last year they could qualify within ~1.2 seconds off pole.

McLaren wants to half that gap, quite possible and that would be enough for occasional lucky podiums. To me having McLaren be less than a second off means they're not getting lapped any more.

Maybe around really short tracks.

The real test would be race pace. They qualified well usually but were more than 1.5 sec off leader pace per lap on Sundays.

Do you think that pace deficit comes from the Renault engine not being as efficient as the others?

I believe we would all agree that the Renault engine isn’t the most efficient in the grid... But the fact that in several races the Renault Team had the same or slightly better race pace compared to Mclaren (after Mclaren will outperform them in Qualifying) points to different sources for the issue other than the engine.

I agree with M840TR that the overall issue was lack of downforce, which in addition to forcing the drivers into driving more conservative lap times to avoid the degradation that low DF creates it also makes them lose time in every corner and corner exit since they can’t maintain speed through them... Both situations compound themselves to make the race pace weaker than the qualifying pace.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[_cerber1]

On Air

[dtro]

So the airbox is wider than baby Yoda. Baby Yoda is less than a fifth of the size of Yoda, which is a known quantity. So the question is can we get an answer now, as to whether they're going more aggressive with the size of the airbox?

[ThePapayaJaguar]

On Air

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKf9EoX5a50

At the beginning of the video, it was 8:15. I would expect the font of the two 5's on Carlos's car to look similar to the 5's in the video.

[ThePapayaJaguar]

So the airbox is wider than baby Yoda. Baby Yoda is less than a fifth of the size of Yoda, which is a known quantity. So the question is can we get an answer now, as to whether they're going more aggressive with the size of the airbox?

When pausing at 4:51 and looking at Baby Yoda, what I see is that there is a hump, a dip, and a hump in the shape of the airbox. At the link below, I've doodled what I think the airbox could look like. We are speculating after all, right?

https://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e129 ... x6auhy.jpg

As for aggressiveness, I don't know about that one. I'll let someone else have a go at that question.

[Xero]

Probably just primer, but some white would feed back into Zak's comments about a "special livery".

[JRindt]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EOak9mBW4AA ... =4096x4096

Probably just primer, but some white would feed back into Zak's comments about a "special livery".

Ewww... White halo on an orange car would frankly look disgusting. Going by the sanity with which McLaren have operated this past year and a half, I’m not expecting any white on the car. I hope I’m not wrong

Besides, they won’t reveal their livery this early.

[FrukostScones]

A white Halo. Even the driver orientated side?
Such stupid ergonomics (self glare) you only see at Williams.

[mclaren111]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EOak9mBW4AA ... =4096x4096

Probably just primer, but some white would feed back into Zak's comments about a "special livery".

Ewww... White halo on an orange car would frankly look disgusting. Going by the sanity with which McLaren have operated this past year and a half, I’m not expecting any white on the car. I hope I’m not wrong

Besides, they won’t reveal their livery this early.

I've been hoping for a Papaya halo since 2018... Hate the black halo... White would be horrible...

[trinidefender]

Pretty sure it's just primer. No reason for them to go to a white halo

[NathanOlder]

Red Car with white details, like a Coca Cola Can