This forum contains threads to discuss teams themselves. Anything not technical about the cars, including restructuring, performances etc belongs here.
To be fair I’m impressed with how slim McLaren have managed to get with the Renault given the well know layout issue that it causes. Hopefully this means they can accommodate the Mercedes without any major compromise to their philosophy.
Having a year with Merc prior to the new regulations is fantastic news in terms of getting optimised for the (now) 2022 regulation change.
What layout issues ? Also RBR when they used the Renault PU had the slimmest layout even then. RBR have gotten slimmer now but they got slimmer every year with Renault. So how much of that is the Honda PU, how much is less colling requirement or how much of that is just refinement of the cooling design I have no idea.
The transmission and its cooling requirements are a huge limiting factor with how slim the rear end can be made. McLaren has invested a lot of resources and development to improve their transmission. The power unit has pluses and minuses regarding packaging, but nothing McLaren can do much about, as they don't build it. They do build the transmission however, as well as all the heat exchangers and how that's packaged is huge in terms of aero potential.
McLaren has spent most of 2019 working on the 2020 transmission. With a Mercedes lump going in the car next year I hope it doesn't derail their planned 2021 transmission, which fortunately is not under the cost cap for this year.
I also think alot of that is aero direction. I mean Merc was far from the slimmest car last year and yet they were still the fastest. So although being slim might be one way to increase air flow over the diffuser, it isn't the only way.
Think that probably means there isn't a big packaging change. Although the first year after they switched to Renault from Honda, the packaging around the PU still looked like when they had the Honda PU. It wasn't till the following year (2019) that the real tailoring to the Renault PU changes were seen. Again how much of that was aero direction, how much was wanting to get to know thier new PU, or the late season PU switch decision. Who knows ...
They probably think that the situation makes it a good time to gather PU data for 2022.
Think that probably means there isn't a big packaging change. Although the first year after they switched to Renault from Honda, the packaging around the PU still looked like when they had the Honda PU. It wasn't till the following year (2019) that the real tailoring to the Renault PU changes were seen. Again how much of that was aero direction, how much was wanting to get to know thier new PU, or the late season PU switch decision. Who knows ...
They probably think that the situation makes it a good time to gather PU data for 2022.
I still believe that regardless if beneficial or not (which I think it is)... It was their only path forward from a contractual point of view... And even when they could have reached an agreement with Renault and Mercedes, it probably wasn’t worth the effort.
McLaren by now has a pretty good idea of what an engine change implies and shouldn’t be a big problem to execute the change... I believe that people overstate the difficulty of adapting to a new power unit... McLaren struggled on their switch to Renault in 2018, but the problems weren’t related to the engine change
Think that probably means there isn't a big packaging change. Although the first year after they switched to Renault from Honda, the packaging around the PU still looked like when they had the Honda PU. It wasn't till the following year (2019) that the real tailoring to the Renault PU changes were seen. Again how much of that was aero direction, how much was wanting to get to know thier new PU, or the late season PU switch decision. Who knows ...
They probably think that the situation makes it a good time to gather PU data for 2022.
I still believe that regardless if beneficial or not (which I think it is)... It was their only path forward from a contractual point of view... And even when they could have reached an agreement with Renault and Mercedes, it probably wasn’t worth the effort.
McLaren by now has a pretty good idea of what an engine change implies and shouldn’t be a big problem to execute the change... I believe that people overstate the difficulty of adapting to a new power unit... McLaren struggled on their switch to Renault in 2018, but the problems weren’t related to the engine change
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Of course not, it was what attaches to the engine and sends the crank power to the wheels.
This is quite off topic, and fairly silly. Read an article discussing the modern F1 drivers and which ones compare closest to the wild man James Hunt. I just found the bit about Kimi and the way it was written a bit amusing. It refers to his McLaren days, which is the only reason one could argue for posting it here.
Raikkonen mutated from Saul to Paul. Even in McLaren Mercedes times, the fan of James Hunt suggested wild parties including partner swapping to his colleague and compatriot Heikki Kovalainen. Kovalainen and his British girlfriend fled in panic from Raikkonen's villa near Zurich. He had imagined his compatriot's nice invitation to coffee differently.
Q: (Stefano Mancini – La Stampa) Kimi, will you help Vettel to win his championship this year?
Kimi Raikkonen: I can only drive one car, obviously.
@2018 Singapore Grand Prix drivers press conference.
Think that probably means there isn't a big packaging change. Although the first year after they switched to Renault from Honda, the packaging around the PU still looked like when they had the Honda PU. It wasn't till the following year (2019) that the real tailoring to the Renault PU changes were seen. Again how much of that was aero direction, how much was wanting to get to know thier new PU, or the late season PU switch decision. Who knows ...
They probably think that the situation makes it a good time to gather PU data for 2022.
I still believe that regardless if beneficial or not (which I think it is)... It was their only path forward from a contractual point of view... And even when they could have reached an agreement with Renault and Mercedes, it probably wasn’t worth the effort.
McLaren by now has a pretty good idea of what an engine change implies and shouldn’t be a big problem to execute the change... I believe that people overstate the difficulty of adapting to a new power unit... McLaren struggled on their switch to Renault in 2018, but the problems weren’t related to the engine change
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There are standard mounting points on the chassis, engine and transmission that are clearly codified in the regulations so theoretically any engine should be able to bolt onto any engine and any transmission onto any engine. The rest is mostly plumbing and electrical. The optimization is where the effort really comes in. I think I saw one team put a "notch" in both their chassis/monocoque/safety cell and fuel cell to better optimize the inlet air flow for the turbo. It looked rather time and energy intensive, for a small lap time improvement.
Mclaren have had the experience of installing a split turbo layout with compressor at the front and turbine at the back in 2017 when Honda switched to a similar layout. Mclaren probably have the most amount of experience in terms of integrating an engine. Also Ivan Roldan has clearly suggested that Mclaren will be allowed to do enough modifications to execute the engine switch. Mercedes engine actually is more compact and also Mclaren now can switch some of the resources from new regulations on account of postponement of new rules.
Actually split turbo concept was first used in 2014 when previously powered by merc, also Honda has ran a split turbo since 2015 though went with a bigger compressor in 2017
There are so many ways they can get it wrong....remember the gear ratio error in 2018? They figured out after it was too late that they were too short for the Renault PU. One of the causes of the top speed problem.
I’m a bit more confident in this regime than during the Boullier era. There just seemed to be a lack of proper accountability, everybody was a politician, while the actual engineering suffered. I mean, they weren’t even trying to work and improve on the pit stops, and Eric excused it.
Q: (Stefano Mancini – La Stampa) Kimi, will you help Vettel to win his championship this year?
Kimi Raikkonen: I can only drive one car, obviously.
@2018 Singapore Grand Prix drivers press conference.
