Mclaren MP4-30 Honda

[dren]

Slim sidepods, front wishbone a al Merc. I'm curious to turn up the Shadows slider in Lightroom to +100 to possibly reveal details. Later on...

P.S. I'm not a large fan of that livery, but ... I was hoping for more retro style.

The front wishbones are typical design, they aren't like the Mercedes lower uni-A-arms.

[dren]

What exactly is the upper most element on the rear suspension, behind the upper wishbone?

The lower Whishbone.

Actually I think it would be the toe link. It's joint would be on the crash structure, which would be the same as the 29. I cant quite make out the shape of the lower wishbone, but I would think with the upper wishbone appearing to have joints entirely on the gearbox case, that the lower one might too.

I think the lighting is making things hard to see, I'm leaning towards a covered driveshaft like the Red Bull and Mercedes.

[dren]

The mushrooms will be back. That is the only reason for having the rear track rods in that "delta" shape in my view.

Anyway. Onto the car. This car is a RedBull in so many ways. The front wing. The coke bottle. The engine cover. The floor. The narrow diffuser. Peter has really influenced the bodywork. Not really a big deal that the car is so much like a RedBull because this is normal. The first RedBulls were Mclaren clones so things have come full circle.

Newey was overly critical of the "draggy" air brakes Mclaren ran last year. If this car screams Red Bull, I fully don't expect to see the air brakes.

Ron Dennis noted that PP confirmed their aero design direction was wrong with the 29. I take that to include the air brakes.

The 30 is a very clean, flowing design.

[techF1LES]

Slim sidepods, front wishbone a al Merc. I'm curious to turn up the Shadows slider in Lightroom to +100 to possibly reveal details. Later on...

P.S. I'm not a large fan of that livery, but ... I was hoping for more retro style.

The front wishbones are typical design, they aren't like the Mercedes lower uni-A-arms.

I think Kiril was talking about front leg of the upper wishbone in line with the steering arm. This was also present on W05.
https://twitter.com/techF1LES/status/560805333980160000

[dren]

Always thought that was a normal thing? The steering arm either in-line with the a-arms or included inside them.

Good point out, though.

[Phillyred]

The taper on the rear is amazing. So much surface area for the floor.

[PlatinumZealot]

The mushrooms will be back. That is the only reason for having the rear track rods in that "delta" shape in my view.

Anyway. Onto the car. This car is a RedBull in so many ways. The front wing. The coke bottle. The engine cover. The floor. The narrow diffuser. Peter has really influenced the bodywork. Not really a big deal that the car is so much like a RedBull because this is normal. The first RedBulls were Mclaren clones so things have come full circle.

Newey was overly critical of the "draggy" air brakes Mclaren ran last year. If this car screams Red Bull, I fully don't expect to see the air brakes.

Ron Dennis noted that PP confirmed their aero design direction was wrong with the 29. I take that to include the air brakes.

The 30 is a very clean, flowing design.

The rear toe link is still suspiciously placed if you ask me. you can even see the vestigial remains of the "butterfly" near the crash structure.

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/u ... rhead3.jpg

[andone89]

Why the rear wing upper plate looks like a wave? Never seen that design before

[dren]

The rear toe link is still suspiciously placed if you ask me. you can even see the vestigial remains of the "butterfly" near the crash structure.

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/u ... rhead3.jpg

Are thsoe not flip-ups to act with the diffuser? I guess we'll see soon enough!

[PlatinumZealot]

Why the rear wing upper plate looks like a wave? Never seen that design before

Was on last years car.

Has been used in the past on a few racing cars, but it originated on old fighter planes.

[Advino116]

Some screenshots of 360 model






There are quite a few differences between the 360 model and the launch car.
[+] swan neck rear wing support, with a small fin at the top with a hole in it, might be for DRS actuator
[+] monkey seat
[+] front brake ducts (that cutaway looks really interesting)
[-] floor slots ahead of rear wheel
[-] lower rear suspension rear arms (where the butterflies will go)
[=] front wing is the old MP29 version instead of PP version
[=] Minor omissions: Nose tip hole, slots on the RW endplate under the wing,RW endplate serrated 'fins'

[trinidefender]

Just throwing in my usual two cents....here goes.

The front wing. The front wing looks very similar, if not the same as the new wing introduced for testing at the end of last season, not much to be said there.

The nose.
(I) The slope down to the nose starts much further back from other cars. So much so that the slope starts well before the bulkhead. I believe this was done to reduce the angle of the nose as much as possible. Reducing this angle has the effect of reducing the pressure gradient of air flowing up the top of nose. This reduction in pressure gradient reduces the force of the airflow to "tumble" off of the edge of the nose and create turbulence going along the side of the nose.
(II) The camera pods attach in a similar fashion to Mercedes and RedBull did last year. Probably trying to use them as flow conditioners for the airflow going up the nose and spilling off of the sides of the top of the nose.
(III) The tip is low and flat which looks shaped to minimise drag. The nose is very rounded and looks to prioritise minimising turbulence of airflow going around it compared to getting the absolute maximum volume of airflow under the nose. There are holes in the tip of nose. Still to be seen as to what they are for.
(IV) Front wing supports. This is what really has caught my eye. If you notice the front wing supports are actually shaped as scoops. They draw in air flowing around the side of the nose tip and re-direct it underneath the nose. This will work in conjunction with the rounded nose tip. Seems like a very simple, elegant and well thought out solution in my opinion.
(V) Underneath the nose behind the wing supports there is a gentle large radius curve. This is designed to work with scoops and help airflow to go underneath the nose at that low pressure zone created by the low nose tip.

The cockpit to the bulkhead. The tub in front of the cockpit looks very high and stays this way until there is a fairly sharp angle change that then slopes downwards and ends at the bulkhead which continues onto the nose section. Reasons for this are stated above. No under-tub turning vanes seem to be visible. Please tell me if there are any pics with them included.

T-tray is not visible.

Front suspension. Pushrod as expected. Suspension arms have a slightly greater angle than last year. Don't have as much knowledge in suspension design mechanically so I'll leave that for other people. There is an odd angle change on the back arm of the upper suspension arm. Not sure what this is for.

Overhead intake. Actually looks slightly larger than last year. Still split into upper and lower sections. Size of these inlets can't really be compromised without moving them completely so not much can be said there,

Front of the side-pods. Smaller radiator intakes than last year. Quite a bit smaller actually. Whether this is how they will actually look during race/test conditions is to be seen. Very similar setup with two vertical vortex generators and one horizontal vortex generator. Shaping of vertical VG's looks slightly different. Currently looks like there is a fairly large undercut at the front of the side-pods. Turning vanes in front of the side-pods are close but with subtle changes compared to last year. The top section is steeper. This will increase the strength of the vortex coming off of it and change the angle of flow slightly. The tall turning vanes/barge boards at the side of the side-pods now extend all the way up and the cooling vents are no longer used.

Mid side-pods. Not a huge undercut at the side but with such narrow side-pods this is to be expected. I am actually quite surprised at how slim the side-pods are. They almost remind me of Sauber in 2013.

Floor. Only seeing one simple flick up at the front of the floor at the sides. Cutouts in front of the rear tyre look to be the same shape but look to be slightly larger than last year. This
seems to be a design that works as all the teams who tried it last year kept it. The floor around the rear tyres is a very interesting shape. There doesn't seem to be any vortex generators there currently but I have a sneaking suspicion that they will appear.

The rear is where things start to get very interesting again.

The cooling outlets look very similar to RedBull last year with a central outlet around the exhaust and two lower flatter outlets around the suspension. No pictures of the radiator layout or internal aero work so hard to judge this aspect.

The rear wing. Currently appears as if the DRS actuator has been left out of these pics. The rear wing DRS flaps have the same leading edge serrations as run at parts of last year. The shape of the serrations looks quite different now though. It is my opinion that the purpose of this is to allow the airflow to reattached to the DRS flap much quicker making the car more stable under breaking. It might also help to increase the maximum angle of the DRS flap potentially increasing the downforce created by the rear wing. The change in shape of the serrations is probably a result of spending more time on the concept and optimising the design. Currently it appears as if there is no rear wing central support. Whether this will stay will have to be seen. It is an outright advantage if McLaren have worked out a way to not have the rear wing support without messing with the rear wing endplates to much. The top of the RWEP features he usual horizontal slots above he rear wing. In addition to this there are vertical slots below the rear wing. The small row of vortex generators are still there from last year.

Rear suspension. From overhead shots it looks like the suspension mushrooms are still there on the lower suspension arms (or the angle of the suspension arms makes it look like they will be added in during testing). It wouldn't have surprised me either way if McLaren had left both on or removed them altogether. So the result of removing one pair and leaving to lower pair on seems to be a compromise. The part that I find more interesting is the shape of them. In the pics it looks as if the mushroom section does not extend right to the centre of the diffuser. They look as the purpose of these mushrooms is to both turn the airflow upwards and direct airflow towards the centre of the car above the diffuser. I think this has something to do with the design of the diffuser.

The diffuser....ahh the diffuser. It seems all the pictures if have seen have left out the diffuser. It is my belief that that was totally intentional and McLaren have a new concept for their diffuser. I believe that their diffuser will be of a similar design that was seen on Mercedes and RedBull last year and RedBull on years previously. There is a particular feature that I noticed on those cars previously that I have been writing a piece on. I am waiting on RedBull and Mercedes to show their cars before I release it. I believe that this is a concept brought across by PP and through looking at it, it has shown to be a very interesting concept. I am slightly surprised that other teams have not adopted.....

I would appreciate feedback on this review. Let me know what you liked, what you did not like. Thanks.

[dren]

I think you missed the 3D cad pics above. There is a swan neck attachment in the center of the rear wing. They show a Mercedes style monkey wing. The pieces on the side of the crash structure look like flip-ups to help with the diffuser central section. The diffuser itself isn't overly detailed. I expect the outflow endless corners like Red Bull uses.

[tomazy]

I didn't read all the post here, so if I am not the first one to point that out I apologise. I noticed, that on the pics of the real car, there are no sign (or at least I dont see them) of any front break ducts? Probably just for the launch, or did they find some other way of cooling the brakes? The 3D mode has them.

[mikeerfol]

Race car engineering on the MP4-30 http://www.racecar-engineering.com/cars/mclaren-mp4-30/