McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

[KeiKo403]

Please can we stop the constant comparisons with the MP4-18?
McLaren know what there doing, they are a multiple world championship winning team. I wouldn't be suprised if McLaren have some tricks up their sleeves that they'll unleash at the next test. They posted some good times today and was over 1 second quicker than yesterday....and I couldn't see any difference in today's car compared to yesterday's car, apart from Hamilton was in the drivers seat.

IMO we've got the best drivers, the best engineers, the best resources and I suspect the best (or at least a good enough) machine. We have the best engine/KERS package and we still have the "radical" rear wing to be showcased.
As much as they'd want to keep that a surprise for the rest of the field if McLaren was worried about it not working as planned then they'd of tested on track already. They know what there doing. I trust them to deliver.

Take last year for example. 1 innovation, the f duct. That pretty much carried them throughout the year and they was in with a shout of winning WDC until Brazil. Although it was copied by others no one had the same effect out of it. I think that took 3 races (a long thine in F1) for it to be copied and that was by Sauber, I suspect De La Rosa took some info/knowledge of that tho.

[fausto cedros]

What if they were blowing the exhaust below the floor, towards the diffuser, to magnify it's efficiency via a flow of high pressure air added to the air flowing below the car? The exhaust slot may be sufficient to solve the crossflow problems.

[Giblet]

See his made up rumor earlier in the thread for confirmation.

What was this? I'm genuinely curious...............

If you have forgotten that you told us about rumors 'swirling' around about problems under yaw, then nothing else I can say will remind you. You were unable to swirl them into an actual source, you just made up a lame excuse that even if you had cited your source, it wouldn't help.

So to a reader of this thread, it appears you just make stuff up and hope we'll swallow. I myself would have loved to see the source of these 'rumors' so I could make an educated decision on Mclaren being slow or not.

You asked.

[speedsense]

The MP4-18 may have been fast but it was so fragile they didn't race it. Hence it's worse than the MP4-26. End of.

No. The MP4-18 was fast and not unreliable. The MP4-26 is not fast and not reliable. Not rocket science and not a great combination.

In all testing, especially with their competition sharing the same track, at the same time, the data system makes it possible to have specific areas of the track to test each new component or combination of components and neglect other parts of the track. The overall lap time doesn't matter, just the specific parts of the track and the car performance at those locations. It is only the team that knows the true potential of their car.
Mclaren "apparently" is testing systems that are requiring much time to A)change them over to another configuration...IE, exhausts?,floors? Kers operation, rear wing operations, etc., B) sorting reliability issues IE hydraulic issues friday.. c) testing tire and gas load combinations.
Nobody knows the cars true reliability and speed except the team. Since the car is yet to run a full race distance (Yet Ferrari and RBull have, a few times)
Unless your Mclaren, you have no idea if the full performance of the car over a complete lap. Nobody knows the true performance of RB, Ferrari, Renault or Williams... Just because they have achieved a fast lap, does it actually mean anything?
They don't award points or money for being the fastest on test days or practice periods or qualifying for that matter. Winning testing doesn't prove anything, except show off to everyone else where they stand, and doing this, this early in the testing routine is like showing your great poker hand before betting on it AND granting them time to draw more cards to improve their hand!!!
Making predictions based on testing, especially with other competition present, is foolishness at best, unless you actually work on the team in question. IMHO

[i70q7m7ghw]

[...]

[xv323]

People, can we please calm down?

1 half day lost to a hydraulic problem, and some spare-parts shortages, does not equal a massively unreliable, overheating-problematic car.

Hell, Massa began his F1 testing this year by spinning off and setting fire to the whole of the back end of the car, losing practically the whole of the day's running. Since then, the Ferrari's been running like clockwork.

Not only that, but as far as the Mclaren's pace in concerned - well today Hamilton was within four tenths of Vettel's qualifying simulation pace from yesterday. They can't be that far off.

I'm not necessarily saying the MP4-26 won't turn out to be unreliable or slow. But it is waaay too early to say either way.

[kalinka]

Hmmm...I searched over 50 pages of this thread, and all over the internet, but actually i didn't found any pictures of McLaren's RW adjustable flap working. ( I mean in "open" position ).
I know they stated that they were testing it, but no pictures yet ? Any pictures somebody ?

[bhall]

[kalinka]

Thanks ! Maybe it was too late at night for me to find it 2:25AM here...F1Technical=no sleeep

[Remote_Access]

Not only that, but as far as the Mclaren's pace in concerned - well today Hamilton was within four tenths of Vettel's qualifying simulation pace from yesterday. They can't be that far off.

Given the track had been wet in the morning, meaning rubber had potentially been washed off, this is probably a very good sign pace-wise. It is not ideal that they are not getting the laps in that they should, but it's better to have these niggles now rather than later.

[sticky667]

[...]

[Martin Keene]

Well, that shot confirms they are running ARW...

[myurr]

Interesting that they're going for a flatter lower element and steeper upper whereas most of the other teams have gone the other way. Wonder if that helps decouple the rear wing from the beam wing when the ARW mechanism is activated?

[Raptor22]

....

WRT to the MP4/26 rear wing arrangement, Its difficult to say whether the Mercedes aproach or the Mac approach is better. On a complete car the elements work in conjunction with others parts. they wil know how everything fits with the parts they intend to race but what you see on the car currentlymay have little relevance to what they race. It all depends on what they are controlling and what they are experimenting with. to undersand the control/experiment relationship between seen components at this stage is difficult since none of these cars is in final specification yet.

Wy would they want to hide certain parts? SImple because once the "Whole" is known it can be copied within days and be on a rival car within 21 days (aerodynamic components)

[murtoidf1]

good day for McLaren so far. Not sure what config etc they are running though