Yes I guess I am prematurely judging them seeing as they still could introduce something for this race! Wheel spin would cause excessive surface temperatures and it does seem to be a general consensus that cars with lower downforce would experience higher tyre wear. I don't really understand this way of thinking though because a car will only slide excessively if it is "over driven", and even a car with high downforce can be driven far beyond its limit of grip. I do think that this limit is a much finer line with a car that has low downforce however. For example the 2012 Sauber was extremely kind to its tyres and it didn't have nearly as much downforce as the top teams, so it seems that suspension geometry and setup are far more important?1lifeliveit wrote: Maybe we should reserve this judgement till later?! In Canada they took a risky punt (High DF) hoping for rain. The position they are in at the moment, they have to take such risks. If the rain did come, it would have been a "masterstroke" by McLaren.
Again, I'm no expert but doesnt low DF setups wreck tyres in the corners due to wheel spin? If already they were having problems switching on their tyres due to cold temperatures, low DF would have made it worse. It will be interesting to see what they do in Baku though where its going to be dry.
Hahaha just playing devils advocate to previous things I've read on the threaddiffuser wrote: Now look at what you've done ! We've been happy with you till now !!!
I don't know if it is true, this is just my opinion.
Part of my thinking is because of a lack of power they can't benefit from a high downforce(HDF) package. I think they run a kind of LDF package all the time.
If you're gonna create LDF and HDF packages, it takes cycles in the wind tunnel. They could have chosen to spend that time on a more mainstream package to catch up to the other teams.
I 100% agree on the cycles point! I am no expert in aerodynamics but just by looking at the chord length and AoA of their rear wing it seems as if it should produce more downforce than the low downforce configurations brought by other teams such as Torro Rosso. And as I understand it there is not too much scope for massive development in the rear wing because of the tight regulations in that area (excluding the end plates?). This does lead me to question whether McLaren really are running a LDF package because surely the rear wing is the first thing you would trim down on? What visually suggests that they do go for a generally lower downforce package compared to Torro Rosso for example?
Just trying to figure out why it is thought that McLaren "purposely" run LDF
