McLaren MP4-29 Mercedes

[mclaren_mircea]

I found some interesting comments on Mario Keszeli's twitter page. He had a closed look on Mp4-29 during both practice sessions and he found a little much more information of the Mclaren's upgrades for this weekend. It's a significant upgrade package, much more significant than we thought here.
Take a look: "Mario Keszeli ‏@techF1LES 25m
@intraphaseblue Front wing, brake ducts, turning vanes, floor, rear susp. spotted so far… Will keep eye on them, they certainly have more…"

[mclaren_mircea]

The F1 tech specialists informations about Mp4-29 upgrade package keep coming.
Take a look on Craig Scarborough from Autosport live: "13:00 CRAIG SCARBOROUGH: "McLaren has a major upgrade. Evident so far are a new front wing, front brake ducts and floor. It has moved away from its usual very large front wing to a more shapely design with smaller cascade winglets. This should aid airflow to the back of the car as much as improving front downforce"

[mclaren_mircea]

Strictly about the diffuser, Mario Keszeli says that McLaren also modified outer parts of the diffuser and cut trailing edge Gurney

[Morteza]

Strictly about the diffuser, Mario Keszeli says that McLaren also modified outer parts of the diffuser and cut trailing edge Gurney

https://twitter.com/techF1LES/status/479935942334369792 https://twitter.com/techF1LES/status/479902424292130816

[mclaren111]

On James Allen's website I saw this:

1. ‘This “shrink wrapped” bodywork helps to energise the floor, where most of an F1 car’s downforce is generated and stabilises the rear wing,’
2. 'correlation between the wind tunnel and the track is at even more of a premium this year. This is an area where McLaren and Ferrari lost ground in recent years'

These problems seem to be longer than expected and that Mclaren are willing to admit to

Thus, this year is a fill gap year.

So lets take the best of the MP4-29 and carry it over to next year's MP4-30 and replace / fix what is not working on 29 [-o<

[Just_a_fan]

So lets take the best of the MP4-29 and carry it over to next year's MP4-30 and replace / fix what is not working on 29 [-o<

Not the McLaren way these days. They seem to design a clean sheet car every year. It doesn't seem to be a good strategy.

[mclaren_mircea]

According to AMUS some of the new parts on Mp4-29 did not generate performance for the car, and were already packed up after the first session. The good news comes from Omnicorse, where we found that the new FW gave the expected results, and will remain on the car for the rest of the weekend.

Source:
1. http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/form ... 16203.html

2. http://www.omnicorse.it/magazine/39113/ ... -anteriore

[McMrocks]

According to AMUS some of the new parts on Mp4-29 did not generate performance for the car, and were already packed up after the first session. The good news comes from Omnicorse, where we found that the new FW gave the expected results, and will remain on the car for the rest of the weekend.

Source:
1. http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/form ... 16203.html

2. http://www.omnicorse.it/magazine/39113/ ... -anteriore

Did somebody see whether the new diffuser was packed up or was still on the car for the qualifying? I tried but i haven't found a image that shows it. I'd be happy if the biggest parts of the upgrade worked i.e. the fw and diffuser

[Dipesh1995]

They indeed had the new diffuser on the car for qualifying. Interestingly, I think they only ran one pair of butterfly wishbones rather than the two.
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/u ... 2014-3.jpg

[F1T]

McLaren introduces shapely new front wing - Development blog

As part of a fairly large aerodynamic update for its MP4-29, McLaren have introduce a long overdue front wing update, getting rid of the rather bulky previous design that looked dated in comparison to items seen on front running cars.

The new front wing only appears to have the leading edge of the base plane and parts of the endplates in common with its predecessor, but other than that everything is new. Still a three-element wing, the insides of the flaps have considerably changed, featuring an increased opening in between the second and third element.

At the inner edges of the flaps, minor profile changes are now more pronounced, designed as such to impact airflow downstream, rather than being aimed at local downforce generation.

Also marked are the new stacked elements, now smaller but flanked by a standing panel similar to what can be seen on the Mercedes AMG F1W05. This acts to direct airflow outboard while generating a counter clockwise rotating vortex onto the inside of the front wheels. Hence it is no surprise that McLaren's update also included minor updates to the brake ducts as well as a different profile of the floor left and right of the car.

[trinidefender]

McLaren introduces shapely new front wing - Development blog

As part of a fairly large aerodynamic update for its MP4-29, McLaren have introduce a long overdue front wing update, getting rid of the rather bulky previous design that looked rather date in comparison to items seen on front running teams.

The new front wing only appears to have the leading edge of the base plane and parts of the endplates in common with its predecessor, but other than that everything is new. Still a three element wing, the inside of the flaps has considerably changed, featuring an increased opening in between the second and third element. The tips of these flaps are designed the way that are to impact airflow downstream, rather than downforce generation of the front wing itself.

Als marked are the new stacked elements, now smaller but flanked by a standing panel similar to what can be seen on the {Mercedes AMG F1W05}. This acts to direct airflow outward while generating a counter clockwise rotating vortex onto the inside of the front wheels. Hence it is no surprise that McLaren's update also included minor updates to the brake ducts as well as a different profile of the floor left and right of the car.

http://f1tcdn.net/images/development/20 ... ren-fw.jpg

Whoever wrote this analysis may want to take note. The inside of the old front (the inside wing tips) weren't designed like that for downforce generation. If they were then the solution that would have worked more efficiently is if both the top and bottom upper elements would be the same length, this will reduce the size of the vortex created while creating more downforce as a result of increased surface area and increased span making more of the wing out of the effected area of the wingtip vortices. How it was set there would create one larger vortex as the air rolls around the front wing. It is actually a similar solution to Ferrari's current front wing hence the two top wing plains being joined.

He new wing on the other hand has the tips moved away from each other to create multiple separate stable vortices that is used to control flow downstream. The old wing created fewer larger vortices to control flow downstream. Two different methods to try to achieve the same result.

[smr]

A big upgrade but it didn't seem to push us further forward up the grid

Just seemed to be the same old story and positions, will Silverstone suit the upgrades better, is there any proof of the upgrades having worked well ? I heard EB say that the Wind Tunnel and CFD correlation is good and shows signs of improvements with the upgrades but that's worth nothing if it doesn't translate on the track.

Hoping we have a better result at Silverstone but I'm not convinced there will be

[Sasha]

They did ok(Mag)when the track temp was at 90 degrees for qual but with the track temp at 128 degrees at the start of the race they fell in performance.

[mclaren_mircea]

http://albrodpulf1.wordpress.com/2014/0 ... s-tecnico/

I found today this technichal analysis about Mclaren's updates in Austria, but it's in spanish. Take a look, it gives us an interesting information, that the new turnig vanes were not used in the race. Even if it's 5 days after the race, the article it's from today

[Lucky]