Mclaren Mercedes MP4-25

[internetf1fan]

Realistically what is it that Mclaren could have done to the non ebd car?
I can't see anything making more gains than the ebd.

There is one aspect of car performance that McLarens have been legendary in the past for. That's the mechanical grip, kerb and bump riding ability as well as traction out of slow corners.

This year they seem to have focused on the aero and completely lost the ball on their strength. McLarens have historically never been amazing at aero, but they have been amazing at other stuff. They will never beat Ferrari or RBR on pure aero alone.

What they should do is focus more on the suspension design etc.

[internetf1fan]

What are they doing at McLaren???!!!! They should be pumping out laps after laps to understand what the EBD is doing and yet they have the fewest laps out of any team.

[myurr]

Realistically what is it that Mclaren could have done to the non ebd car?
I can't see anything making more gains than the ebd.

There is one aspect of car performance that McLarens have been legendary in the past for. That's the mechanical grip, kerb and bump riding ability as well as traction out of slow corners.

This year they seem to have focused on the aero and completely lost the ball on their strength. McLarens have historically never been amazing at aero, but they have been amazing at other stuff. They will never beat Ferrari or RBR on pure aero alone.

What they should do is focus more on the suspension design etc.

It's nothing to do with their suspension design, their cars aero package is very sensitive to pitch. Being so dependent on that massive diffuser, by far the biggest on the grid, as the rear of the car raises up the diffuser becomes much less effective and they lose all their downforce. To counter this happening as the fuel load changes on the car they're having to run a very stiff suspension setup.

The only way they're going to get rid of that trait in the car is to pretty much scrap the current design and bring out a B car, something that is not worth it as it would require them to sacrifice any chance of victory next year. Unfortunately they're going to have to live with it for now and instead optimise the aero package as best they can.

[myurr]

What are they doing at McLaren???!!!! They should be pumping out laps after laps to understand what the EBD is doing and yet they have the fewest laps out of any team.

It takes time to understand and analyse the data and to make changes to the car, blindly pumping out the laps isn't going to help when time is already tight. Also if you run too early in a session you just shred the tyres and make the rest of the data gathered irrelevant to the actual running conditions.

Have faith that they know what they're doing - the EBD isn't easy and both Ferrari and Red Bull have more running under their belts so have more advanced designs. As Paddy Lowe said McLaren now have a baseline that works and that the aero guys can build on. There is far more that they can optimise in their design compared to Ferrari and Red Bull who already have more optimised designs, so expect them to close the performance deficit over the next two to three races.

[wesley123]

indeed, and what is forgotten is that the mclaren system is more complex and much harer to do then the Red Bulls or Ferraris, both of the could simply lower the pipes without any problem, mclaren could not due to their way to tight packaging.

[kalinka]

Is there a fundamental difference between Ferrari and McLaren EBD ? It lokks like Ferraris exhaust is exiting almost 45 degrees, pointing clearly towards rear tyre, while McLaren's exhaust is pointing almost straight rearward.





Or at the end, the McLaren's also blowing sideways, but it's achieved trough this spiral/oval cut in the exhaust ?

[Rino]

Mclarens exhaust is much closer to the tyre!

[kalinka]

Yes, it's closer ,i didn't say it's not, but the question is > it seems that the exhaust is not blowing so directly toward the tyre as Ferrari's.

[myurr]

Yes, it's closer ,i didn't say it's not, but the question is > it seems that the exhaust is not blowing so directly toward the tyre as Ferrari's.

If the car was stationary then yes. However when there is a large volume of air flowing through that channel because the car is moving then the exhaust is going to be deflected - without one of the aero guys on here interpreting what's going on we're all just going to be guessing and stabbing around in the dark.

[zgred]

[internetf1fan]

I honestly feel it's McLaren that took a step back than Ferrari or RBR taking a step forward.

[segedunum]

It's nothing to do with their suspension design, their cars aero package is very sensitive to pitch. Being so dependent on that massive diffuser, by far the biggest on the grid, as the rear of the car raises up the diffuser becomes much less effective and they lose all their downforce. To counter this happening as the fuel load changes on the car they're having to run a very stiff suspension setup.

I did think they would have developed this characteristic out of the car now, one way or another, but it seems to be a permanent fixture. They need a constant and regulation amount of airflow going to that diffuser otherwise it seems to stall and die.

I hate to say I told you so on that one, but..........

[myurr]

I honestly feel it's McLaren that took a step back than Ferrari or RBR taking a step forward.

If that were the case they wouldn't run the EBD. All the cars are progressing all the time, if you take a break from that for a couple of races whilst you try and sort your EBD then it's going to look like you're going backwards.

[myurr]

It's nothing to do with their suspension design, their cars aero package is very sensitive to pitch. Being so dependent on that massive diffuser, by far the biggest on the grid, as the rear of the car raises up the diffuser becomes much less effective and they lose all their downforce. To counter this happening as the fuel load changes on the car they're having to run a very stiff suspension setup.

I did think they would have developed this characteristic out of the car now, one way or another, but it seems to be a permanent fixture. They need a constant and regulation amount of airflow going to that diffuser otherwise it seems to stall and die.

I hate to say I told you so on that one, but..........

Well you actually said it was season over and that Red Bull would walk it, but both McLaren and Ferrari are still in there. We've seen McLaren run the EBD once and with only a week break they wouldn't have even had time to make new parts for this race based on that data let alone design and test them, so we're not going to see anything from them for at least another race or two. If they're still not making progress in Spa then fine I'll agree with you that they don't have a hope of clinching the championship.

[segedunum]

Well you actually said it was season over and that Red Bull would walk it, but both McLaren and Ferrari are still in there.

I looked purely at Newey's car (which is what I was most interested in frankly) and not RB's rather silly race and team management, which is another story and another topic entirely.

We've seen McLaren run the EBD once and with only a week break they wouldn't have even had time to make new parts for this race based on that data let alone design and test them, so we're not going to see anything from them for at least another race or two.

There's still something fishy going on. Other teams have managed to bolt this on to a car and get a modest improvement in lap time but the McLaren seems to be extremely sensitive to what's been done to it. They've got a long three weeks after this weekend because they've got to do what Red Bull and now Ferrari have done - bolt parts on to the car and have them work with no testing.