McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

[PlatinumZealot]

The octupus wasnot doing anything for Mclaren. It was slow and unreliable.

[ringo]

How can you draw lines on a car and then say that's what they should have done?! Madness when you're talking about a huge team like McLaren or any team for that matter

Saying they should undercut the side-pods more.... Don't you think they'd want to do that too? It's not like that part of the car is empty! Everything is packed with stuff, whether it be KERS, Radios. the ECU, or the numerous stuff I cant think of off the top of my head.

They've obviously decided that L shaped side-pods were the best route, and was a result the stuff that would be in the Groove that makes the L shape, has now been displaced and put somewhere else in the side-pod. Thats why they arent undercut as much - isn't that obvious?

If they had the capability I'm sure all teams would have a sidepods that were as small and undercut as can be - but it's just not possible.

Someone here mentioned that the L shaped sidepods offer no downforce at all, but they are extremely drag efficient. Those coupled with the octopus exhausts Cheap Downforce ( in terms of drag ) and you can see why they tried to hard throughout testing to get it to work.

They've just went for a different philosophy to red bull - and have already been compromised by the lack of octopus exhaust.


As for why the car was a second faster with the tacked on red bull style exhausts? It was because the octopus exhaust was cracking etc, and not actually working...

Wait and see.
The car can be more extreme.
The side pods were in fact downsized before.

[SiLo]

I think the temps do affect the car, maybe they just had a bad race? I'm sure they will be back on the pace again at Silverstone, especially with cooler temperatures, and Hamilton has always gone well there.

Maybe they will have a completely revised exhaust for the Brit Gp anyway? I'm assuming they will, and so will many other teams.

[horse]

Temperature sensitive cars seem to follow JB around like a sore thumb, huh? As myurr said, car seems pretty switched on in "normal/low" temperature conditions, but doesn't seem to like it too hot and loses traction. To quote MW:

We were not exploiting the tyres correctly; we were struggling with traction – and that was not to do with downforce, that was tyre temperature.

I afraid the reasons for this are a bit beyond me. I guess that it must be a suspension issue that is working the tyre harder than others. Is that a correct assumption?

[adrianjordan]

I thought it was tyre temp related too. On the BBC commentary they mentioned that several teams (not just McLaren) were struggling with the tyres because it was hotter than any of the practise sessions had been so had messed up their setups. I also think McLaren went for a bit too much downforce as they didn't seem to have the straightline speed you would expect from them.

Given that Valencia is more of a "point and squirt" circuit where good traction is king, I don't think you can point to McLaren's downforce as being the issue per say.

I still believe that RBR will be pegged back a bit by the ban on EBD, certainly I think Ferrari will be. Then we'll see where things stack up.

[wesley123]

Wait and see.
The car can be more extreme.
The side pods were in fact downsized before.

But why dont they go for the extreme immediately then?

You really need to apply for a job at one of the formula 1 teams, you got a solution for everything!

[marcush.]

I think the top cars in F1 are so well done in packaging that we cannot expect many quick and dirty improvements possible.Everything you change has a knockon consequence and there is certainly nothing in terms of dead space available really.

[muelte]

Anybody noticed this? I noticed it first from:

http://www.thescuderia.net/forums/showt ... Front-Wing

Pictures are from lap 40/56, when Hamilton was asked to up his pace and he told he couldn't go any faster.

It looks like the main plane of FW is not firmly attached to the vertical pillars, but has quite a bit of vertical play in the joint. I've watched the video from the race again and it is very obvious that under braking, the gap is minimal and when going at high speed on the straight, the gap is very much bigger.

Could this be an attempt of 'flexy wing' effect?

Regards!

[muelte]

I've done a quick snapshots to better show this. Notice the bottom of the narrow vertical grey stripe on the right, where it joins the horizontal grey surface:

1. Getting out of a corner, so at slow speed:


2. Getting to high speed at middle of straight:


3. Full speed near end of straight:


4. Braking into a new corner:


5. Inside the corner:

[marcush.]

but thats really the opposite of what redbull does .

The bulls do actually gain AoA abut what we see here is a reduction of angle of attack ...so any gain by getting closer to the ground is offset with a reduction of downforce due to incident angle...?

[muelte]

Well, don't know exactly the reasoning behind this, but anyway it seems it could cut a bit of drag away on straight, doesn't it?

[astracrazy]

if just the back of the wing is dropping,it would increase it surely? and make the front wing less efficient because the wing will (in small terms) be facing the sky

[aral]

Well, don't know exactly the reasoning behind this, but anyway it seems it could cut a bit of drag away on straight, doesn't it?

Those photos are only showing reflections, with the changes only due to changing light. It is a rigid joint and cannot move.

[i70q7m7ghw]

I don't think that's intentional flex, it's move 5mm tops, and not in a way that would really be of any benefit.

[MikeFromCanada]

Interesting that Lewis admits McLaren had updates that they did not use for qualifying or the race, which he felt could have provided performance but were taken off due to reliability. Any guesses?

http://en.espnf1.com/europe/motorsport/story/52799.html