2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[mwillems]

A paralell smaller workstream? Could that be the rear wing they want to look at? Is it something else? Stella has confirmed they have the Rear Wing on the to do list for this year so it certainly sounds like it.

On another note there was an article from Pierre Wache (RB) doing the rounds talking about how surprised ("It's crazy") that after 2 years nobody has figured out their DRS trick yet..! lol

https://www.planetf1.com/news/red-bull- ... fused-drs/

Here is an article about the Red Bull RW and some of its perceived efficiencies - Caveat, this is Gary Anderson lol

https://the-race.com/formula-1/gary-and ... drs-trick/

This also reminds me of a conversation I had with someone earlier in the season who was suggesting a flatter beamwing will help energise the diffuser. According to this article and I believe this to be correct, there is a strong alignment in efficiency between the rear wing and the beam wing and then the beam wing and the diffuser and these need to operate as a package. The RB Beam wing is highly aggressive but requires the RW to operate in tandem in order for the beam wing itself to be efficient. So basically more air needs to be directed cleanly upwards by the RW and less vortices created in all situations to reduce drag on the RW but also to make the beam wing more efficient, double bonus.

I expect the team not to bring a low DF rear wing but to optimise the existing wing to improve the efficiency and produce some small changes to give the RW a cleaner profile and improve a little the geometry of the wing.

Yer I read that article this morning, it certainly left me confused as I can't comprehend any trick they may have. Perhaps its just RB playing mind tricks? I can see what The Race are saying, its just a case of getting everything working well together, that is what RB does well

Back to the McLaren article... I'm very puzzled about this line

It soon became very apparent to us that Peter Prodromou was the person that needed to lead Aerodynamics.

Do they mean the man they hired to be head of Aero Wasn't leading the Aero package?

I know we all seem to think we could be armchair TPs, but come on, surely every
one who post's here know's Aerodynamics are the be all, and end all of F1 performance and should be at the sharp end of car design

It makes me kind of angry that nearly 10 years have been wasted

We can only suspect this was the case under James Key so I'm not sure about 10 years, don't think there is evidence to suggest that prior to JK (2019) that the same issue existed, I'm not sure when the matrix management was binned. But yes, it does seem to suggest that someone else was leading design (JK) or that JK made it a committee process for the car and Aero and that PP didn't have as strong a voice as was required.

If that is the case we are very lucky PP didn't leave and he has this opportunity to showcase his and his teams skills, he could very well have left. Consider ourselves very fortunate.

[mclaren111]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCiL8CM ... el=THERACE


Enjoyable...

[saputra_25]

what is the prediction on our performance for Zandvoort?

[mclaren111]

what is the prediction on our performance for Zandvoort?

Not to sure... There's a few slow corners... But better than Spa...

[LionsHeart]

what is the prediction on our performance for Zandvoort?

Possibly the second most powerful team.

[organic]

I think Merc will be 2nd force based on their slow speed characteristics, but McLaren will be competitive once again - 3rd quickest and maybe Norris ahead of Russell

[PikeStance]

I think Russel is the most overrated driver on the grid. I would not be surprise to see Piasri ahead of Norris in the Netherlands.

[FW17]

I think Russel is the most overrated driver on the grid.

No Albon is

[McL-H]

McLaren may have to remove sponsor Velo from the car at Zandvoort. Multiple health organisations have filed a complaint at the Dutch marketing code commission, against the promotion of tobacco by the team. Velo sells nicotine pouches that are illegal in the country.

[haza]

I’m pretty sure stage 3 of the upgrade is due at Zandvort which is meant to focus on mechanical and race pace performance

[mclaren111]

I’m pretty sure stage 3 of the upgrade is due at Zandvort which is meant to focus on mechanical and race pace performance

[billamend]

Zandvoort has 6 slow speed corners and 8 mid/high speed corners. It might be a difficult weekend. If they bring an update that mitigates some of their slow speed problems, then they might surprise. Each sector has 2 slow corners - so they are distributed across the circuit.

[Seerix]

Previously in the season in the interview Lando mentioned they are ok in mid speed corners and called Hungaroring mid speed/downforce track. He mentioned there are only 3 corners in Hungaroring which are slow.
Looking at Hungaroring track, those are the corners they run on 2nd gear (probably corners with 100km/h and slower). All corners in Zandvoort are 3rd gear and higher, so maybe we'll be ok.

edit: it would also fit with SPA results, where slow corners (2nd gear) are last 2 turns and turn 1 - 70-80km/h. We saw what sector 1 looked like in the race.

[billamend]

Previously in the season in the interview Lando mentioned they are ok in mid speed corners and called Hungaroring mid speed/downforce track. He mentioned there are only 3 corners in Hungaroring which are slow.
Looking at Hungaroring track, those are the corners they run on 2nd gear (probably corners with 100km/h and slower). All corners in Zandvoort are 3rd gear and higher, so maybe we'll be ok.

edit: it would also fit with SPA results, where slow corners (2nd gear) are last 2 turns and turn 1 - 70-80km/h. We saw what sector 1 looked like in the race.

I imagine that turns 1, 3, 9, 10, 11, and 12 are low speed (2nd gear). Worth confirming with last year onboards.

[Seerix]

I was looking at this picture from 2022