Vodafone McLaren MP4-27 Mercedes

[tok-tokkie]

A huge amount of effort is put into getting the air to flow smoothly around the sidepods. Then similar effort is put into packaging the rear of the car so that air can flow over the diffuser and beam wing. The suggestion and debate about deflecting the exhaust right across that airflow makes me wonder about some of the discussion & those who post it.

[beelsebob]

A huge amount of effort is put into getting the air to flow smoothly around the sidepods. Then similar effort is put into packaging the rear of the car so that air can flow over the diffuser and beam wing. The suggestion and debate about deflecting the exhaust right across that airflow makes me wonder about some of the discussion & those who post it.

Right across what air flow? The air flow remains tight to the side pod - that's how laminar flow behaves (well, you'd hope they have laminar flow there, if they have turbulent flow they'll be generating a *lot* of drag). The exhaust bulge pops it up and over the fast flow that they're trying to keep for the beam wing.

[kilcoo316]

your two arguments are totally opposite. Charlie has done with Lotus what you say he should have done with Brawn!

I said:

Same for Lotus' braking work - how much money down the toilet 'cos Charlie said "ye" then changed his mind and said "ne". It should have been a "ne" from the word go - or still be "ye".

The word go is from when they asked him.


How many millions have been wasted 'cos Charlie changes his mind half way through development and parts never see a race? If that was in normal industry around something like patent clearances, there would be a helluva lot of lawsuits flying around.

[Chalke]

While the 'normal' approach that most teams seem to be taking is trying to merge the exhaust with the flow moving around the body of the car as smoothly as possible to either blow the beam wing or the top of the diffuser, I think McLaren are doing something very different.

[edit] I agree with beelsebob's thoughts [edit] - they actually ARE trying to separate the exhaust from the flow over the body, and use it to blow the brake duct fins (or possibly optimistically the diffuser edge). The bulge being there to separate this exhaust flow from the body flow with as little disturbance as possible, like so : http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z123 ... xhaust.jpg (hope it's cool to play with that image btw)

It might seem like it would disturb the flow to the beam/diffuser top too much to be worth doing, but if the average down force when splitting the flows is 'x', and the average down force when merging them is 'y', as long as x > y they'll go for it.

[Coefficient]

Forgive me if I take that with a large pinch of salt.


Charlie Whiting's decisions are half the reason for F1 rules being terrible! If he'd acted logically and banned the double diffuser, most teams would have been saved millions and a season would have been saved.

Same for Lotus' braking work - how much money down the toilet 'cos Charlie said "ye" then changed his mind and said "ne". It should have been a "ne" from the word go - or still be "ye".[/quote]


This is a poor comparison.

The Double Diffuser concept was raised in FOTA meetings by Ross Brawn as a loophole that needed to be closed. He was ignored. The device was also approved by Whiting on a number of occasions well in advance of final assembly. The fact that most teams failed to spot the potential of the device is a lesson in taking the rough with the smooth which all non DD teams rather distastefully failed to do with any dignity, spewing sour grapes by protesting in the early races instead of taking it on the chin. The device was so legal that it lasted 2 full seasons unlike other technologies that were deemed to be against the spirit of the regulations such as F-Duct or “dead zone” as its pioneers (Mclaren) referred to it.

Renault however, appear to have attempted to mislead the FIA by deliberately neglecting to mention the aero benefits of the reactive ride system. This is both cynical and unwise because attempts to deceive the FIA are always met with disdain. A team that was building its 20th car should have known better.

[Coefficient]

i actually said before that i think mclaren is trying to seal the diffuser by deflecting the exhaust plume...BUT on second thought i find it hard seeing how air moving from 180-300 kph could deflect the exhaust plume traveling at 600-700 kph at 90 degrees...also..last year the exhaust was far closer to the floor but we didnt see any kind of floor burning because of the use of heat shielding materials...so why wouldnt mclaren use heat shielding materials again which would both keep what they are doing a secret...so what we are seeing on the floor might actually be parts of the tire ripping apart and being thrown on the floor by the wheel turning... since they are probably blowing the brake duct fins and also blowing the edge of the tire ripping it apart...
i also had a look on the sauber solution which is very different i believe as they are trying to keep the plume attached to the bodywork...not deflect it by the airstream..

I think Mclaren are running without heat shielding and burning through a few floors to make the other teams think they've got something wrong and can't figure it out. The heat shielding will come later when they're happy with the concept and decide to stick with it but for now its a bit of smoke and mirrors.

[Hangaku]

Money to (quite literally) burn?

Come on, sandbagging is one thing, but intentionally doing something like this is idiotic, and not what McLaren are about.

[raymondu999]

How would they be doing the burning though? Intentional miscalculation of redirecting the exhausts?

[shelly]

Was in 2010 that rbr put fake stickers representing the exhausts on the sides of the car?

[Just_a_fan]

Burn marks on the floor in front of the rear wheels:

Is that exhaust hole legal? What do the rules say?

I cant see how this solution can be "in the spirit of the rules"

to me there is a clear attempt at improving the aero around the exhaust exit for some sort of benefit, which is clearly against the technical directive.

It's no different to RedBull's flexi front wing. It meets the letter of the rules but not the spirit i.e. it meets the dimensional/test requirements even though everyone can see it flexes excessively.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

It's no different to RedBull's flexi front wing. It meets the letter of the rules but not the spirit i.e. it meets the dimensional/test requirements even though everyone can see it flexes excessively.

I agree to an extent, only as the flexing wings peeved me as much as anything else.
But I understand there to be a caveat to the law.

If it transgresses the spirit of the the law(using energy from the exhaust in a designed way), it will be banned. I'll try source Whiting's quote on this....

[kilcoo316]

Renault however, appear to have attempted to mislead the FIA by deliberately neglecting to mention the aero benefits of the reactive ride system. This is both cynical and unwise because attempts to deceive the FIA are always met with disdain. A team that was building its 20th car should have known better.

So what about the aero benefits of having dampers?

Or springs?

Or the tyre sidewalls?

All affect car rake and ride height (the sidewalls even affecting car shape). Are they to be considered movable aero devices too?


If the FIA want to go down that route of using an definition like that, they could easily find themselves in an awful lot of bother if the teams were awkward about it.

[Just_a_fan]

It's no different to RedBull's flexi front wing. It meets the letter of the rules but not the spirit i.e. it meets the dimensional/test requirements even though everyone can see it flexes excessively.

I agree to an extent, only as the flexing wings peeved me as much as anything else.
But I understand there to be a caveat to the law.

If it transgresses the spirit of the the law(using energy from the exhaust in a designed way), it will be banned. I'll try source Whiting's quote on this....

But you have to prove it's designed that way. The team can say "we have this design because we don't want the exhaust plume damaging X because that would be really bad for safety" or some other argument.

The answer, of course, is for the FIA to say "exhausts must finish 100mm above the bodywork and must point verticaly upwards with the pipe cut horizontally. All exhausts to exit the bodywork at a point X from the centre line and Y in front of the rear axle line". Then everyone has the same solution and no one is blowing anything.

But do we want such prescriptive rules?

[Lurk]

If it transgresses the spirit of the the law(using energy from the exhaust in a designed way), it will be banned. I'll try source Whiting's quote on this....

Fact is all teams this year have designed their exhaust to use their energy.
McLaren, Ferrari & Sauber are blowing (maybe) ducts, others beam wing and maybe some will try to blow a monkey seat. All comply with technical regulations, any of them complies with the spirit.
There is only a subjective limit of what is going to far or not.

To reuse the analogy with the gun which was not so bad, I would say that some are pointing the gun to a crowded place, "accidently" pull the trigger and kill someone. Others are pointing the gun to a less crowded place, "accidently" pull the trigger and still kill someone.

[kilcoo316]

But do we want such prescriptive rules?

Nope, we definitely don't - although then again, we do have standardised sections of front wing and the engine weight and c.g.

Just say the exhaust must exit within this box (X0, X1 Y0, Y1, Z0, Z1) and face this direction (A1 to A2 deg in the horizontal plane, B1 to B2 deg in the vertical plane) - the exhaust plume can be used for any purpose.

However, no bodywork can exist within a cone extending to C mm of the exhaust exit plane of radius starting at D1 exhaust exit diameters and ending at D2 exhaust exit diameters. The exhaust exit plane is measured as an extrapolation of the last 10 cm of exhaust pipe centre-line.

As long as Z0 is high enough from the ground plane and the teams cannot subsequently duct it to the floor, then it'll be impractical to use it for the diffuser.