McLaren MCL36

[PlatinumZealot]

What I am struggling to understand about this car, is how the tire wake is managed.

Haas uses the front part of the sidepod to create a wall that pushes the dirty air away, and they are sloped to guide the cleaner air on the right down towards the diffuser.

Aston uses their entire sidepods to create a shield from the wake, with a massive undercut below to provide clean air to the diffuser.

McLaren does seemingly nothing?! to push the tire wake away from the car. No bargeboards there to help, and can't see many clever vortices that can help that much.

This is what's concerning me now, but surely the engineers who developed the concept know better than some totally unqualified enthusiast.

McLaren does the same thing.
You have to look sorta from one of the side views to see how they do it. Last year's side pods started almost behind the cockpit. The side pods are extremely forward this year, basically at the front of the cockpit near to the front wheels. Being closer to the front wheels the wake is not as expanded as much I believe. This would be where last year's barge boards would have started. The lower front face of the McLaren side pod is doing thing. Also note the 2022 maclaren side pod height is also lower. sugesting they have managed to create a lower tyre wake.

[DragonSGC]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FLZOA9LXMAQ ... name=large

Are those winglets on the upper portion of the rear cake tin or is it the back part of the suspension and control arms that just from this angle make it look like winglets (also tbf that could be intended as well). I suppose Mclaren guessed there might be a sneaky photo from the rear and had the forethought to board up the diffuser exit. Also the absolute size of the cooling exit, talk about a cannon exit.

[Xero]

Upscaled and enhanced look at the rear;
- Double element beam wing like the Aston.
- Lots of detail coming off the rear wheel cake tin.
- Some interesting details attached to the diffuser wall, didn't expect to see that.
- Deep spoon shape on the rear wing, good angle here to show just how much.
- Diffuser blocked off as expected.

[RZS10]

So here's my crazy theory on what they are doing with the venturi tunnels. [...]
https://i.imgur.com/aqq1mri.png

Could they have just draped something over the actual floor to hide it?

It is me, captain obvious:

https://i.imgur.com/zvon2Oq.png

So folks here don't think the strakes have merely been omitted and not glued onto the launch car to hide them, but that there is actually something to it?

I mean yea, it's obvious that they just removed a few parts from the render but i meant that the floor was just covered with some plastic or vinyl and that there wasn't anything too funky going on with the tunnels towards the rear, something our local gandalf mentioned as well

[...] the MTC car had some plastic sheeting covering the floor edge. [...]

[Blackout]

https://cullenfc.co.uk/xero/images/McLaren%202022c.jpg

Upscaled and enhanced look at the rear;
- Double element beam wing like the Aston.
- Lots of detail coming off the rear wheel cake tin.
- Some interesting details attached to the diffuser wall, didn't expect to see that.
- Deep spoon shape on the rear wing, good angle here to show just how much.
- Diffuser blocked off as expected.

Those are the 'L' shaped vanes that are attached to the cake tin

[MrGapes]

I like the idea of venting the radiator flow between the beam wing and rear wing with a large expanded cooling exit, seems like a pretty clean solution, no need for extreme cooling vents along bodywork, will allow for cleaner airflow.

[Thunder]

Thats quite an extensive cover over the rear Floor. (last Picture)

[Stu]

Once again, looks shorter to me.

Look at the gap between the rear face of the top front wing planes to the front face of the front tyres. The gap between the Aston Martin wing and its front tyres is bigger than that of the McLaren. Maybe the nose is shorter? or.. the front wing is bigger in depth?
https://i.imgur.com/wnZrd7I.jpg

Since the distance between axles is fixed, if the front wing is closer to the front tires, the rear will be farther away (and vice versa)

(Not to scale):

https://i.imgur.com/kKO8CMX.jpg

The wheelbase is not fixed. There are upper limits (3600mm), but they can go shorter. I think that there is also a lower limit, but need to check.

[AeroDynamic]

According to ‘Kyle.engineers’ the wing elements toward the end plate must be a render artefact because he cannot see how they would be legal with the rules. But to me, the render looks intentional

[Xero]

https://cullenfc.co.uk/xero/images/McLaren%202022c.jpg

Upscaled and enhanced look at the rear;
- Double element beam wing like the Aston.
- Lots of detail coming off the rear wheel cake tin.
- Some interesting details attached to the diffuser wall, didn't expect to see that.
- Deep spoon shape on the rear wing, good angle here to show just how much.
- Diffuser blocked off as expected.

Those are the 'L' shaped vanes that are attached to the cake tin

Yeah, I think you're right. Shadow and perspective make them look attached to the diffuser wall, and detached from the cake tin. Those would have been obscured by the diffuser previously, so having them out in the open catches your eye.

[taperoo2k]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FLWn_ibXsAA ... ame=medium

Surely I can't be the only one to see it?

Nope, I said that already after the test late last year when they showed the spec wheels.
Maybe if they tried a different colour than black, it would look better

I wonder what will this mean for brakes and cooling them. I know hubs were used more than a decade ago, but they had a bit of venting while this is practically closed shut.

The brakes have undergone a total redesign, teams won't really know for certain if their solutions work until they start running the cars properly (should do, otherwise somebody will have made a massive mistake). This explains the changes and the challenges the teams face with the brakes.
https://the-race.com/formula-1/the-out- ... evolution/
---

Overall I think the McLaren looks ambitious, even with parts missing on the launch car. I do wonder if the floor is a basic one that will be used in testing for correlation purposes before they bolt on the real floor. As for the front suspension ? It's all about the airflow, so either McLaren are spot on with the choices made or are way off. I don't expect to see convergence in terms of car design until 2023, given the budget cap. If a team has gotten the design completely wrong ? Bin the season and spend the limited resources on changing the design for 2023 would possibly be the result.

[the EDGE]

Thats quite an extensive cover over the rear Floor. (last Picture)

The front wing in this picture looks nothing like the Render

The bottom 2 elements are much wider, especially at the outer edges

[Stu]

What I am struggling to understand about this car, is how the tire wake is managed.

Haas uses the front part of the sidepod to create a wall that pushes the dirty air away, and they are sloped to guide the cleaner air on the right down towards the diffuser.

Aston uses their entire sidepods to create a shield from the wake, with a massive undercut below to provide clean air to the diffuser.

McLaren does seemingly nothing?! to push the tire wake away from the car. No bargeboards there to help, and can't see many clever vortices that can help that much.

This is what's concerning me now, but surely the engineers who developed the concept know better than some totally unqualified enthusiast.

I reckon the detail around the front bib/boat keel is key (badum-tsh). Basically they're funnelling air up through the gap to the base of the sidepod - which has an aggressive outward face. That pushes air to the edge of the floor where there will be a wing which is hidden in the launch photos.

Although it doesn’t look as spectacular, a bit of ‘back-of-fag-packet’ CFD makes me think that the McLaren choice here has the potential to be a stroke of genius. A large (mostly contained) ‘tea-tray’ - really good for high pressure generation on the top surface, that will ‘exhaust’ into the front of the (non-undercut) side-pod inlet. After this it can go two ways, at low speeds pushing/flowing outwards across the floor side-fence, assisting with extraction from the outer part of the tunnel (maybe why there is very little detail of strakes and floor edge); at high speeds with a greater mass flow around the pods this exhaust flow from the bib area will likely utilise the Coanda effect and ‘stick’ to the base radius of the side-pod (the underfloor inlet will not need the assistance at speed), this flow will then continue to the rear of the car.

Moving to pushrod rear suspension will have allowed them to de-bulk the lower portion of gearbox/bell-housing, allowing for less constrained tunnels, the pushrod appears to have quite a forward sweep to it (much like rear pull-rods have done for a few years), meaning the suspension systems are likely to within the bell-housing structure rather than gearbox mounted.

Clever stuff McLaren!

And very difficult to simulate/test and copy within the constraints of the budget cap and aero testing/CFD cap.

[Xero]

I love this shot from Karun! Lots of carbon-fibre sheets covering up some details.
- Nose tip is far more sculpted than the render, blending into the front wing nicely.
- Front wing elements completely different from render, as we've already seen.
- Thin slot on the front wheel flow deflectors.
- Rear of the floor was clearly covered up.
- Front wing end slots covered up too, so assuming different from the render.
- Good angle of the bulges on top of the sidepods above Velo logo.
- Are they covering something up below where the halo joins the rear? Can make out some edges of possible slots?

[michl420]

I think one of the main reason for front pull rod is a clean inside of the wheel (also the small brake duct). I hope they chose not the wrong way, because AM seems to guide a lot of bypass air in the brake duct.