Why shouldn't McLaren develope their 2009 car?

[TauToadmiester]

Unless they know the chassis is WAY wrong, it behooves teams to find the problems now for 2009 and design in for 2010, since likely little will change for 2010. Of course 2009 is a loss for McL and others but 'retreat' w/o knowledge is wasteful, especially with the resources of Mcl and other big teams.

I suspect the same for Ferrari, the rumors they will give up the 2009 dev.

I certainly would have to have all or nearly all the solutions to 2009 problems proven before I would give up 2009 dev, this is not like 2008, all things learned now will benefit 2010.

And besides, the battles will increase on-track and that's what its all about!!


What do you guys think?

[Giblet]

Honda bailed on the development of last seasons car to be begin work on the current Brawn.

Seemed to work OK for them, and could be worth a try. KERS is a dead duck, and this McL was designed around it, no point in starting a disadvantage now that KERS is gone for next season, according to FOTA.

[tommylommykins]

As TauToadmiester stated very well in his analysys, the difference here is that the rules between '09 and '10 are not changing very much. This means that unlike this year's transition, the cars will not be radically different to this year's, therefore understanding this year's problems will help you avoid them for next year.

[Giblet]

But the chassis is dead wrong, based on their performance in testing, and in the races. If a team as congealed as Mclaren can't figure out their own car, or at least improve it, they could be right in assuming this chassis is a development dead end.

The car was designed for KERS, and next year there is no KERS, so why carry on with this chassis, when the weight distribution and packaging will be totally different next year?

There is of course an advantage to keep analyzing this car, but it's up to Martin now to decide when to give up on the old girl, and coming up on the halfway point of the season, that time is getting close.

[sinspawn1024]

I don't think they ought to make any serious developments on their chassis any more, but I think they should work as much as possible on looking for creative aero solutions. Since aero will be pretty much the same next year, anything they can learn will help.

On the other hand, they may consider things from the financial side of things and just try to minimize costs as much as possible for the rest of the 2009 season and put the savings toward the 2010 car, since there's no way either McL or its drivers are in for the championship.

[WhiteBlue]

As all the rich teams McLaren have three design departments. So it is never a question of just allocating one set of resources. Design usually starts off as early as 18 month prior to the first race and pretty soon McLaren will start designing for 2011. So it is an issue of how much they want to deplete the 2009 and later possibly their 2011 squad in favour of the 2010. Usually a complicated planning process with some serious profiling.

[The FOZ]

I believe the expression that applies here is "they are looking up a dead horse's arse".

The car is very, very wrong, it was designed around KERS, and the season is hopelessly lost.

The only reason to keep pouring effort into the car would be to better understand what went wrong here. If they're at that point already, then they are very well served to ditch it and move on.

If you think about it, McLaren was at the greatest disadvantage coming into this year; they were pouring time and money into the '08 car literally up until the Brazilian GP. They had the shortest amount of time of all the teams to put into the '09 development. We've all seen what that got for them. Clearly, time is what is needed to produce a good car, and they're doing what it takes to get that time now.

[nudger]

i think the answer is they both have to concentrate on the new car, and continue to learn lessons on the current car.
next years aero concept is simular, but the chassis design will be significantly different (one assumes) because of the refueling ban.

[PlatinumZealot]

They better understand what went wrong, Fast!

They need to give my boy a win this year.

[wesley123]

I was thinking, but isnt this case here pretty similair to hondas? bad calibrated windtunnel? it is possible as they dont nkow where it is coming from, so that means the windtunnel shows a good car, but on the traack it behaves different(thats why using such paint)

[PlatinumZealot]

So I heard too.

What is it that needs calibrating the windtunnel? The Fan/air it self or the measuring instruments?

[wesley123]

I believe it is both, it goes about the wind speeds how it react on such things, and if an calculation fault gets made there the whole data you achieve is wrong.

[The FOZ]

I believe all wind tunnels are to be 60% scale...so I would expect that the relationship between the various instruments and airspeeds relative to the scale of the model need to jive with what the full sized version would experience on track.

So I heard too.

What is it that needs calibrating the windtunnel? The Fan/air it self or the measuring instruments?

[ISLAMATRON]

As TauToadmiester stated very well in his analysys, the difference here is that the rules between '09 and '10 are not changing very much. This means that unlike this year's transition, the cars will not be radically different to this year's, therefore understanding this year's problems will help you avoid them for next year.

The cars will have a much larger(at least 2X) fuel capacity next year, this automatically lengthens the wheel base and most probably the sidepods, which in turn affects the weight distribution and the center of pressure. DDD is now known to all teams as allowed, quite possibly shifting the entire design philosophy of McLaren. And finally the tires will be a different dimension(front tires smaller) again changing the desired weight distribution. All in all some significant changes to very important characteristics of the car.... weight distribution, center of pressure & wheelbase. I also happen to think that more teams will adopt RBR's pull rod rear suspension.


Those saying that the car was designed for KERS are overstating it a bit... as shown in Silverstone the car can be configured to race with or without KERS... KERS was not a major design consideration for the MP4/24... it was mainly a matter of reshaping the fuel cell slightly, mounting it to the engine, and providing some cooling for it thru the existing sidepod inlets. Changing the car to incorporate it was not that big of a change, probably less work than RBR did to its rear end to incorporate the DDD.

[wesley123]

The car IS built to run KERS, as a matter of fact, mclaren said they would build 2 types of chassis, 1 with kers and 1 built for without kers.

Wish it was so easy cuase then kers would have been way more usefull, you need to rebuild bodywork all over the place, as seen with BMW, the lower part of the sidepods are now much narrower as they dont need to fit kers anymore, you cant place it high in the car cuase it will affect balance badly, 40kg high up in the car isnt very good for the CoG, tis can be replaced by balast that cna be placed anywhere, you cant place 10kg kers in the nose cone, 10 in the enter and 20 in the rear.