2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[organic]

There's a chance at p5 in wdc for Lando. Would be nice for him

[AR3-GP]

https://i.imgur.com/T6pKxEa.png

There's a chance at p5 in wdc for Lando. Would be nice for him

I can't see him beating Russell. The Ferraris should be overhauled by end of season if the previous downforce tracks are anything to go by.

[mwillems]

https://i.imgur.com/T6pKxEa.png

There's a chance at p5 in wdc for Lando. Would be nice for him

I was also looking at that this morning. It is certainly possible, I suppose this latest update might be one that goes unanswered by other teams who might have finished bringing updates.

Statistically it is not likely, but all it takes on one good race where everything goes our way and he can make maybe 15 or more points up on those around him.

Its all about having fun and enjoying the teams performance from this weekend on.

[AR3-GP]

Norris also will have Piastri taking points off him more frequently if the last few rounds are anything to go by. His points tally has been enabled by a one sided h2h with Piastri compared with more closely contested teammate h2hs at Mercedes and Ferrari. Sainz and Leclerc have equal points.

[eurwynf1]

Going back to the '22 brake ducts, they were tiny. Do you think they could implement something like that again but get it working? Always wondered how the car would of been if it worked as it was quick in the Barca tests

[Swed3121]

Going back to the '22 brake ducts, they were tiny. Do you think they could implement something like that again but get it working? Always wondered how the car would of been if it worked as it was quick in the Barca tests

It’s also worth remembering that we were one of few teams that didn’t need to restrict performance for bouncing, as well as just not knowing how much other teams were pushing.

I would say that the current car is much closer to the current fronttunner, than the test car was to the fastest car at the test

[Swed3121]

Should McLaren be undertaking something to change their deficiency in stately, I’m rather worried that even if we manage to build a RB19, it would be no use with our Ferrari style strategy.
There are a few exception but every time a crucial strategy call was needed (especially when it’s raining) MCL seems rather deficient (Norris in Russia, both drivers in Zandvoort are just two examples)

We could be snapping at Aston right now if they had made the right call at zandvoort.

Furthermore, for RB, they’re car is so dominant they don’t even need the vest strategy, but they still have it. For us it’s critical to get it right due to how close the field is, and yet we don’t

[Darth-Piekus]

I dont think we are that much far from Red Bull. If the last upgrade delivers some time and considering both stop working on current car and start on the next car all we must do is outdevelop them in winter. But can Peter Prodromou outsmart Newey.

[djos]

I dont think we are that much far from Red Bull. If the last upgrade delivers some time and considering both stop working on current car and start on the next car all we must do is outdevelop them in winter. But can Peter Prodromou outsmart Newey.

McLaren will catch RedBull, only if they manage to build a car with a strong front end. This is one of McLaren’s biggest weaknesses ATM.

[CjC]

Should McLaren be undertaking something to change their deficiency in stately, I’m rather worried that even if we manage to build a RB19, it would be no use with our Ferrari style strategy.
There are a few exception but every time a crucial strategy call was needed (especially when it’s raining) MCL seems rather deficient (Norris in Russia, both drivers in Zandvoort are just two examples)

We could be snapping at Aston right now if they had made the right call at zandvoort.

Furthermore, for RB, they’re car is so dominant they don’t even need the vest strategy, but they still have it. For us it’s critical to get it right due to how close the field is, and yet we don’t

Agreed, it’s something that I’ve been wondering recently.
Thing is, it’s too much to ask of Mclaren to
be bang on point right away, Red Bull and Merc have been front runners for so long now that they are just so much more experienced to deal with the pressure. Also they can have in the back of their minds ‘well if it doesn’t work today there will be another opportunity soon’ because they have a race winning car which hasn’t been a case of Mclaren at all really so when that one chance for a great result pops up the pressure to get it right is huge.

Let’s hope in the near future Mclaren can challenge for regular wins and fumble around with the strategy to prepare themselves for an assault on the title say for next year??

[CjC]

I dont think we are that much far from Red Bull. If the last upgrade delivers some time and considering both stop working on current car and start on the next car all we must do is outdevelop them in winter. But can Peter Prodromou outsmart Newey.

McLaren will catch RedBull, only if they manage to build a car with a strong front end. This is one of McLaren’s biggest weaknesses ATM.

Mclarens biggest weakness is Aston Martin??

[LionsHeart]

Rather insightful:

https://www.racefans.net/2023/09/07/mcl ... -2024-car/

Stella has changed his tune about bringing any 2024 ideas to the 2023 car.
He was against it a few races ago now he’s open to the idea if it’s feasible.

Also he says anymore upgrades coming are only worth a tenth or 2 so we won’t see a massive leap again

What did you want? Should I play half a second again? I wrote earlier that the last package will give a couple of tenths. There is no need to count on more. The car is already approaching its peak capabilities. We saw a big jump before the summer break only because the base car was very bad, so the upgrade package allowed us to win back a lot, even to my surprise. The main thing is that the 2024 car should be largely devoid of its weak points, and now we have to be content with a 2-4 strongest car until the end of 2023.

[LionsHeart]

Rather insightful:

https://www.racefans.net/2023/09/07/mcl ... -2024-car/

Stella has changed his tune about bringing any 2024 ideas to the 2023 car.
He was against it a few races ago now he’s open to the idea if it’s feasible.

Also he says anymore upgrades coming are only worth a tenth or 2 so we won’t see a massive leap again

Lots of great little tidbits in there. Windtunnel working well, and improvements to aero leading to directions that the chassis needs to improve.

“Because when you put small rear wings, then you reduce the suction at the back of the floor, the floor offloads, and then the whole car kind of tends to ‘switch off’.

This echoes things I've heard (around here probably).

Yeah if you wade through the 48 pages of rear wing discussion you'll see me and LionsHeart discussing it.

And he reiterates the point that the car suffers a little from the low DF rear wing. And this because the package as a whole isn't sufficient for it. It is the sliding scale of DF and drag. If you could make the car itself less draggy and keep the DF, or keep the drag on the car but have it create more DF for it, then you can lessen the wings for an overall net gain.

Our car, outside of the rear and front wings, is draggy however, the wing only removes a portion of the drag in comparison the likes of Williams, Ferarri and Red Bull, and probably Merc too.

What surprised me a little is that he said that the car became draggy as a result of the Austria upgrade.

it doesn't say it in this article but as part of the designs of the 24 car they will put focus on lowering the drag of the package itself as Stella has previously said that the drag is the biggest problem of the car, more so than low speed issues, but perhaps that is because they hope to remedy that a bit this weekend.

I have a feeling the drag fix will be to do with front tyre wake and how we deal with outwash, including those first three vortices of the floor which seem focussed on dealing with outwash as well as the front wing endplates as well as a more refined Sidepod.

And another thing, don't forget we have the new Tech Directive on the structure and rigidity of the front wings this weekend! Even if there is a single tenth to be found compared to those around us, it all adds up. The team are confident it doesn't impact them. I trust Stella's word on this.

Very interesting observation about the resistance from the front tires. On the contrary, I guess that the resistance is mainly on the rear tires, which hinder us. At least, this is the impression one gets after reworking the front wing in the area of ​​the end plates.

And you correctly noted that resistance remains even in context, if you unload the front and rear wings, in general this is the case. But. There is one small nuance. In qualifying and the race at Monza, the team did not use the cut front wing. This surprised me. The impression is that the team found a way to load the rear tires, but the front tires are poorly balanced? It's like they don't have enough grip on the front tires.

[LionsHeart]

I suppose it's really for car comparison thread, but will use RB here as it's, of course, their target to beat and access the top levels of podium.

Pre 2022, the RB was (relatively) high downforce floor and used a tiny rear wing at Monza in balancing this. But new era has given facility to fundamentally alter the floor performance profile given all the geometry under there.

Fascinating to me was that RB chassis in the wet at Zandvoort, you could see it switching from diffuser at low speed to outwash at mid chassis for high speed. (I commented on the RB 19 thread, but nobody picked it up to comment) With the obvious "toggle" of rear ride height being head of suspect in this regard for my thinking.

In other words, that floor geometry gets to the point of stall and likely to be influenced by rear ride height/static/spring rate etc to control how that interaction is placed within each specific circuit characteristic.

It seems to produce big load at low to moderate speed range (contrast McL low speed limitations) but then goes on to not keep accumulation of negative pressure and attendant drag as speed rises. The high speed load at rear appears to be primarily the wing. The two would seem to run consecutively, rather than floor accumulation linear, plus the wing in vertically stacked response of McL
This appears to force McL design team to cap the abdolute floor negative pressure in response to top speed, and then suffer too little low speed load from either element to fully round out the chassis performance of such a range.

When running higher overall load the McL chassis appears to work the rear tires harder (demonstration of total load going through them) also benefits from the more durable tire as it can now squeeze that carcass into flex and it's optimum range. Take that rear wing away at a Monza though, and those rears (especially the harder choice) can no longer be flexxed, this resulted in sub optimum rear tire use and grip compared to their immediate competitors.

They were caught between two hard choices for setup, wing less for speed OR wing for load and be overtaken on straights.

Don't think they could have done much else though, but feel it demonstration of floor understanding for them, and maybe their core focus in next yrs chassis.

This chassis appers the most closely related to that RB in it's mechanical elements, but fundamentally opposed in floor design philosophy. If they've got the right view of their shortcomings, and appreciate exactly what the other team is doing it looks quite promising in my view.

I'm not on the Red Bull thread. But such things are interesting to read and comment on. Therefore, I will express it here. The Red Bull chassis is good not only because of the aero package, although they have a very good one. The chassis operates over a very wide range of temperatures and a wide range of track configurations. If it comes to the bottom, floor and diffuser and how it turns on and off and the speed when this happens, then first of all we need to pay attention to the work of the suspension. It works quite differently for Red Bull than it does for McLaren. This can be seen both on straights when driving over bumps, and when entering and exiting slow corners. I think it’s worth talking about nonlinear spring stiffness here. Nowadays you can’t use hydraulics, as Mercedes did before.

Red Bull switched to mechanical springs even before hydraulics were outlawed and successfully used squat suspension in 2021. I think they use several springs in one block at once, so that one works more for uneven road surfaces, and the other contributes more to how the car will squat with increasing speed and the work of the floors and diffuser. This year I already heard about some alleged operation of Red Bull drs, that when it is activated, the efficiency of the diffuser also deteriorates.

Honestly, I don’t understand how this can be, given that these are different structural air flows and they are not united by anything. And they cannot be combined, because there is high pressure above the upper wing where the upper flap operates, and low pressure under the bottom.

If the assumption about super drs, which contributes to the shutdown of the diffuser, is correct, then Red Bull has done something unthinkable. I understand that by activating the DRS system, the efficiency of the wing decreases as a system that increases downforce, good. In this case, the wing creates less downforce and less drag, which means less downforce is created above the wing, which seems to directly hint that the pressure above the wing is no longer so high.

In this case, if we want to turn off the diffuser, we must lift the rear of the car, and this can only be done by switching and cutting off the flows that run along the bottom. I don't understand. I understand that my knowledge is not enough. But here I can additionally refer to the fact that Red Bull uses a low-load front wing compared to other cars. Yes, this helps them reduce drag, but it also says that the front wing is only used for a little balance at the front, and the underbody geometry is designed so that the downforce balance is closer to the front axle. I don’t know how else to explain it otherwise.

[mwillems]

Lots of great little tidbits in there. Windtunnel working well, and improvements to aero leading to directions that the chassis needs to improve.



This echoes things I've heard (around here probably).

Yeah if you wade through the 48 pages of rear wing discussion you'll see me and LionsHeart discussing it.

And he reiterates the point that the car suffers a little from the low DF rear wing. And this because the package as a whole isn't sufficient for it. It is the sliding scale of DF and drag. If you could make the car itself less draggy and keep the DF, or keep the drag on the car but have it create more DF for it, then you can lessen the wings for an overall net gain.

Our car, outside of the rear and front wings, is draggy however, the wing only removes a portion of the drag in comparison the likes of Williams, Ferarri and Red Bull, and probably Merc too.

What surprised me a little is that he said that the car became draggy as a result of the Austria upgrade.

it doesn't say it in this article but as part of the designs of the 24 car they will put focus on lowering the drag of the package itself as Stella has previously said that the drag is the biggest problem of the car, more so than low speed issues, but perhaps that is because they hope to remedy that a bit this weekend.

I have a feeling the drag fix will be to do with front tyre wake and how we deal with outwash, including those first three vortices of the floor which seem focussed on dealing with outwash as well as the front wing endplates as well as a more refined Sidepod.

And another thing, don't forget we have the new Tech Directive on the structure and rigidity of the front wings this weekend! Even if there is a single tenth to be found compared to those around us, it all adds up. The team are confident it doesn't impact them. I trust Stella's word on this.

Very interesting observation about the resistance from the front tires. On the contrary, I guess that the resistance is mainly on the rear tires, which hinder us. At least, this is the impression one gets after reworking the front wing in the area of ​​the end plates.

And you correctly noted that resistance remains even in context, if you unload the front and rear wings, in general this is the case. But. There is one small nuance. In qualifying and the race at Monza, the team did not use the cut front wing. This surprised me. The impression is that the team found a way to load the rear tires, but the front tires are poorly balanced? It's like they don't have enough grip on the front tires.

I mean more about how the wake of the front tyre is dealt with rather than the resistance of the front tyre or outwash generated in front of the front tyre. The floor looks to create some vortices that are not designed to seal the floor directly but the crate outwash and move turbulent air away from the floor and rear tyres, which would impact the resistance of the rear tyre.

The point around the stalling diffuser based on the height of the floor sounds really plausible and it will be interesting to see what happens in that area. Who knows, there may be some trickery of the DRS that causes the floor to stall also.

Part of me wondered if it was also to do with flexi wings at the front, but I haven't looked at how much the RB wing flexes at the front compared to others, and at which point it flexes or turns, so it is just complete guesswork.