McLaren MP4-19 Mercedes

Beostar · Post 12 Jan 2004, 15:44

I read an article in F1 Racing couple of years ago. Think it was the end of 1997 an interview with Harvey Postlethwaite (may he rest in peace) where they asked him when he thought F1 would recover from the new tyre rule (you know with grooves in the tyres and stuff). I don't know exactly what he said but the bottem line was that it would take F1 less than a year to go faster with tyres that were supposed to slow em down 2-3 second a lap.

If i find the article I'll post the graph he made

=> conclusion : I think we won't see any slower times. Only faster onces.

Guest · Post 12 Jan 2004, 17:57

How can a multi million dollar (or pound) operation like Mclaren design a new car where the drivers will not fit into the cockpit?? It isn't as though they didn't know which drivers were going to be racing the car! Now it seems that David, Kimi, etc. can't drive the car for even a few laps without painful bruising. This (MP4-19) is a beautiful looking car, but perhaps they need to hire midgets to drive it.

Beostar · Post 12 Jan 2004, 18:39

tru

I think the same way.
Remember in 1995 (car with the xtra middle wing) they had a contract with Nigel Mansell. He couldn't fit in the car either. They had to use Mark Blundell for 3 races to make a new monocoque. After that Mansell still drove like he couldn't fit in it

but thats just personal opinion.

drspeed · Post 12 Jan 2004, 20:39

Guest wrote:How can a multi million dollar (or pound) operation like Mclaren design a new car where the drivers will not fit into the cockpit?? It isn't as though they didn't know which drivers were going to be racing the car! Now it seems that David, Kimi, etc. can't drive the car for even a few laps without painful bruising. This (MP4-19) is a beautiful looking car, but perhaps they need to hire midgets to drive it.

Both race drivers do fit. It's just that they're not comfortable with it. It's the test driver, alex wurz who cant fit at all at the moment. It's being said that tey're working on new seats for the car. It's an issue most cars and drivers go through. Rubens barrichello used to complain that the F2003-GA is too tight. He raced well despite it. Look at Raikkonen, even if he's not comfortable with it, he still managed to break the lap record at jerez.

Post 12 Jan 2004, 22:11

Anonymous wrote:why mclaren test with 2003 specification rear wing??

again some gremlins apparently... their latest rear wing was not approved by the FIA. I guess they were trying to optimise the bending wing elements, but apparently the thing got too soft.
Not sure though, just a guess

Reca · Post 14 Jan 2004, 11:14

The tiny cockpit is a sort of Newey trademark, remember that he’s the one who introduced the fins on the chassis to satisfy dimensional rules.
Ivan Capelli is the commentator for the Italian tv and often he talks about the tiny cockpit of the Newey’s designed March he drove and the pain he felt each time he was at the wheel. Also I remember I’ve seen in a documentary about Senna, a friend of the Brazilian saying : “Ayrton wasn’t happy about that car, he told me at Brazil ’94 : ‘I don’t understand Williams, they spent millions to hire me, the best, and then I’ve to drive half a second slower simply because I can’t fit in the car’”. They also showed AS while entering in the FW16, you could really see the pain on his face.
Anyway I was convinced that with the rules on chassis dimensions/crash tests introduced in the recent years this was no more an issue, apparently there’s still lot of room... for interpretation...

BTW, Barrichello problem wasn’t the cockpit, it was the way they fixed the HANS device, once they adopted the twin safety belts everything went OK, McLaren situation is quite different because they already tried different seats without solving the problem, and the 3rd driver can’t even sit in the car.

Irvingthien · Post 20 Jan 2004, 15:58

Can anybody explain to me why McLaren are using a 2003 spec rear wing on their MP4-19,2004 rules states that rearwing endplates must be wider, but thers is not so wide..

scarbs · Post 20 Jan 2004, 16:33

Teams always test tyres and new parts with a baseline set up, seeing as the new rear wing is itself a development item, they would have resorted to the old wing because it is a known quantity.

Mikacouli · Post 20 Jan 2004, 18:59

Irvingthien wrote: Can anybody explain to me why McLaren are using a 2003 spec rear wing on their MP4-19,2004 rules states that rearwing endplates must be wider, but thers is not so wide..

The wing didn't pass the FIA tests.The wing was to flexible.That's why they are running the 2003 spec wing.

Post 20 Jan 2004, 21:03

I have read it somewhere too, don't know anymore precisely.
(This question has already been asked earlier in this thread)

Guest · Post 21 Jan 2004, 00:01

is it only me, or does the layout under the car look strange. Here is a very good picture. Looks like they have developed a speciel system for transportimg the air under the car and to the difuser, or am I totally of
http://www.formula-one.net/pics03/velke/25-11-15b.jpg

Guest · Post 21 Jan 2004, 00:40

if you brighten this picture you can also see it. Look like a sandwich bottom

http://www.formula-one.net/pics03/velke/26-11-7b.jpg

rodlamas · Post 21 Jan 2004, 12:37

As everybody know, Mclaren is not testing this time at Barcelona with all teams. They are at Valencia, having what is supposed to be a private session, as there is no information on their website about this session.

But there have been some reports about it.

Does anybody know why at this time they would want to test in private?

Is there anything so bizarre that they would like to try on?

Mikacouli · Post 21 Jan 2004, 15:15

rodlamas wrote:As everybody know, Mclaren is not testing this time at Barcelona with all teams. They are at Valencia, having what is supposed to be a private session, as there is no information on their website about this session.

But there have been some reports about it.

Does anybody know why at this time they would want to test in private?

Is there anything so bizarre that they would like to try on?

McLaren does that a lot.I don't know why.Maybe because they don't want to share there new elements with the other teams.Maybe they have a new rear wing and they don't want to show it to the other teams.

rodlamas · Post 21 Jan 2004, 15:23

We have ssen through the years how Mclaren operates.

Maybe I share with you the opinion that Mclaren is trying some new elements (visual ones), but I do not think that thing about the rear wing having been rejected at the FIA test because it was too flexible. This is just speculation and we are probably never going to know if this is true or not.

Can you imagine a hard piece of plastic and a soft one being put against strong wind? Which one is going to break? The hard one.

Thats why I thnk that Mclaren has found a loophole in the rules....