McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

[HampusA]

I thought their main issue under braking was porpoising. If its an issue with KERS, they should be able to deal with it by playing with brake bias. Still with the braking zones (or KERS harvesting zones) so far apart maybe thats a factor too.

What does that mean? porpoising?
I checked google and it said something about animals. I could not find a link in the word to some phenomena that occurs under braking.

Yea i have no idea, i was just curious as to why they were having braking problems because of a lowerDF wing.

[HampusA]

you guys meaning to tell me you NEVER saw what was actually happening at spa? The redbulls were bouncing on the limiter for pete's sake, where as hamilton would only be 200rpm or so from it. Hamilton was geared so that when he had a chance to overtake a RB he had plentyfull topend coming from the DRS indused slip stream.

Mclaren big wing, higher topend gearing, but rely on overtaking. look at sector 2 at spa, mclaren where up there with red bull, who apparently have better DF. redbull are always set up to be reving there nads off when the drs is active. mclaren are 99.9% of the time behind them on the grid so it makes perfect sence to gear your car so its able to overtake. Yes it slows them down in over all laptime which is maybe why there never on pole.

Lewis had massive top end on the sauber with momentum but the second it was past, drag was bogging it down just as the sauber was hitting its limiter.

Honest, get some in car highlights of spa and LISTEN to different cars

Hope i explained it so people can get what i'm ranting on about

Does it really though? I mean what to do when your finally past?

Instead of just getting to the bottom of the weird braking problem they could have used less drag and their L-pods to their advantage and still get by Red Bull but also have an edge in drag reduction with the pods.

The second bold part in some ways confirms it´s a bad idea.
RBR will just get past again.

[PhillipM]

Does it really though? I mean what to do when your finally past?

Leave the RB in the corners, make them work for an overtake on the straights, slow them down, then sail on for another couple of laps when they pit as their tyres are knackered from working the car so hard in the turbulant air...

[HampusA]

Does it really though? I mean what to do when your finally past?

Leave the RB in the corners, make them work for an overtake on the straights, slow them down, then sail on for another couple of laps when they pit as their tyres are knackered from working the car so hard in the turbulant air...

in theory it sounds good but if you have two cars that are just as quick but one uses more downforce it means after 1 lap they will pass the start/finish at exactly the same time.

The only difference is that one car has less downforce which should give it an edge on the start/finish straight.
Apart from the advantage in tire wear of course.

i guess we will see whos right, Mac or Red Bull.
Last year Mac was wrong.

i also got help on what porpoise means in racing terms. it's that front-rear bounce we see sometimes on the maclaren like monaco out of the tunnel, last turn nurburg etc.
what could possibly cause that though? very stiff front setup?

[MIKEY_!]

Wonder if this difference in engine gearing will cause RBR problems of engine reliability later in the year.

[HampusA]

well if things go as plan Red Bull don't have to worry about that

[MIKEY_!]

O yes the Champ lead

[HampusA]

exactly,

hopefully Mclaren chose the right aero setup and im completely wrong.

[MIKEY_!]

Can't help but agree even though i was an RBR fan even before they assembled the bandwagon. Webber all the way (i'm aussie too)

[raymondu999]

I thought their main issue under braking was porpoising. If its an issue with KERS, they should be able to deal with it by playing with brake bias. Still with the braking zones (or KERS harvesting zones) so far apart maybe thats a factor too.

What does that mean? porpoising?
I checked google and it said something about animals. I could not find a link in the word to some phenomena that occurs under braking.

Yea i have no idea, i was just curious as to why they were having braking problems because of a lowerDF wing.

When you're braking, and the front of the nose starts bouncing violently

[kalinka]

"Speaking at the FIA press conference on the first day of practice for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Goss said, “We have discovered a bit of a sweet spot with the car. Those themes that we know work well with our car we are pushing now and looking forward to taking those further."

So what about that sweet-spot ? Any idea on which part of the car it could be ? Or it's a setup sweet-spot, and it's a complex setup of multiple components (suspension,DF,EBD) that they didn't discovered yet? I don't think Goss spoked BS about this, he's not like that.

EDIT : Furthermore, from his statement it seems that it's not a Monza-specific or high speed-specific sweet spot, but something fundamental...

[ringo]

The funny thing is, this shows how less aerodynamically efficient this car is than the redbull.

What were the best sector times in the high downforce sections at spa for this car vs the redbull on the same tyres?
Do we get ape speeds for this year?

I believe redbull had more downforce than the 26 today, but still had the top speed.

Lift to drag ratio of the redbull is better then if it's the case.

I'll bring this point up again.
There's a misconception that more downforce equals more drag for a good car and they can't do well at top speed tracks. This is not the case as we can compare a HRT to a Ferrari in the same light. One simply is better all over.

What's important is how many points of DF carry how many points of Drag. Also where the DF is produced.

In this sense the redbull is the opposite philosophy than Mclaren.

Redbull's DF is in the body. And their low drag solution is in the wings.

Mclaren's DF is in the wings and their low drag solution is in the body.

At then end of the day RB have a better L/D ratio, and can turn down the wick enough and make the most compromise in drag and still can afford to slide in the chicanes and have best sector times.

Car's a monster Yo!!

Mclaren's only hope is the 2 DRS zones at Monza.

[Pierce89]

This Rb7 v mp426, little wing v big wing is getting old. The Rb7 OBVIOUSLY has a better
L/D than the Macca, because at Spa they matched Macca for top speed but murdered them in the DF intensive second sector. It's also obvious the RB7 makes more DF from the body rather than the wings. Mclaren running fat wings does NOT mean they have more overall DF than RED Bull, like some uninformed people have claimed.It means they have to run more wing than Red Bull to achieve a given level of DF. Mclaren has to run the very fat wings to match up against the DF the RB7 creates from it's body. That is reason we have the conundrum of a fat winged Mclaren having less DF AND less drag than a skinny winged RB7. I hope between me and Ringo there has been enough light shed on the topic to end this little discussion and end the idea that because the Macca runs fat wings and still has higher top speed means it more efficent. The Macca is fast in a straight, because even with skinny wings the RB7 is dragging around more downforce. I will say however, that I believe Mclaren is doing the best job of exploiting EBD mapping, but even though it makes them quick it just seems kinda hopeless in comparison to the clearly better chassis that is the Rb7

[rdr]

The funny thing is, this shows how less aerodynamically efficient this car is than the redbull.

What were the best sector times in the high downforce sections at spa for this car vs the redbull on the same tyres?
Do we get ape speeds for this year?

I believe redbull had more downforce than the 26 today, but still had the top speed.

Lift to drag ratio of the redbull is better then if it's the case.

I'll bring this point up again.
There's a misconception that more downforce equals more drag for a good car and they can't do well at top speed tracks. This is not the case as we can compare a HRT to a Ferrari in the same light. One simply is better all over.

What's important is how many points of DF carry how many points of Drag. Also where the DF is produced.

In this sense the redbull is the opposite philosophy than Mclaren.

Redbull's DF is in the body. And their low drag solution is in the wings.

Mclaren's DF is in the wings and their low drag solution is in the body.

At then end of the day RB have a better L/D ratio, and can turn down the wick enough and make the most compromise in drag and still can afford to slide in the chicanes and have best sector times.

Car's a monster Yo!!

Mclaren's only hope is the 2 DRS zones at Monza.

You forget something - blown diffuser.
I think it's the key to understanding RB's strength.

Sectors 2 and 3.

[PlatinumZealot]

That counts as "body" down-force too, when we a talking about wings and whatnot.

Rebull was beastly in parabolica today and had a skinny wing, and DRS open!They did a similar stunt in barcelona (opening DRS in turns).

Mclaren needs to understand how RedBull does this before 2012.