McLaren MP4-28 Mercedes

[wesley123]

When you look at that front suspension and the lack of any apparent movement or damping, it's a joke.

Which it does at McLAren for quite some time now, I cant remember the -27, -26 and -25 being much more different.

[munudeges]

It is somewhat different in that they seemed to be stiffly sprung in previous years to help out their aerodynamics and it was most striking under braking. This car just has no movement whatsoever, even in a straight line. When you look at the angle of their pull rod you don't have to look far. What possessed them to change this I cannot fathom. They're not getting tons of front end grip out of the aerodynamic advantage they've created, whatever that is.

[gary123]

i did some researches about the times that did the mp4/27 and jenson did in qualifying 1.15.182. this year with the mp4/28 he did in free practice 1.15.422. this year tyres are about half second faster than last year, and the mp4/27 that was in montral was the firts version and the last one in brazil was about half second better or a bit more. so mclaren is running the 2013 championship with a slower and newer car...
edit: im speaking about montreal

[McMrocks]

i did some researches about the times that did the mp4/27 and jenson did in qualifying 1.15.182. this year with the mp4/28 he did in free practice 1.15.422. this year tyres are about half second faster than last year, and the mp4/27 that was in montral was the firts version and the last one in brazil was about half second better or a bit more. so mclaren is running the 2013 championship with a slower and newer car...
edit: im speaking about montreal

But who said that the old car will be faster on those tyres? If the change of the sidewall stiffness from the tyres caused the lack of speed, what i doubt, then the switch to the old car wouldn't help at all, because this car was really designed around the old tyres.

I doubt we can calculate that easy that the old car will be faster

[WillerZ]

i did some researches about the times that did the mp4/27 and jenson did in qualifying 1.15.182. this year with the mp4/28 he did in free practice 1.15.422. this year tyres are about half second faster than last year, and the mp4/27 that was in montral was the firts version and the last one in brazil was about half second better or a bit more. so mclaren is running the 2013 championship with a slower and newer car...
edit: im speaking about montreal

One time never tells the whole story. Last year it was dry and Jenson's times improved over the weekend: 1.16.347 - FP1, 1.15.812 - FP2, 1.15.327 - FP3, 1.14.680 - Qualifying. Roughly, 0.5 seconds faster with every dry session: this is a combination of track evolution and improved setup.

This year it was damp on Friday and Saturday so the track remained green and no-one was able to tweak their setup to the ideal. Despite this, Jenson recorded a 1.15.422 in FP2 to beat his FP2 time from 2012. If he can be 0.4s faster on a greener track with 90 minutes less dry setup time it is patently wrong to say that this year's car is slower than last year's car. McLaren are getting beaten because everyone else moved forward further.

[horse]

I think that whatever mistakes they have made between the correlation of their simulations and the car all stem from the significant design changes made to the car this year as others have already mentioned.

The car has a shorter wheel base and a high nose, probably with the idea of creating a car with more rake than previous years which seemed to have relied more on the floor area rather than floor angle to generate DF.

Hopefully for McLaren, these decisions have some bearing on the new regulations, particularly the loss of the beam wing in 2014 and generating diffuser performance without one.

Yet, all these changes will take a lot of institutional learning to get right and affect both their model and experimental calibration. Additionally, or as part of this, they seem to have not designed the "platform" correctly, which I suppose is the suspension, and weight distribution, maybe because they were expecting a different aero map to the one they really have on the car. Therefore the car seems to have both low and high speed issues.

All in all, this one might be a lame duck, but as Honda, Lotus, etc learned, sometimes learning about a lame duck can lead to greater gains in the future.

[trinidefender]

Hmmmm maybe it is time that Mclaren look at bringing back the famous snow plough. Or have they changed the rules to make it illegal?

[trinidefender]

Also one thing. Throughout all the changes they have brought to the car this year, the rear body work still looks quite bulky. Maybe that plus the high tapering is causing airflow separation and just general bad airflow to the rear aero sections of the car. You can have all the airflow you want but unless it is clean airflow or you have a specific vortex energising some aero section then you can't do anything with it

[Jackles-UK]

Hmmmm maybe it is time that Mclaren look at bringing back the famous snow plough. Or have they changed the rules to make it illegal?

As much as I loved it I'm not sure the snowplough would benefit this years car one bit; front end grip is definitely not one of their issues. According to many sources, including Martin Whitmarsh himself I believe, it's more the horrendous porpoising under braking and weak traction on corner exit and seeing as Canada is awash with both heavy braking and traction zones their weaknesses really stood out this weekend.

The problem is that both their issues are complicated and it's not a simple "we just need 20 points of DF and then we'd be sorted" kind of deal. A solution will likely need amendments to both their suspension and aero package let alone a whole host of toe-in/out, camber, damper (if they ever decide to fit some!), anti roll-bar and maybe even engine map settings which is a hell of a long slog when they don't even have a decent base to work from right now - bit like trying to build a house of cards on a treadmill!

[Pup]

It's very strange that the ride problems, which seemed to have been solved on the bumpy Monaco streets, reappeared with a vengeance in Canada. I'm not sure what to make of that. According to Button, the ride was the worst it's ever been.

[trinidefender]

Hmmmm maybe it is time that Mclaren look at bringing back the famous snow plough. Or have they changed the rules to make it illegal?

As much as I loved it I'm not sure the snowplough would benefit this years car one bit; front end grip is definitely not one of their issues. According to many sources, including Martin Whitmarsh himself I believe, it's more the horrendous porpoising under braking and weak traction on corner exit and seeing as Canada is awash with both heavy braking and traction zones their weaknesses really stood out this weekend.

The problem is that both their issues are complicated and it's not a simple "we just need 20 points of DF and then we'd be sorted" kind of deal. A solution will likely need amendments to both their suspension and aero package let alone a whole host of toe-in/out, camber, damper (if they ever decide to fit some!), anti roll-bar and maybe even engine map settings which is a hell of a long slog when they don't even have a decent base to work from right now - bit like trying to build a house of cards on a treadmill!

Well supposedly one of the causes of the front end porpoising could be the front wing stalling allowing the nose to unload and rise then working forcing it back down then stalling and going back up and so on. Maybe the snow plough could help to stabilise front end downforce and help to reduce the porpoising.

Anybody have any comment about the back end being bulky or maybe the tapering being to sharp and causing airflow separation?

[henra]

Anybody have any comment about the back end being bulky or maybe the tapering being to sharp and causing airflow separation?

What should we comment about it? It is bulky if you compare it to the top contenders.
Personally, I have the feeeling this bulkyness isn't exactly helping their apparent DF stability issues of the rear end.
How much does it contribute to the mysery; I don't know. And possibly neither does McLaren.
In any case tapering doesn't really look sharp (if you refer to the 'coke-bottle'). It does look rather confined/narrow on the other hand.
Is that a Problem: Possibly, but we won't know for sure.
Looking at the traces of exhaust around the bulge/ramp and the ongoing stability issues I start to believe that a RB ramp solution might have been a better Option for them. But now that is too late to make a switch in any case. Maybe they can improve their packaging with the existing solution to help matters.

[hakan439]

The font wing has been heavily criticized and believed to be the reason of stalling. But the new Ferrari front wing seems very similar to macca fw (in terms of philosophy).

[patryksok]

The font wing has been heavily criticized and believed to be the reason of stalling. But the new Ferrari front wing seems very similar to macca fw (in terms of philosophy).

MP4-28 front wing is about 1-2 years back than front wings of RB9 and F138. McLaren completly changed their front wing design from setup one big airfoil connected to central section + two smaller wings to design most temas follow from about two years with two airfoils connected to central section and one airfoil alone.

I dont think even in terms of philosophy we can compare McLaren and Ferrari wing, for me it's completly different design.

[Huntresa]

The font wing has been heavily criticized and believed to be the reason of stalling. But the new Ferrari front wing seems very similar to macca fw (in terms of philosophy).

Eh Have you even seen the Ferrari wing and what it wants to do and actually does? Same goes for RBR wing.

Also new Ferrari wing? Its the same wing they have had all season and at end of last season except new cascade.