2018 McLaren F1 Team - Renault

[godlameroso]

They will be, but it still causes issues with joint compliance, etc. everything has to be larger and more precisely toleranced than other designs, and since you can assume they're all running things like that as tight as they can anyway, then somewhere they've had to compromise.
Obviously they think the aero gain outweighs it at most places.

I still think the bargeboard foot plate and the outer edge of the bargeboards are where they need to focus. There's tons of time waiting to be found there. At least .3 seconds and as much as .7 waiting to be found in just that area alone. Haas was forced to remove theirs for Monaco and they were nowhere. That shows how important that area is, it's not possible for a car that was easily best of the rest one race ago to be almost dead last, but that small change really hurt them.

I agree with future barge board changes will improve Aero efficiency and overall DF. That doesn't make up for the loss of mechanical grip from the rear suspension change. I've been suspicious since testing, that the grip out of slow corners has been questionable. I don't think it's anything they can change this year.

I do, because when they fix the area I'm suggesting the grip in the slow speed corners will improve by a fair bit, and the other benefit will be less overall drag which is why I'm suggesting up to a .7 second improvement. That would slash their deficit by half.

[M840TR]

I still think the bargeboard foot plate and the outer edge of the bargeboards are where they need to focus. There's tons of time waiting to be found there. At least .3 seconds and as much as .7 waiting to be found in just that area alone. Haas was forced to remove theirs for Monaco and they were nowhere. That shows how important that area is, it's not possible for a car that was easily best of the rest one race ago to be almost dead last, but that small change really hurt them.

I agree with future barge board changes will improve Aero efficiency and overall DF. That doesn't make up for the loss of mechanical grip from the rear suspension change. I've been suspicious since testing, that the grip out of slow corners has been questionable. I don't think it's anything they can change this year.

I do, because when they fix the area I'm suggesting the grip in the slow speed corners will improve by a fair bit, and the other benefit will be less overall drag which is why I'm suggesting up to a .7 second improvement. That would slash their deficit by half.

Will it be enough though? They can't keep developing this year's car all season long since they have to shift entire focus on 2019 aero reg change sometime. I think they're going to keep working on the suspected suspension problems however, since it might be carried over to next season and it's not implausible to expect a fix somewhere around Hungary.

[godlameroso]

Here's the thing, the area in the bargeboards that I'm talking about will be exactly the same next year, so anything done this year will carry over. I would focus there and design the front and rear wings for next year, along with developing the other parts of the chassis that will carry over. If they slash their deficit by half it would be silly to not keep pushing the development because if they gain any more from that point they'll have enough for regular podiums on merit.


Of course, the cat is out of the bag, so everyone who hasn't will be flat out developing that area as well. Some will be easier to improve their design, others will find it harder because of their chassis. McLaren doesn't have to do too much to that area to improve it, their original design lends itself well to adapting a much better one. I wonder if they've been waiting to get data on the new nose before developing that area in ernest.

[mclaren111]

Here's the thing, the area in the bargeboards that I'm talking about will be exactly the same next year, so anything done this year will carry over. I would focus there and design the front and rear wings for next year, along with developing the other parts of the chassis that will carry over. If they slash their deficit by half it would be silly to not keep pushing the development because if they gain any more from that point they'll have enough for regular podiums on merit.


Of course, the cat is out of the bag, so everyone who hasn't will be flat out developing that area as well. Some will be easier to improve their design, others will find it harder because of their chassis. McLaren doesn't have to do too much to that area to improve it, their original design lends itself well to adapting a much better one. I wonder if they've been waiting to get data on the new nose before developing that area in ernest.

I agree. Everything starts with the FW & Nose.

RB has been racing their nose for years now and to great effect.

Now we can do the same with our new Nose - including 2019 onwards.

[PhillipM]

Pretty much, bargeboards has been the massive development race since the regulation change, but they work so closely with the nose and the turning vanes if you know you had a new nose concept coming in your work there would be wasted. The good news is now Mclaren are bring parts upgrades to every race and they're working - they've already shipped out some new front brake drum/cakes/vents for Canada and the routine stuff doesn't normally doesn't go out until late, so I guess they've got more parts shipping as well shortly

[fellowhoodlums]

Here's the thing, the area in the bargeboards that I'm talking about will be exactly the same next year, so anything done this year will carry over. I would focus there and design the front and rear wings for next year, along with developing the other parts of the chassis that will carry over. If they slash their deficit by half it would be silly to not keep pushing the development because if they gain any more from that point they'll have enough for regular podiums on merit.


Of course, the cat is out of the bag, so everyone who hasn't will be flat out developing that area as well. Some will be easier to improve their design, others will find it harder because of their chassis. McLaren doesn't have to do too much to that area to improve it, their original design lends itself well to adapting a much better one. I wonder if they've been waiting to get data on the new nose before developing that area in ernest.

Fascinating stuff. Perhaps that's what the drum beat of updates is about....Spain....Monaco....Canada. Instead of batches of updates every 4 races or so, updates being released race by race to gain data from track setup which is fed back to check the correlation and any last minute tweaks/abort on next race update.

[diffuser]

I think one thing that seemed clear from Monaco was the lack of mechanical grip for McLaren.

It’s something that the top teams all seem to have under control- especially Mercedes since around 2013.

For the untrained such as myself- can anyone explain how you design a car to have improved mechanical grip? I see how McLaren are looking to improve their aerodynamics but is that not largely something that you see the benefit of at high speed? In the lower speed corners, what creates the so called “mechanical grip”?

And I guess then, why are Merc ,Ferrari and RBR strong in this regard?

Thanks

Well they haven’t made things easier by the extreme inboard pickup for the rear suspension pull rod. That choice means that the movement of the control elements, springs, dampers/inerter(s), will be less for any given wheel movement. This will amplify any errors in control.

It also means the forces at the ends of the pull rod will be higher requiring higher installation stiffness.

I'm no expert but at it's most basic it's all about keeping a biggest amount of tire on the ground under breaking and acceleration. That's easier when you're going straight but a challenge in curves, bumps, quick change of directions,etc. It's even a bigger challenge when, as Mansell89 pointed out, you start to manipulate the suspension for aero reasons.

This year is the 3ird time since 2014 that, I think, they've overhauled the rear suspension to get the more out of high rake.

[mclaren111]

Autosport:

Renault:

"It's a small gain in power, although we know we won't be the only one [bringing an engine upgrade].

"It's mainly in the ICE [internal combustion engine] that we can expect more power.

And still no news on the new MGU-K.

I think McLaren should develop their own MGU-K which could help as a performance enhancer over Renault for 19/20

Not sure how easy and practical it would be for McLaren though ??

[Ground Effect]

I seriously doubt we'll see the new MGU-K in 2018

[adrianjordan]

Autosport:

Renault:

"It's a small gain in power, although we know we won't be the only one [bringing an engine upgrade].

"It's mainly in the ICE [internal combustion engine] that we can expect more power.

And still no news on the new MGU-K.

I think McLaren should develop their own MGU-K which could help as a performance enhancer over Renault for 19/20

Not sure how easy and practical it would be for McLaren though ??

I was wondering the same thing. Did they help develop the one they used with Honda?

[M840TR]

Autosport:

Renault:

"It's a small gain in power, although we know we won't be the only one [bringing an engine upgrade].

"It's mainly in the ICE [internal combustion engine] that we can expect more power.

And still no news on the new MGU-K.

I think McLaren should develop their own MGU-K which could help as a performance enhancer over Renault for 19/20

Not sure how easy and practical it would be for McLaren though ??

I was wondering the same thing. Did they help develop the one they used with Honda?

Only helped with reliability (seals) on mgu-k and production of some other parts. But they probably don't have the resources to design their own.

[adrianjordan]

Don't they have an electronics arm to the business? They could easily outsource to a company that has the necessary expertise.

[Alonso Fan]

Mclaren X2

https://www.mclaren.com/formula1/inside ... 2-4275496/

[M840TR]

Don't they have an electronics arm to the business? They could easily outsource to a company that has the necessary expertise.

They don’t need to unless they think they can make it better which is unlikely

[diffuser]

Don't they have an electronics arm to the business? They could easily outsource to a company that has the necessary expertise.

They don’t need to unless they think they can make it better which is unlikely

Renault doesn't manufacture their MGU-k it's Maranelli.

We will not see the new mgu-k in Canada cause this year you can only use 2 mgu-k for the whole season. So look for it after the 10th or 11th race.