2018 McLaren F1 Team - Renault

[dren]

What do we think this fundemtal issue is? We’ve talked about gearbox ratios, but surely it is a chassis/ aero problem restricting rear downforce

Hard to say, but it likely is aero related.

Alonso kept saying throughout the year the car felt OK, and it was just not fast enough. Seems clear the car had too much drag which would be consistent with Alonso perspective.

Not clear if "too much drag" is the fundamental problem mentioned by McLaren. High drag would be understood early in the season, but maybe the cause of the high drag was not understood until after summer?

That was the consistent comment during the Honda years, too: car feels ok, it just lacks power. It likely had poor drag to downforce and the gearing seemed to be a poor choice. The Renault works team will be the only benchmark next year for them which will make it a little more difficult to gauge chassis performance.

[f1rules]

Just checked and mcl definitly brought the new rear suspension only to the last race, so they really wanted to test it for next year i quess. In brazil it was not on the car

[f1rules]

and found these from testing this first one what a pity abut the car because in my opinion it really is a very good looking car, but the speed was not there
https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 110-13.jpg


https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 110-16.jpg


https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 0036-4.jpg

[M840TR]

and found these from testing this first one what a pity abut the car because in my opinion it really is a very good looking car, but the speed was not there
https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 110-13.jpg
https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 110-13.jpg

https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 110-16.jpg
https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 110-16.jpg

https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 0036-4.jpg
https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 0036-4.jpg

Looks like it's still there. Either it worked and they stuck to it or they raced it just to be able to run it in testing for collecting data.

[adrianjordan]

I do not understand why they did not churn out a B-C-d E-and even F spec this year.

Auctioning the car Alonso last drove in F1 would at minimum recover the cost, and probably even make them a nice pile. They had to have a stack of un numbered spares such as nose, suspension etc, so they could make up several 'genuine Alonso' cars and a hand full of close copies still the right car and year even if they were not Alonso's car

It got too late in the season. Would've compromised 2019 greatly.

I really hope McLaren recovers, but I have a real unconfortable feeling about it.

I would never choose not to try to fix the issue this year.

You don’t know whether you fixed an issue until you fixed it, no matter how warm and fuzzy the modeling is making you feel.

And even if fixing an issue takes to much time. Understanding an issue always opens up compromises; containments or patches that may give you 50% of a complete fix, against 20% of the effort. And when a containment works you also can have some confidence in the solution.

If they are really going blindly into next year with an unproven fix it is a huge risk. They designed the original chassis wrong, then they designed an aero update that was supposed to fix the issue but didn’t. If I would be them I would try to seek track verification of the solution direction ASAP.

Even if it means compromising next years development. Because they don’t have the luxury of getting it wrong a third time.

Perhaps they revised their model of the current car and compared that to the on track data. If you remember, they spent a lot of free practice sessions running with sensor arrays etc on the car.

[McG]

and found these from testing this first one what a pity abut the car because in my opinion it really is a very good looking car, but the speed was not there
https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 110-13.jpg
https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 110-13.jpg

https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 110-16.jpg
https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 110-16.jpg

https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 0036-4.jpg
https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 0036-4.jpg

It is a beautiful thing. Shame we didn't get to see it much.

[diffuser]

I still find it hard to believe that with all of the data and engineers they have that it took them a PU change to realize their car wasn't good enough.

I Agree. I have to believe that the 2 that are now gone claimed the issue was just the PU.

[marmer]

I still find it hard to believe that with all of the data and engineers they have that it took them a PU change to realize their car wasn't good enough.

I Agree. I have to believe that the 2 that are now gone claimed the issue was just the PU.

It's quite funny the egg on face that they didn't actually get much faster with the change of engine I actually think most of the increase in points over the season is just from being able to finish slightly more races and Williams being god awful. If it hadn't have been for Alonso and had another driver equal to vandorne they would have had a very poor year indeed

[Edax]

Perhaps they revised their model of the current car and compared that to the on track data. If you remember, they spent a lot of free practice sessions running with sensor arrays etc on the car.

Probably but it is one thing to fit a model to an existing situation, and another to have the model predict a new design. The one does not necessarely guarantee the other.

Imagine that you try to fit a parabola with a straight line. At any point of the parabola you can get a fit by adjusting the slope and intercept. You can walk up and down a bit and you would be perfectly convinced that the world is flat and sloped. It is only once you make a big step that you discover the flaw in your model as you fall off the parabola.

Perhaps I am a bit too skeptical when it comes too modelling but I have too often seen engineering teams bring themselves into troubles by relying to much on models and functional testing.

I would be more at ease if I would have seen the Mclaren running with makeshift aero devices ductaped to it.

[McG]

I still find it hard to believe that with all of the data and engineers they have that it took them a PU change to realize their car wasn't good enough.

I Agree. I have to believe that the 2 that are now gone claimed the issue was just the PU.

It's quite funny the egg on face that they didn't actually get much faster with the change of engine I actually think most of the increase in points over the season is just from being able to finish slightly more races and Williams being god awful. If it hadn't have been for Alonso and had another driver equal to vandorne they would have had a very poor year indeed

Not so much egg on face. The 2018 car had (a) fundamental problem(s) so McLaren switched focus to 2019 very early. Whereas the 2017 chassis was apparently not fundamentally flawed, some say decent, but did have a terrible engine.

You are correct in saying it was better reliability and Alonso that made the difference. Doesn't matter that Williams didn't perform this year, that's the whole point in racing, not something to use to drag McLaren down.

[dren]

This is a team that's created some poor cars in the past and turned them around quickly. Let's see what they can do for next year; there is only one direction to go for them.

[diffuser]

I still find it hard to believe that with all of the data and engineers they have that it took them a PU change to realize their car wasn't good enough.

I Agree. I have to believe that the 2 that are now gone claimed the issue was just the PU.

It's quite funny the egg on face that they didn't actually get much faster with the change of engine I actually think most of the increase in points over the season is just from being able to finish slightly more races and Williams being god awful. If it hadn't have been for Alonso and had another driver equal to vandorne they would have had a very poor year indeed

In 2018 they made most of their points, Baku and before. I don't think they finished a race by Baku in 2017.

[Ground Effect]

Joe Saward further speculated that Andreas Seidl is likely to join Mclaren. Talked about some permutations, with regards to Fernley, De Feran and Seidl and the possible commercial rationale behind the IndyCar project.

https://www.motorsportweek.com/joesaward/id/00346

[McG]

So we’ve got a combination of Pat Fry and Andrea Stella who lead the design of the 2019 car. This will be a fascinating process. Zak Brown says this is a reduction from 3 people to now just 2 being ultimately held accountable.

I think we're in a pretty good place now," Brown said, confirming the Fry appointment on Tuesday. "We still need to kind of populate, i.e. James' start, but Andrea Stella is leading all performance, setting the targets, and it's for Pat as engineering director to execute, so it will ultimately be led by Andrea with Pat, the development of next year's car.

"And then of course there's lots of people that feed into that. Pete Prodromou from an aero, Mark Ingham and Neil Oatley from design, Simon Roberts the COO ultimately responsible for bringing everything together and Gil on the sporting side but at the end of the day it's Andrea and Pat who are going to drive next year's car."]

Just flicking through Pat Fry’s last McLaren stint, he led design on the 2005, 2007 and 2009 cars. Whilst not always nailing it out of the box, all cars unlocked significant performance so it will be intriguing to see what direction they go in with James Key set to give his input on the 2020 car.

I think the new aero regs for next year represent a good opportunity for Fry to set McLaren on a better path- we hope.

Wasn't the 2005 car designed by Adrian Newey?

[adrianjordan]

Perhaps they revised their model of the current car and compared that to the on track data. If you remember, they spent a lot of free practice sessions running with sensor arrays etc on the car.

Probably but it is one thing to fit a model to an existing situation, and another to have the model predict a new design. The one does not necessarely guarantee the other.

Imagine that you try to fit a parabola with a straight line. At any point of the parabola you can get a fit by adjusting the slope and intercept. You can walk up and down a bit and you would be perfectly convinced that the world is flat and sloped. It is only once you make a big step that you discover the flaw in your model as you fall off the parabola.

Perhaps I am a bit too skeptical when it comes too modelling but I have too often seen engineering teams bring themselves into troubles by relying to much on models and functional testing.

I would be more at ease if I would have seen the Mclaren running with makeshift aero devices ductaped to it.

Oh I agree 100%. What I meant, but perhaps could have explained better, is that perhaps they modelled predictions of the new parts that they did fit and then compared real world data to them.

It's also possible that they've been making sure that their wind-tunnel to real-world correlation was accurate so that they can be more confident in their wind-tunnel models.