McLaren MCL34

[DiogoBrand]

I believe you are right... This weekend should allows us to understand a bit more what is going (not that the team is in any kind of crisis).

I also believe that the team is pulling a “Mercedes” this year... What I mean by that is that they have focused on a car that should work on most high speed circuits and not necessarily in the slow ones... And that’s absolutely fine and would make a lot of sense (and a big departure from the cars they had, which were focused on the slow / hard to pass circuits)... I believe this is also the reason why the team was surprised with Melbourne, which wasn’t one of the circuits they were targeting for a good result.


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I don't think so. There was some information posted here on the forums that showed the McLaren was one of the fastest cars on the corners, while being one of the slowest down the straights, so maybe they pulled a McLaren again, with a car that works really well on slow circuits but will be passed by everyone on the straight.

[santos]

I believe you are right... This weekend should allows us to understand a bit more what is going (not that the team is in any kind of crisis).

I also believe that the team is pulling a “Mercedes” this year... What I mean by that is that they have focused on a car that should work on most high speed circuits and not necessarily in the slow ones... And that’s absolutely fine and would make a lot of sense (and a big departure from the cars they had, which were focused on the slow / hard to pass circuits)... I believe this is also the reason why the team was surprised with Melbourne, which wasn’t one of the circuits they were targeting for a good result.


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I don't think so. There was some information posted here on the forums that showed the McLaren was one of the fastest cars on the corners, while being one of the slowest down the straights, so maybe they pulled a McLaren again, with a car that works really well on slow circuits but will be passed by everyone on the straight.

Page 38 from this topic. You will see that it's in the straight that McLaren loses less. Slow and médium corners they are bit better than… Williams. Well this was in Australia.

[SmallSoldier]

I believe you are right... This weekend should allows us to understand a bit more what is going (not that the team is in any kind of crisis).

I also believe that the team is pulling a “Mercedes” this year... What I mean by that is that they have focused on a car that should work on most high speed circuits and not necessarily in the slow ones... And that’s absolutely fine and would make a lot of sense (and a big departure from the cars they had, which were focused on the slow / hard to pass circuits)... I believe this is also the reason why the team was surprised with Melbourne, which wasn’t one of the circuits they were targeting for a good result.


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I don't think so. There was some information posted here on the forums that showed the McLaren was one of the fastest cars on the corners, while being one of the slowest down the straights, so maybe they pulled a McLaren again, with a car that works really well on slow circuits but will be passed by everyone on the straight.

I guess you are mentioning the chart that I will post below this message (unluckily I can’t post pictures with Tapatalk and write below them, so it will have to go at the end of the post)... But, what the data from Melbourne showed is that Mclaren was slower than the rest compared to Mercedes in Slow and Medium corners, while it was “closer” to Mercedes or faster than the rest in the straights.

Data below:




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[DiogoBrand]

I believe you are right... This weekend should allows us to understand a bit more what is going (not that the team is in any kind of crisis).

I also believe that the team is pulling a “Mercedes” this year... What I mean by that is that they have focused on a car that should work on most high speed circuits and not necessarily in the slow ones... And that’s absolutely fine and would make a lot of sense (and a big departure from the cars they had, which were focused on the slow / hard to pass circuits)... I believe this is also the reason why the team was surprised with Melbourne, which wasn’t one of the circuits they were targeting for a good result.


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I don't think so. There was some information posted here on the forums that showed the McLaren was one of the fastest cars on the corners, while being one of the slowest down the straights, so maybe they pulled a McLaren again, with a car that works really well on slow circuits but will be passed by everyone on the straight.

I guess you are mentioning the chart that I will post below this message (unluckily I can’t post pictures with Tapatalk and write below them, so it will have to go at the end of the post)... But, what the data from Melbourne showed is that Mclaren was slower than the rest compared to Mercedes in Slow and Medium corners, while it was “closer” to Mercedes or faster than the rest in the straights.

Data below:

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201903 ... 23bc3e.jpg


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The graph you posted was missing the "Gap to fastest" line, so I didn't interpret it right.

Scrap what I said then.

[diffuser]

I don't think so. There was some information posted here on the forums that showed the McLaren was one of the fastest cars on the corners, while being one of the slowest down the straights, so maybe they pulled a McLaren again, with a car that works really well on slow circuits but will be passed by everyone on the straight.

I guess you are mentioning the chart that I will post below this message (unluckily I can’t post pictures with Tapatalk and write below them, so it will have to go at the end of the post)... But, what the data from Melbourne showed is that Mclaren was slower than the rest compared to Mercedes in Slow and Medium corners, while it was “closer” to Mercedes or faster than the rest in the straights.

Data below:

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201903 ... 23bc3e.jpg


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https://www.formula1.com/content/dam/fo ... /image.png
The graph you posted was missing the "Gap to fastest" line, so I didn't interpret it right.

Scrap what I said then.

As i said before, those numbers are an average of race laps. I think many of the teams had turned down the PUs early while others were still pushing.. so those numbers aren't really good.

[M840TR]

I guess you are mentioning the chart that I will post below this message (unluckily I can’t post pictures with Tapatalk and write below them, so it will have to go at the end of the post)... But, what the data from Melbourne showed is that Mclaren was slower than the rest compared to Mercedes in Slow and Medium corners, while it was “closer” to Mercedes or faster than the rest in the straights.

Data below:

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201903 ... 23bc3e.jpg


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https://www.formula1.com/content/dam/fo ... /image.png
The graph you posted was missing the "Gap to fastest" line, so I didn't interpret it right.

Scrap what I said then.

As i said before, those numbers are an average of race laps. I think many of the teams had turned down the PUs early while others were still pushing.. so those numbers aren't really good.

I think they turned down Norris' engine as well after Sainz's mgu-k blew and there wasn't any chance for points. Also, his tyres were finished at the end of the race so even his corner stats are exactly representative. If we look at quali stats, Norris only lost 0.1 sec in 1st & 2nd sector and 0.2 in 3rd. As for speedtraps, Sainz was 5th overall @ 1.7 km/h down on Perez, 2km/h down at the finish line, 0.1 km/h down in intermediate 1 and 1.9 km/h down in intermediate 2. So the car is definitely fast in a straight line, just needs improvement in slow corners (indicated by performance in 3rd sector).

https://www.fia.com/events/fia-formula- ... ormation-1

[M840TR]

Wasn't the drag issue just caused by the fact they had to run more wing, because they miscalculated the gap between the sidepods and front tires, which made the car very unstable. They also used the Melbourne spec wing in Barcelona, which gave the car too much downforce.

Last year they have to add drag to compensate for the loss of downforce when in a turn... The problem with the distance between the front wheels and the bargeboard area was that there wasn’t enough space for the bargeboard to properly manage the tire wake, therefore creating stall issues and loss of downforce... This forced the team to increase both rear wing and front wing in an effort to recover the lost downforce at the expense of drag.

Now, the goal of every team is to create downforce without adding too much drag... That’s what Mclaren has tried to do this season, by increasing the length of the car they have more “floor”, their nose, sidepod design and undercut are all sending additional clean air to the diffuser, therefore creating downforce without the drag expense.

They aren’t using the Medium Downforce wing to reduce drag necessarily, my theory is that if they would add a regular high downforce wing, the front wing won’t be able to cope with the additional rear downforce and that’s what is limiting them.



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The nose doesn't send air to the diffuser. It has three ducts which send air to the cape that generates a vortex which merges with the y250 and sent outboard by the bargeboards to manage tyre wake. This is called outwash. The sidepod deflectors provide the same function. I think the focus is definitely on reducing drag by using the spoon RW, specially given their history in the hybrid era.

[diffuser]

That fits with everything I heard about upgrades pre-season - and what the drivers/engineers were saying - they're struggling a little with front end understeer and tyre temperature, but they think they have upgrade parts in the pipeline to fix most of it.

Wait and see, this weekend should give a clearer idea as it's a bit of a mix - rear tyre temperatures are usually a struggle but you also need a pointy front end for the low speed corners. So there's two distinct regions that should show us which end limiting them the most.

I think those new FWs are HUGE. Generating DF at the FW isn't gonna be an issue. What they've lost is the tier 2 winglets that managed the front tire wake. That impacts the DF generated by the front of the floor. So if they're lacking DF, that is the likely place.

[PhillipM]

Pretty much, yes - and the more you crank the front wing to recover it, the more it affects your outwash and conditioning - I'd imagine after last year they're being a bit cautious until they have plenty of data.

[SmallSoldier]

Wasn't the drag issue just caused by the fact they had to run more wing, because they miscalculated the gap between the sidepods and front tires, which made the car very unstable. They also used the Melbourne spec wing in Barcelona, which gave the car too much downforce.

Last year they have to add drag to compensate for the loss of downforce when in a turn... The problem with the distance between the front wheels and the bargeboard area was that there wasn’t enough space for the bargeboard to properly manage the tire wake, therefore creating stall issues and loss of downforce... This forced the team to increase both rear wing and front wing in an effort to recover the lost downforce at the expense of drag.

Now, the goal of every team is to create downforce without adding too much drag... That’s what Mclaren has tried to do this season, by increasing the length of the car they have more “floor”, their nose, sidepod design and undercut are all sending additional clean air to the diffuser, therefore creating downforce without the drag expense.

They aren’t using the Medium Downforce wing to reduce drag necessarily, my theory is that if they would add a regular high downforce wing, the front wing won’t be able to cope with the additional rear downforce and that’s what is limiting them.



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The nose doesn't send air to the diffuser. It has three ducts which send air to the cape that generates a vortex which merges with the y250 and sent outboard by the bargeboards to manage tyre wake. This is called outwash. The sidepod deflectors provide the same function. I think the focus is definitely on reducing drag by using the spoon RW, specially given their history in the hybrid era.

Thank you for the explanation, I may have the concepts confused... As far as I understood it, there were “Main” vortex’s generated by the front wing:

The outwash vortex: Created by the cascade elements (now non-existent) and the end plate, and there job was to get the tire wake as far from the car as possible (and what was creating most of the air turbulence for the cars behind and the intention of the new regulations was to eliminate/mitigate this).

The Y250 vortex: Created by the tips of the wing elements at the end of the wing’s neutral section. This vortex isn’t intended to manage the tire wake, nor to help it’s outwash... On the contrary, the intention is to energize the air going to the bargeboard are so that at point it is “cleaned up” and send towards the coke bottle section of the car and maximize the diffuser effect. Been said that, there is a portion when the Y250 vortex reaches the bargeboards, part of it should also be going towards creating a barrier around the floor which will help with the outwash, but that isn’t the main purpose of it.

In regards to the nose, I stand corrected... Although, after reviewing the exits of the orifices in it, it seemed to actually direct them towards the cape, which in return was directing the air to the front of the bargeboards and “below the floor”... Not denying that the edges of the cape are creating vortices that will join the Y250 and further energize it, but my understanding is that it wasn’t it’s main purpose... With the cape main objective been to direct more air towards the underside of the car.

I appreciate any further explanations! Always trying to learn something new and fix my concepts if they are wrong


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[mwillems]

That is a great post!

I guess we need to add the following:

A) Front suspension: The team is now using a raised front suspension, which will require a few races to understand it’s behavior and reaction to changes at the track.

B) Sidepods: It is important to note that the upper crash beams have actually been moved to the “lowest” position, with the sidepod now residing a top of it (when one is looking a picture of the front of car, the portion below the side pod that extends into the bargeboard (black) is the crash beam)... This changes not only how the car gets cooling, but most importantly how air moves on top and below the Sidepod “entrance” which is wider than in previous year

C) Rake: I had my suspicious based on the initial renderings, but the car seemed to have less rake than in previous years... This is a “massive” change in regards to air management through the car and a surprising one since the tendency was to use high rakes, Mclaren has had a high rake / short wheel base for most of the hybrid era... Even though they haven’t gone to a Mercedes concept (long wheel base low rake), they are closer to it today than to Red Bull (actually, in this regard Ferrari is the closest concept for them).

D) Wheel Base: The car has grown in regards to last year and this will also have an effect in how they manage air around the car.

All of the above changes (adding the ones for Packaging, Bargeboards and Sidepods) imply a very different way of managing air around the car and how the car is setup... If we think about the rest of the teams, their aero concepts or philosophies have been maintained from previous season with the obvious introduction of the new wings and some tweaks, but for the most part same philosophies in regards to how the air is managed towards the back of the car (an example of this is Racing Point, which during testing used a 2018 car with some 2019 parts during testing and wasn’t way off the pace).

The change in concept / philosophy for the team implies that they will have an slow start of the season since they have to learn and understand it’s behavior, if the car starts reacting the way they expect it to changes in setup and the parts coming in, that means that the concept works and their rate of development and improvement should be very interesting (which is encouraging considering that they are in the mix with the midfield at this point).

I have a theory on what is causing the balance problems for Mclaren and if I’m right, they will fix it and once they do, they should/could make a big leap in times / positions.


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Care to share your theory?

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I don’t want to look like a fool! Haha

As long as we all agree that this is only theory and that I’m aware I could be way off the mark

It seems to me that this year’s concept has managed to create an important amount of downforce at the rear, specially from the diffuser... Nevertheless the team hasn’t been able to develop a front wing that matches the amount of downforce at the rear back...

Since the downforce generated by the diffuser can’t be “controlled” (it’s not something you can really adjust), the only way for the team to adjust / fine tune the rear downforce is through the rear wing... This would be the reason why the team has used a “Medium Downforce” rear wing in testing and in Australia (2 tracks where a High Downforce rear wing is more desirable).

The use of the Medium Downforce wing could also explain the changes we’ve seeing from the team in regards to top speed and time gained at the straights (Mclaren was one of the biggest gainers in this respect) and could also explain what seems to be a problem with slow corners.

If the above is accurate, the team “simply” (using this term loosely since I’m sure it’s no easy task) need to develop a front wing that still manages the tire wake as it does today, but that has higher downforce allowing the team to maximize the cars concept / potential (I believe that’s what they are referring to when talking about the car).


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Already beat you to it a few pages back ....

I believe he is trying to say that Mclaren have more downforce generating potential at the rear of the car but they are not exploiting this potential because they cannot balance the downforce at the front end. If they do in fact produce their maximum downforce at the rear of the car, the car would then be unbalanced as they cannot produce the necessary downforce at the front of the car. This would, of course, lead to a car with a lot of understeer. I think this is what mwilliams is saying. It is always easier to produce the necessary downforce with the front wing however so I personally don't believe this reasoning.

Yup. Their front wing design isn't that extreme anyway and they seemed to have resolved their understeer issues for quali in Melbourne. It's much more likely - as @smallsoldier pointed out - they're aiming for a car that works in most circuits; then slowly developing it into something with a wider working window throughout the season.

Yes it was a late night post. I am referring to the car being understeery. I'm not convinced it is gone yet but stand to be completely wrong. I don't think they would run the car to lose so much time in corners to gain a little speed on the straights because they wanted to, or it was the natural choice. I wonder if the balance issue was resolved by simply carrying less aero on the rear.

However, since we were losing our time in S3 at Barcelona which is about mechanical grip and not aero, I've been wondering if the issue is getting the car to steer correctly under braking and not the aero balance, or not just the aero balance.

[SmallSoldier]

That fits with everything I heard about upgrades pre-season - and what the drivers/engineers were saying - they're struggling a little with front end understeer and tyre temperature, but they think they have upgrade parts in the pipeline to fix most of it.

Wait and see, this weekend should give a clearer idea as it's a bit of a mix - rear tyre temperatures are usually a struggle but you also need a pointy front end for the low speed corners. So there's two distinct regions that should show us which end limiting them the most.

I think those new FWs are HUGE. Generating DF at the FW isn't gonna be an issue. What they've lost is the tier 2 winglets that managed the front tire wake. That impacts the DF generated by the front of the floor. So if they're lacking DF, that is the likely place.

The FW are indeed slightly larger than previous year, but you could argue that the RW have grown more than the FW and their effect is now larger than before... In addition, the teams have traded front wing downforce, for air management to continue to have an outwash effect from it (some concepts more radical than others (Alfa, STR) some have maintain more potential wing downforce (Merc, RBH)... Mclaren seems to be in the middle in regards to how they are managing air to create and outwash effect... I guess that if they bring a new front wing to the next races (hopefully this weekend), we will see!... although, they may not need the additional downforce for this race and their Medium DF setup should be enough


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[SmallSoldier]

Already beat you to it a few pages back ....


However, since we were losing our time in S3 at Barcelona which is about mechanical grip and not aero, I've been wondering if the issue is getting the car to steer correctly under braking and not the aero balance, or not just the aero balance.

I believe great minds think alike!

Regarding Mechanical Grip, there might be some of that involved... For me, what surprises me the most is that they will show to 2 different tracks that would normally require you to have a high DF setup with what is a medium DF setup... That’s probably the biggest tell sign... And there was no reason not to use one of day of testing or bring a high DF rear wing to Australia, unless (in my mind) that they can’t compensate for it at the front of the car... That’s probably what is driving my theory.

It could also be that their analysis indicates that they were going to be faster in Australia with a Medium DF setup and I’m over analyzing it!


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[PhillipM]

However, since we were losing our time in S3 at Barcelona which is about mechanical grip and not aero, I've been wondering if the issue is getting the car to steer correctly under braking and not the aero balance, or not just the aero balance.

That could still be partially downforce as it leads to front tyre temp issues. Of course, you can alleviate it a bit when you can setup for each track with more toe out, etc.

I know/been told they've looked at an evolution of their rear wing over winter which has similar features to the Renault but I would guess that's getting held back until other updates arrive or they need it for really HD tracks.

[M840TR]

Last year they have to add drag to compensate for the loss of downforce when in a turn... The problem with the distance between the front wheels and the bargeboard area was that there wasn’t enough space for the bargeboard to properly manage the tire wake, therefore creating stall issues and loss of downforce... This forced the team to increase both rear wing and front wing in an effort to recover the lost downforce at the expense of drag.

Now, the goal of every team is to create downforce without adding too much drag... That’s what Mclaren has tried to do this season, by increasing the length of the car they have more “floor”, their nose, sidepod design and undercut are all sending additional clean air to the diffuser, therefore creating downforce without the drag expense.

They aren’t using the Medium Downforce wing to reduce drag necessarily, my theory is that if they would add a regular high downforce wing, the front wing won’t be able to cope with the additional rear downforce and that’s what is limiting them.



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The nose doesn't send air to the diffuser. It has three ducts which send air to the cape that generates a vortex which merges with the y250 and sent outboard by the bargeboards to manage tyre wake. This is called outwash. The sidepod deflectors provide the same function. I think the focus is definitely on reducing drag by using the spoon RW, specially given their history in the hybrid era.

Thank you for the explanation, I may have the concepts confused... As far as I understood it, there were “Main” vortex’s generated by the front wing:

The outwash vortex: Created by the cascade elements (now non-existent) and the end plate, and there job was to get the tire wake as far from the car as possible (and what was creating most of the air turbulence for the cars behind and the intention of the new regulations was to eliminate/mitigate this).

The Y250 vortex: Created by the tips of the wing elements at the end of the wing’s neutral section. This vortex isn’t intended to manage the tire wake, nor to help it’s outwash... On the contrary, the intention is to energize the air going to the bargeboard are so that at point it is “cleaned up” and send towards the coke bottle section of the car and maximize the diffuser effect. Been said that, there is a portion when the Y250 vortex reaches the bargeboards, part of it should also be going towards creating a barrier around the floor which will help with the outwash, but that isn’t the main purpose of it.

In regards to the nose, I stand corrected... Although, after reviewing the exits of the orifices in it, it seemed to actually direct them towards the cape, which in return was directing the air to the front of the bargeboards and “below the floor”... Not denying that the edges of the cape are creating vortices that will join the Y250 and further energize it, but my understanding is that it wasn’t it’s main purpose... With the cape main objective been to direct more air towards the underside of the car.

I appreciate any further explanations! Always trying to learn something new and fix my concepts if they are wrong


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The air to the floor's leading edge comes from the tea-tray & extension. Cape vortex is merged with y250 (far more powerful) and then lead towards endplate outwash to manage tyre wake. Floor isn't its path of travel. This was discussed in detail in Mcl33 thread.