McLaren MCL34

[101FlyingDutchman]

Flow conditioner. Has been there for at least the last 2 races

[M840TR]

I was thinking about that whole front suspension geometry that lowers the car when steering lock is applied, and that got me thinking:
If when you straighten the wheel you are actually lifting the front of the car, does that mean you have to apply more force than normal to unwind the wheel? Since the caster angle is what creates the self aligning forces for the front wheels, does this geometry means they may have to take extra care with the caster angle so that the self aligning forces are enough to lift the car?

https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/24100 ... n-part-two

Allison mentions it and talks a fair bit about the wing dropping on turn but basically yes. If you just add that style of suspension to a car without tweaking and working on it then both the car naturally wants to turn to one side rather than stay straight so a driver has to essentially work harder to hold the car straight and bumps/movement down the straight becomes more of a problem to fight to stop the car wanting to turn, but as you say the driver has to work a bit harder to pull the car up as it straightens up.

He basically says there is a reason that Ferrari introduced it and kept taking it on and off car for several months because you really need to have it working smoothly with lots of other fancy adjustments to make the car feel more normal after adding such a system.

They had the luxury of testing it during pre-season, as he says, so it might take 2-3 weekends to iron out the rough edges.

[mclaren111]

Flow conditioner. Has been there for at least the last 2 races

Thank you...

[SmallSoldier]

And to think a lot of people thought PP has lost his mojo...

I get the feeling PP was being frustrated by Goss

A certain someone named James Key i believe has been instrumental in this turn of fortunes more so than PP. The car aerodynamically does not stand out at all, front limited, not enough downforce compared to top and even Haas to help in fast corners. Where they have excelled is the tyre operating window and not overheating the rears which most team bar Merc have struggled with. Hallmark of James has been designing cars with stable balance that the drivers can push.

I completely disagree... Mclaren came out of the box with a totally new concept, matching Ferrari’s design philosophy and a car that if they had to pick one type of race to be “strong” at was in fast, low downforce tracks.

I believe that the car that they brought to the start of the season was excellent and a massive improvement compared to 2018 and it is evolving quiet nicely though the season.


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[diffuser]

I get the feeling PP was being frustrated by Goss

A certain someone named James Key i believe has been instrumental in this turn of fortunes more so than PP. The car aerodynamically does not stand out at all, front limited, not enough downforce compared to top and even Haas to help in fast corners. Where they have excelled is the tyre operating window and not overheating the rears which most team bar Merc have struggled with. Hallmark of James has been designing cars with stable balance that the drivers can push.

I completely disagree... Mclaren came out of the box with a totally new concept, matching Ferrari’s design philosophy and a car that if they had to pick one type of race to be “strong” at was in fast, low downforce tracks.

I believe that the car that they brought to the start of the season was excellent and a massive improvement compared to 2018 and it is evolving quiet nicely though the season.


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Yeah I doubt JK has had much input into the car to this point.

[SmallSoldier]

A certain someone named James Key i believe has been instrumental in this turn of fortunes more so than PP. The car aerodynamically does not stand out at all, front limited, not enough downforce compared to top and even Haas to help in fast corners. Where they have excelled is the tyre operating window and not overheating the rears which most team bar Merc have struggled with. Hallmark of James has been designing cars with stable balance that the drivers can push.

I completely disagree... Mclaren came out of the box with a totally new concept, matching Ferrari’s design philosophy and a car that if they had to pick one type of race to be “strong” at was in fast, low downforce tracks.

I believe that the car that they brought to the start of the season was excellent and a massive improvement compared to 2018 and it is evolving quiet nicely though the season.


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Yeah I doubt JK has had much input into the car to this point.

I’m sure he is helping... On setup and direction moving forward, there is definitely involvement with the current car, but the concept and the improvement of the car began way before he started with the team... Having him is an asset, but to give all credit to him would be unfair to the rest of the 700+ people working at McLaren


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[diffuser]

I completely disagree... Mclaren came out of the box with a totally new concept, matching Ferrari’s design philosophy and a car that if they had to pick one type of race to be “strong” at was in fast, low downforce tracks.

I believe that the car that they brought to the start of the season was excellent and a massive improvement compared to 2018 and it is evolving quiet nicely though the season.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Yeah I doubt JK has had much input into the car to this point.

I’m sure he is helping... On setup and direction moving forward, there is definitely involvement with the current car, but the concept and the improvement of the car began way before he started with the team... Having him is an asset, but to give all credit to him would be unfair to the rest of the 700+ people working at McLaren


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I'm sure he's helping too. Setup changes aren't those Andrea's Job?

Anyways, like you said, this car started getting built last year. To give all the credit to a guy that's been there 3 months....

[makecry]

We have any word on the POU update they did not decide to use? I mean we usually dont get the details but Sainz did say some of the parts they tried on Friday did not work, hopefully they can get it to work!

[Emag]

We have any word on the POU update they did not decide to use? I mean we usually dont get the details but Sainz did say some of the parts they tried on Friday did not work, hopefully they can get it to work!

They did not use the new suspension on the race. They scrapped it after Friday. In FP3 they reverted to the old spec. It probably didn't work out that great for them.

[makecry]

We have any word on the POU update they did not decide to use? I mean we usually dont get the details but Sainz did say some of the parts they tried on Friday did not work, hopefully they can get it to work!

They did not use the new suspension on the race. They scrapped it after Friday. In FP3 they reverted to the old spec. It probably didn't work out that great for them.

Yea I know that's why I said "did not decide to use". Did we get anything more on that?

[Emag]

They didn't say anything specific on the suspension. They seem to be very cautious about their updates anyway. We rarely get any public statements when they got something coming, we only learn about them during the race weekends. I think Sainz did say something yesterday though. When asked if there were more things coming he replied that they do have some more things coming for the next couple of races.

[Thunder]

They did not use the new suspension on the race. They scrapped it after Friday. In FP3 they reverted to the old spec. It probably didn't work out that great for them.

Yea I know that's why I said "did not decide to use". Did we get anything more on that?

Andi Seidl said on Friday in a Sky Germany Interview all Parts worked as expected right out of the Box. So i guess it was never planned to do more than an FP1 Test with the Suspension.

[M840TR]

They did not use the new suspension on the race. They scrapped it after Friday. In FP3 they reverted to the old spec. It probably didn't work out that great for them.

Yea I know that's why I said "did not decide to use". Did we get anything more on that?

Andi Seidl said on Friday in a Sky Germany Interview all Parts worked as expected right out of the Box. So i guess it was never planned to do more than an FP1 Test with the Suspension.

The suspension probably delivered what it was supposed to on paper but the massive change in the car's handling characteristics ultimately served to the detriment of pace. Even Ferrari which introduced the feature years ago only used it intermittently and Mercedes had time during pre-season testing to figure out setup directions. So it'll probably take 2-3 weekend to deliver at full potential.

[PhillipM]

Probably just waiting on supporting parts, the pushrod change itself would be a very low lead time part, manufacturing wise, compared to wings/turning vanes, etc. Might also find they were running with an adjustable heave damper for quick setup changes (as it changes the pitch characteristics of the car on transients) which will get built into a set of single units and options, etc.

[diffuser]

Probably just waiting on supporting parts, the pushrod change itself would be a very low lead time part, manufacturing wise, compared to wings/turning vanes, etc. Might also find they were running with an adjustable heave damper for quick setup changes (as it changes the pitch characteristics of the car on transients) which will get built into a set of single units and options, etc.

It always looked like a work in progress to me.