2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[mwillems]

I do think the reaction is overblown and people who cheer for other teams want the doom and gloom. I don't get this feeling at all from Stella and Marshall, they seemed in good spirits and were quite strong in saying they will be there on Day 2 or Day 3 depending what looks the best for them.

Having more days after the test would be beneficial if McLaren intended to develop new things for the start of the season, but they are not planning to do that. They will postpone the updates until they get on top of this car (and are able to copy any great solution they see).

BTW we all can remember tests in previous years where some of the top teams would bring two versions of the car, old/basic one and a new one. They would run the old one for first few days and then bring the new car later. You could easily say they were "late".

Odd reactions, end of the day will they miss test time? No. Does it indicate any issues that they don't start on day 1? No. They could Dyno after the test I'd imagine but chose to Dyno first so there was yet more leeway.

I feel like the script in here for CSI:Barcelona has been made a bit more for television than real life

[mwillems]

Somehow that was expected:





Article here: https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/mcla ... on-opener/

By the way, if what The Race says about the sidepods is true and they are strictly downwashing, then it's likely McLaren won't have the slotted diffuser like Mercedes and Ferrari.

Not saying it means anything, since we don't really know anything at the moment. I am just making an observation.

Did Ferrari add theirs after seeing Mercs?

I wonder if they still won't be useful even if we are already energising the diffuser via downwash as then we have two methods of accelerating the flow of air from the diffuser.

We may see them make a change in the test and see how it works on track, simply because of our limited tunnel and modelling time. In general I wonder if we'll see that approach more across other designs too where this type of testing works.

[ScottB]

It's interesting that, when announcing they'd be turning up late at the test, it's like they've tried really hard to have that not be perceived as a problem, including having The Race guys go down to Woking and apparently see the car / report back that everything is ok.

I don't doubt that, just interesting that they went to some effort to try and cut off any speculation, when, as others have noted, it's a 3 from 5 day test, so what does it matter whether you days 1-3, 3-5, or any combination of...

[Emag]

I don't think it works like that lol. Ferrari can't manufacture a new floor 1 day after seeing it on the Mercedes. They would have to evaluate it in their car to begin with and that takes a lot of time in its own, because you don't just randomly put holes in your floor without knowing exactly what's going to happen to your car's airflow patterns.

So it seems at the moment that both Mercedes and Ferrari noticed this feature as a potential benefit for these regulations and built their car around it, by having quite big undercuts that feed clean air all the way into the slot. Again, we don't really know the importance of it and I am not claiming it's the only way a car will be competitive this season.
As for McLaren, we literally have nothing except a couple of words by The Race. Depends on what they consider "downwash". From certain angles, Mercs sidepods seem downwashing as well.
And also, as I am not really an aero engineer, I literally don't understand why the hole is beneficial in the first place and also I don't know what you need to do to get those benefits. I am just making the observation that of the cars that we have seen having it right now, both have similar sidepod philosophies, and they're not strictly downwashing sidepods. They have a big undercut on them. Now Cadillac is a bit of a special case, but the images are blurry so I don't know if they have the slotted diffuser or not.

[ScottB]

That even assumes they showed The Race anything real / representative of the testing spec too. They put out an article discussing the Merc launch renders appearing to not have downwashing pods, and then the real car appeared with different ones that did.

[mwillems]

I don't think it works like that lol. Ferrari can't manufacture a new floor 1 day after seeing it on the Mercedes. They would have to evaluate it in their car to begin with and that takes a lot of time in its own, because you don't just randomly put holes in your floor without knowing exactly what's going to happen to your car's airflow patterns.

So it seems at the moment that both Mercedes and Ferrari noticed this feature as a potential benefit for these regulations and built their car around it, by having quite big undercuts that feed clean air all the way into the slot. Again, we don't really know the importance of it and I am not claiming it's the only way a car will be competitive this season.
As for McLaren, we literally have nothing except a couple of words by The Race. Depends on what they consider "downwash". From certain angles, Mercs sidepods seem downwashing as well.
And also, as I am not really an aero engineer, I literally don't understand why the hole is beneficial in the first place and also I don't know what you need to do to get those benefits. I am just making the observation that of the cars that we have seen having it right now, both have similar sidepod philosophies, and they're not strictly downwashing sidepods. They have a big undercut on them. Now Cadillac is a bit of a special case, but the images are blurry so I don't know if they have the slotted diffuser or not.

You don't think they have the capability now to do some much quicker evaluations in the modelling and be more responsive with these changes affecting the very rear of the car with much less downstream impact? Fast Fluid Dynamics allows for Hybrid pre modelled flows with CFD in specific areas.

Edit: Since I last read up on it, it is called reduced order modelling I think. There are other techniques that appear to have made their way to F1, but it is for another thread. But they haven't stood still in the face of F1 computational regs, they've actively been reducing computation volume and of course, computational speed is getting faster in orders of magnitude.

I have assumed (Perhaps wrongly) that they now have the ability to do some validation pretty quickly, particularly closer to the rear, and that smaller changes like cutouts can be made trackside for further evaluation.

[mwillems]

Another quick google suggests Mclaren partner with a company/platform called Neural Concept for ROM-based surrogates, as do other teams.

So I don't see any reason why these things can't be modelled very quickly.

[Badger]

Merc and Ferrari have designed their entire sidepod and cooling concept to feed that diffuser cutout with clean mass flow. Redesigning only the diffuser will not have the same effect unless your sidepod concept already provides good flow in the right area.

[johnnycesup]

I don't think it works like that lol. Ferrari can't manufacture a new floor 1 day after seeing it on the Mercedes. They would have to evaluate it in their car to begin with and that takes a lot of time in its own, because you don't just randomly put holes in your floor without knowing exactly what's going to happen to your car's airflow patterns.

So it seems at the moment that both Mercedes and Ferrari noticed this feature as a potential benefit for these regulations and built their car around it, by having quite big undercuts that feed clean air all the way into the slot. Again, we don't really know the importance of it and I am not claiming it's the only way a car will be competitive this season.
As for McLaren, we literally have nothing except a couple of words by The Race. Depends on what they consider "downwash". From certain angles, Mercs sidepods seem downwashing as well.
And also, as I am not really an aero engineer, I literally don't understand why the hole is beneficial in the first place and also I don't know what you need to do to get those benefits. I am just making the observation that of the cars that we have seen having it right now, both have similar sidepod philosophies, and they're not strictly downwashing sidepods. They have a big undercut on them. Now Cadillac is a bit of a special case, but the images are blurry so I don't know if they have the slotted diffuser or not.

You don't think they have the capability now to do some much quicker evaluations in the modelling and be more responsive with these changes affecting the very rear of the car with much less downstream impact? Fast Fluid Dynamics allows for Hybrid pre modelled flows with CFD in specific areas.

Edit: Since I last read up on it, it is called reduced order modelling I think. There are other techniques that appear to have made their way to F1, but it is for another thread. But they haven't stood still in the face of F1 computational regs, they've actively been reducing computation volume and of course, computational speed is getting faster in orders of magnitude.

I have assumed (Perhaps wrongly) that they now have the ability to do some validation pretty quickly, particularly closer to the rear, and that smaller changes like cutouts can be made trackside for further evaluation.

It is pretty far fetched to think that Ferrari, in the span of less than a day: looked at the Mercedes shakedown pictures, figured out what was going on with the diffuser slot, made their own design, manufactured it and put it in the car just so that they could run 15km with demo tyres, no flow viz and no aero rigs.

[Emag]

By the way, more news. After Williams it's now expected that another team will announce they will miss the Barcelona test.
Has McLaren confirmed anything? Sending the car over to AVL is `kind of` a shakedown. There is a chance something went wrong and they might have brought the car back to the factory. But scratch that if there's an official confirmation I missed.

[mwillems]

I don't think it works like that lol. Ferrari can't manufacture a new floor 1 day after seeing it on the Mercedes. They would have to evaluate it in their car to begin with and that takes a lot of time in its own, because you don't just randomly put holes in your floor without knowing exactly what's going to happen to your car's airflow patterns.

So it seems at the moment that both Mercedes and Ferrari noticed this feature as a potential benefit for these regulations and built their car around it, by having quite big undercuts that feed clean air all the way into the slot. Again, we don't really know the importance of it and I am not claiming it's the only way a car will be competitive this season.
As for McLaren, we literally have nothing except a couple of words by The Race. Depends on what they consider "downwash". From certain angles, Mercs sidepods seem downwashing as well.
And also, as I am not really an aero engineer, I literally don't understand why the hole is beneficial in the first place and also I don't know what you need to do to get those benefits. I am just making the observation that of the cars that we have seen having it right now, both have similar sidepod philosophies, and they're not strictly downwashing sidepods. They have a big undercut on them. Now Cadillac is a bit of a special case, but the images are blurry so I don't know if they have the slotted diffuser or not.

You don't think they have the capability now to do some much quicker evaluations in the modelling and be more responsive with these changes affecting the very rear of the car with much less downstream impact? Fast Fluid Dynamics allows for Hybrid pre modelled flows with CFD in specific areas.

Edit: Since I last read up on it, it is called reduced order modelling I think. There are other techniques that appear to have made their way to F1, but it is for another thread. But they haven't stood still in the face of F1 computational regs, they've actively been reducing computation volume and of course, computational speed is getting faster in orders of magnitude.

I have assumed (Perhaps wrongly) that they now have the ability to do some validation pretty quickly, particularly closer to the rear, and that smaller changes like cutouts can be made trackside for further evaluation.

It is pretty far fetched to think that Ferrari, in the span of less than a day: looked at the Mercedes shakedown pictures, figured out what was going on with the diffuser slot, made their own design, manufactured it and put it in the car just so that they could run 15km with demo tyres, no flow viz and no aero rigs.

Im talking about Mclaren making an adaptation.

The initial remark about Ferrari was about reading somewhere that they'd somehow got wind of some knowledge of Merc.

But yes, in a few days I do fully expect that a change like this can be modelled by Mclaren.

Wether a change like this can be made trackside, maybe. A rudimentary change is more than possible.

Edit: yes this can happen but submissions must go to the fia 48hrs before running but the diffuser affects the crash structure so it would not be a quick change.

[SilviuAgo]

And some news on "palou case"

McLaren Racing has won its legal fight with AlexPalou: "has been awarded damages of well over $12 million to compensate the business for the commercial loss and disruption suffered following IndyCar driver Alex Palou’s breach of contract with the team. In addition to the damages award, McLaren Racing will be seeking interest and reimbursement of its legal expenses at a further hearing. As the judgment records, Alex Palou had the backing of Chip Ganassi Racing in attempting to deny McLaren Racing’s claims." In addition CEO Zak Brown says: “This is an entirely appropriate result for McLaren Racing. As the ruling shows, we clearly demonstrated that we fulfilled every single contractual obligation towards Alex and fully honored what had been agreed. We thank the court for recognizing the very significant commercial impact and disruption our business suffered as a result of Alex’s breach of contract with the team.”

[Mattchu]

By the way, more news. After Williams it's now expected that another team will announce they will miss the Barcelona test.
Has McLaren confirmed anything? Sending the car over to AVL is `kind of` a shakedown. There is a chance something went wrong and they might have brought the car back to the factory. But scratch that if there's an official confirmation I missed.

Well Andrea Stella said this to the press.

Speaking to media including Crash.net, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella confirmed his side are planning to join the collective test on either day two or day three.

“We plan to start testing either on day two or day three, so we will not be testing in day one. We wanted to give ourselves as much time as possible for development,” Stella said.

[SilviuAgo]

So the Mcl40 is currently running on a dyno at AVL in Austria

Does anyone know anything about this place? Presumably it’s a full car dyno, proving reliability?

Does that mean the car’s fully assembled? What sort of capabilities does this place have to test? presumably a rolling road, can it simulate wind, heat etc?

Is something like this:



Full car dyno, where the entire car: aero, suspension, brakes and power unit are tested at once. Replicating a physical track test

[genarro]

So the Mcl40 is currently running on a dyno at AVL in Austria

Does anyone know anything about this place? Presumably it’s a full car dyno, proving reliability?

Does that mean the car’s fully assembled? What sort of capabilities does this place have to test? presumably a rolling road, can it simulate wind, heat etc?

Is something like this:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G_WbfEVWIAA ... me=900x900

Full car dyno, where the entire car: aero, suspension, brakes and power unit are tested at once. Replicating a physical track test

So its basically a stresstest of the components. I remember a couple of seasons ago that during testing we had some burn marks on the car. I gues this type of testing eliminates the posibility of insufficient cooling