McLaren MCL33

[Jolle]

Guenther Steiner from Haas says Mclaren rear suspension is the biggest eye catcher in terms of technical inovations on all cars, and it would be impossible to copy before 2019.
He says he talked to many tech people in the padock and they all agree on that.

Reading that in Trump's voice makes it funny....

But yes, it's a nice development but yet unproven. I also read somewhere that corner exit might be a weakness of McLaren what could be the result of not having full control of the rear with that pull-rod set up in the middle of the wishbone.

time will tell.

Yes, i read Edd Straw and Karun Chadock reporting from track that car look good in most corners but sometimes rear gives up on corner exit.
Hope they can fix this?

Let go of part of their innovating suspension and have the pull rod connect to the upright instead of the wishbone. But then they would need to re-do the gearbox casing as well and the rear dampers and springs.

[bonjon1979]

https://twitter.com/piusgasso/status/972197429171941377
It seems like they are keeping an eye on it!

I mean, it just looks like they were s but too ambitious with how close they put the bodywork to the exhaust OR they’re not harvesting as much thermal energy as they thought they would and so exhaust is hotter?

[jagunx51]

https://twitter.com/piusgasso/status/972197429171941377
It seems like they are keeping an eye on it!

those heat stickers

[PlatinumZealot]

Put skin to close to fire and it will get burned. They are trying to save weight with thin or no insultation and a spoiled paintjob is the (minor) price they pay.

[GoranF1]

Reading that in Trump's voice makes it funny....

But yes, it's a nice development but yet unproven. I also read somewhere that corner exit might be a weakness of McLaren what could be the result of not having full control of the rear with that pull-rod set up in the middle of the wishbone.

time will tell.

Yes, i read Edd Straw and Karun Chadock reporting from track that car look good in most corners but sometimes rear gives up on corner exit.
Hope they can fix this?

Let go of part of their innovating suspension and have the pull rod connect to the upright instead of the wishbone. But then they would need to re-do the gearbox casing as well and the rear dampers and springs.

I ment by fine tuning it

[Jolle]

Yes, i read Edd Straw and Karun Chadock reporting from track that car look good in most corners but sometimes rear gives up on corner exit.
Hope they can fix this?

Let go of part of their innovating suspension and have the pull rod connect to the upright instead of the wishbone. But then they would need to re-do the gearbox casing as well and the rear dampers and springs.

I ment by fine tuning it

Possible, but they would have done that in the sim before coming to Barcelona already. To me it looks like the aerodynamic department won from the suspension team and this isn't the best solution. Bit like the whole pull rod front suspension at Ferrari a few years ago. Looks good on paper until you look at the actual forces in practice.

[Jolle]

If you look at the two solutions furthers apart, McLaren and Mercedes,

McLaren has a very large upwards force with little actual movement and a large offset, which makes it tricky on itself plus the possibility of a bit of flex in the wishbone.

Mercedes has the most straight on solution of all the teams, pulling the rod very very straight, without any force off center. Very efficient and precise.

McLaren will never have the same kind of slow corner exit grip as the Mercedes, because it's impossible to have the same kind of control. But they may have a slight advantage on high speed corners with rear stability because their diffuser has a clearer path.

[DiogoBrand]

Am I crazy or they had pretty much the same setup last year and people are a year late to be making a big fuss about it?

[RZS10]

looks like it, this year it's just more noticeable because of the wishbone design and the exits being way higher so the pullrod isn't cutting through them (green)

it's attached roughly where the bent "inside" part of the rear wing plates is on both cars

[DiogoBrand]

Exactly. I think Ferrari also mounts their pullrod on the upper wishbone rather than the upright.
All McLaren did was combine the wishbone pick up point with Red Bulls forward mounted pullrod. And now every "specialist" is saying their rear suspension is bad because of it.

I'm not saying it's any good, it may be crap for all I know, but if we're gona criticize it, let's at least do it with data, rather than speculation.

Edit: And also, from a mechanical grip standpoint, McLaren probably knew this setup wouldn't be ideal even before they built it, but in F1 it's all a matter of compromise, and it's not the first time we see a suspension compromised to favour aero, as Mercedes did with their "fused" front wishbone, and McLaren did with their mushroom suspension. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, as clearly illustrated by my examples. And there's also the possibility of it being really bad at first, but compensating after the team learns how to fine tune it.
As a McLaren fan, it's difficult not to expect another flop like their 2014 solution, but let's at least wait for the car to show us how good or bad it actually is before bashing it.

[PlatinumZealot]

https://imgr2.auto-motor-und-sport.de/M ... 151926.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DWovXXsX0AAaONQ.jpg

If you look at the two solutions furthers apart, McLaren and Mercedes,

McLaren has a very large upwards force with little actual movement and a large offset, which makes it tricky on itself plus the possibility of a bit of flex in the wishbone.

Mercedes has the most straight on solution of all the teams, pulling the rod very very straight, without any force off center. Very efficient and precise.

McLaren will never have the same kind of slow corner exit grip as the Mercedes, because it's impossible to have the same kind of control. But they may have a slight advantage on high speed corners with rear stability because their diffuser has a clearer path.

The McLaren one is a mored direct mechanical motion because the pull rod is more parallel to the motion of the wheel. Alot of double wishbone street cars have the strut around this point on the control arms.
The only problem is they need a much stronger control arm in bending and their top bearing has to be very strong and durable. Good thing that they have a big single section of control arm at that point.

Remember the cars from the seventies with the rocker arm suspensions? Those were examples that your strut doesn't have to be connected close to the upright to transfer the loads.

[PlatinumZealot]

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/wp-c ... pMCL70.jpg
Am I crazy or they had pretty much the same setup last year and people are a year late to be making a big fuss about it?

Yes. You are crazy. You are making too much sense here. How dare you do any research! Haha

[godlameroso]

https://imgr2.auto-motor-und-sport.de/M ... 151926.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DWovXXsX0AAaONQ.jpg

If you look at the two solutions furthers apart, McLaren and Mercedes,

McLaren has a very large upwards force with little actual movement and a large offset, which makes it tricky on itself plus the possibility of a bit of flex in the wishbone.

Mercedes has the most straight on solution of all the teams, pulling the rod very very straight, without any force off center. Very efficient and precise.

McLaren will never have the same kind of slow corner exit grip as the Mercedes, because it's impossible to have the same kind of control. But they may have a slight advantage on high speed corners with rear stability because their diffuser has a clearer path.

Having the pullrod pick up halfway on the rear upper control arm essentially "softens" the suspension vs at the upright, this is because the closer to the chassis pivot the pull rod is mounted the higher the motion ratio. This in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing. The thing that can affect handling is the toe curve caused by the spacing of the pivots on the upper wishbone, and the upper wishbone mounting on the upright. If this isn't done right, your could have a linear toe curve when the suspension loads until you get to a critical value where the toe curve goes negative. For someone like McLaren it should be relatively straightforward to sort out, particularly since their gearbox allows changing the mounting point of the upper wishbone on the chassis.

[godlameroso]

https://imgr2.auto-motor-und-sport.de/M ... 151926.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DWovXXsX0AAaONQ.jpg

If you look at the two solutions furthers apart, McLaren and Mercedes,

McLaren has a very large upwards force with little actual movement and a large offset, which makes it tricky on itself plus the possibility of a bit of flex in the wishbone.

Mercedes has the most straight on solution of all the teams, pulling the rod very very straight, without any force off center. Very efficient and precise.

McLaren will never have the same kind of slow corner exit grip as the Mercedes, because it's impossible to have the same kind of control. But they may have a slight advantage on high speed corners with rear stability because their diffuser has a clearer path.

The McLaren one is a mored direct mechanical motion because the pull rod is more parallel to the motion of the wheel. Alot of double wishbone street cars have the strut around this point on the control arms.
The only problem is they need a much stronger control arm in bending and their top bearing has to be very strong and durable. Good thing that they have a big single section of control arm at that point.

Remember the cars from the seventies with the rocker arm suspensions? Those were examples that your strut doesn't have to be connected close to the upright to transfer the loads.

Most double wishbone/multi-link road cars that mount the damper assembly do so to the lower control arm which is usually much bigger and stronger than the upper arm, the lower balljoint is also the one that carries all the load. The upper arm determines the toe curve along with the toe arm. With this pullrod setup the suspension is essentially installed upside down.

[DiogoBrand]

Interestingly enough, Ferrari had the same setup, yet many people believe it had better mechanical grip than Mercedes.