McLaren MP4-30 Pre-launch Speculation

[dren]

Ron stated Prodromou came in and confirmed the aero direction they took with the MP4-29 was wrong. Pretty much what we all suspected. I think we can assume we will see a very Red Bullesque looking car. They were using large air to air intercoolers with the Honda unit, similar to Red Bull with the Renault.

Also, James Allen noted on his website that the 2015 chassis is already quite a bit quicker than the 2014 chassis in the simulator.

Any engineer will tell you that there is more than one way to do something. Ron never stated that PP came in and said the aero direction they were going in is wrong. In fact considering how much progress the mp4-29 made from the start of the season till the end I would actually say that they were improving and generally moving in the right direction. My impression is hat simply when PP. Came in he started to tweak things and shifted the aero concept more to something that he knows works.

Yes he did. James Allen was at the press conference. See the link and James Allen quote below.

Dennis added that the arrival of Peter Prodromou has given a “true north” reading on the aerodynamics of the McLaren 2014 car and confirming that the direction was “wrong”.

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2014/12/d ... -business/

[dren]

First comment..... WHY?

Because the new head of Aero at McLaren was head of aero at Red Bull last year. His first update was a wing with an identical concept to the RB10.

Oh dear! The shape of the Macca will depend a lot on packaging arrangements. And new thinking could lead to a vastly different car. Dont forget, Newey designed the tub, packaging etc of the Bull, not prodromou

The shape of Macca will depend a lot on the aero design. They cram the packaging to fit within the aero design. Then there are compromises. If the front wing looks a lot like the Red Bull, you can bet the rest of the car will follow the aero design philosophy.

[KingHamilton01]

I see on McLaren official twitter they announced that the mp4-30 has already passed all the crash test's. Haven't McLaren already stated that they won't bring the mp4-30 to the first test? if so then why would they have it ready so early? something to do with Engine?

[dren]

I see on McLaren official twitter they announced that the mp4-30 has already passed all the crash test's. Haven't McLaren already stated that they won't bring the mp4-30 to the first test? if so then why would they have it ready so early? something to do with Engine?

The chassis and nose pass the crash test, not the whole car. If they are not bringing the new car to the first test, it likely means they want more time to work on packaging and aero testing. Red Bull has done the same for aero testing.

The Honda PU will be in whatever car Mclaren uses at the first test.

[aral]

The shape of Macca will depend a lot on the aero design. They cram the packaging to fit within the aero design. Then there are compromises. If the front wing looks a lot like the Red Bull, you can bet the rest of the car will follow the aero design philosophy.

That is a rather bland statement. Cars develop over the year, and to think that the Macca will follow last years designs is a bit off. There are new ideas at all times, witness the front wing as mentioned earlier. The Bull was modified over the year, as was even the Merc. And the Macca had fairly major changes. If Macca follow last years RBR10, they would risk being close on a year behind. As i pointed out, the main body was shaped by Newey, but to think that such a body would suit the Macca is just idle speculation. We could well see a total rethink of aero by Prodrumou, especially if they decided to retain the blockers, which will only work with a particular overall package. Yhe Bull has a long body, and as yet, we know little if anything about the proposed length of the entire Honda plus gearbox unit, so we will just have to wait and see.
Yes, the car will look like most other cars on the grid, but that is all.

[dren]

1. I already showed where Ron stated Prodromou proved their design philosophy for the 2014 car was wrong.
2. If given the above, we can come to the conclusion that the 2015 car will not go in that direction.
3. We have seen a front wing designed by an ex Red Bull employee that looked just like the wing on the Red Bull 2014 car.
4. The front of the car heavily influences the aero aft. So, if the Red Bull car used that front wing design philosophy, we can assume the aero design philosophy of the rest of the car will likely be used by Prodromou at Mclaren.

I'm talking about design philosophy, not a direct carbon copy.

The Red Bull will likely look very similar to last year's car. They had a sound design, so they will build on that and alter the front nose to meet the new regulations. This is what F1 teams do.

The cars with good aero last year will not change much, they will build on their existing designs. The cars with poor aero performance relative to the competition will likely change. Mclaren seems to have fallen in this group.

Sure, maybe they will make something completely different from everyone, but the chances of that are extremely slim, especially with the tight regulations.

[Blackout]

IMO, because of the split turbo, they will integrate the water intercooler to the monocoque, like Mercedes. It would be stupid to put air-air intercoolers at the back of the sidepods, like RBR did, or even at the front of the sidepods, with the Merc architecture.
SO IMHO, they opted for low RBR like exhausts for aero reasons. They will help them design very thin and heavily undercut sidepods.

[KingHamilton01]

I see on McLaren official twitter they announced that the mp4-30 has already passed all the crash test's. Haven't McLaren already stated that they won't bring the mp4-30 to the first test? if so then why would they have it ready so early? something to do with Engine?

The chassis and nose pass the crash test, not the whole car. If they are not bringing the new car to the first test, it likely means they want more time to work on packaging and aero testing. Red Bull has done the same for aero testing.

The Honda PU will be in whatever car Mclaren uses at the first test.

Thank's for clearing that up for me, would make sense in that case! McLaren will clearly maximise Aero and give prodromou more time to work his magic on the MP4-30!

[henra]

It would be stupid to put air-air intercoolers at the back of the sidepods, like RBR did, or even at the front of the sidepods, with the Merc architecture.

Yup.
I would strongly tend to think that these bulky AA Intercoolers were a bit of an Achilles Heel for the RB10. RB broke its legacy of having the tiniest and slimmest sidepods with RB10 and I'm quite sure that is why the W05 was at least on par or probably even better aerodynamically.
If I were asked for conclusions from this year I would probably say:
- Use split Turbo architecure on the engine.
- Don't use AA Intercoolers.
- Don't waste precious resources on fancy silver bullets (Butterfly Suspension). The W05 did not feature anything really fancy. Just a couple of sound fundamental layout decisions and thorough Detail Engineering.

[Mesteño]

Who knows, maybe those fancy silver bullets are key to be ahead of Mercedes if Honda PU ends being equal, or near.

[Blackout]

OT: But dont get me wrong; the intercooler and exhaust layout of the RB10 is very clever and efficient for a classic architecture engine like the RS34.

[mclaren_mircea]

I'm very confussed about one aspect. They passed very early the crash test. I thought that mp4-30 will be deliberately late in design and chassis because of the Promodrou arrival. I thought that they will push everything almost to the last minute to give Prodromou greater input on the general lines of the car. He started work in September and after less than 3 months the car passed the tests. What does that mean? My opinion is that they started much earlier than we thought to work on mp4-30, because of the lack of support from Mercedes on the 2014 car. And that Prodromou only refined some aerodynamics concepts on the car to make it quicker. But the amount of work coordinated by Mark Thatam (the chief designer recruited by Mclaren in June 2013, and who is responsible for mp4-30) is very well advanced. It's impossible to pass the crash with one chassis and than to redevelop a totally new design for February 2015. It also means Mclaren started to work very early on the nose of mp4-30 and invested a real amount of time and resources on it of, if the car passed the tests at the begining of December.

[dren]

IMO, because of the split turbo, they will integrate the water intercooler to the monocoque, like Mercedes. It would be stupid to put air-air intercoolers at the back of the sidepods, like RBR did, or even at the front of the sidepods, with the Merc architecture.
SO IMHO, they opted for low RBR like exhausts for aero reasons. They will help them design very thin and heavily undercut sidepods.

You would think so, but I'm not so sure. They had large AA intercoolers on the test car with the Honda PU, but that's only a test car.

The compressor split helps with intercooler piping, temperatures, and allows for a larger compressor. They may opt to go with AA intercoolers due to weight reasons over the Mercedes type.

I really liked the Ferrari layout although it limited compressor sizing.

[marcush.]

at some point you need to draw some poles into the ground .You would not wait for messiah coming from RedBull coming up with a concept for a Mercedes PU clone ....
Prodromou simply had no insight into Mercedes PU architecture so why wait for him in this ? The guy arrived late this year in Mclaren and the RedBull was not really the best car of the year either .Not much he could directly carry over in terms of cooling layouts etc ....so it does make sense to draw in PP to explain the aero concepts of RBR and look if on this base fruitful avenues can be explored.

Being ready this early with monocoque design hints at a early on decision on hondas side which route to follow in terms of PU architecture ...so basically one can be sure it will be very close to Mercedes PU ..

[mclaren111]

PP was on "Garden Leave" for quite some time, but I am pretty sure he was in contact with McLaren during this time and a lot of advise would have been given by him via various methods.

There are more than one way of skinning a cat