Vodafone McLaren Team 2012

[raymondu999]

Anyway, the car doesn't have spectacular race pace. It's quite sluggish in the heat.
Doen't have the surge like the redbull or the Lotus.

Whitmarsh said they were hitting their rear tyres too hard; which frankly to me reeked of Valencia last year. Starting that race engine maps were fixed as part of parc ferme - and quite a few people surmised that McLaren was running no off-throttle mapping that weekend. (ie no off-throttle map for quali and race) and McLaren were burning their rears massively too. Maybe the lack of off-throttle exhaust action, combined with heat, is not good for the McLaren? When it was hot AND they used the off-throttle software, their rears were fine.

[Nico]

The key for Mclaren focus is the front end. they always had very good traction out of corners but with the pirelli tyre,s as soon as the rears goes off they loose their advantage, being traction limited by the tyre. they need more aiflow under the front and need to soften the suspension, this is set up hard as to ensure the fronts wear inline with the rears, the nett result is after a few laps they loose the rears, reducing their traction and then the front end starts pushing into the corners.

[QLDriver]

Yes this is the thing that sticks out the most. Too much time lost in the pits.
They need to have the wheel nuts built into the wheels.
It's something they should give dull priority for the upcoming races.

Not sure about the integration - if they just used a coarser thread, it would tend to start more easily without cross threading.

[Javert]

It could be that, seen the car struggling in FP3, McL decided to go on a quali-oriented setup to "hide" their weaknesses.

I think they lack downforce

[myurr]

Yes this is the thing that sticks out the most. Too much time lost in the pits.
They need to have the wheel nuts built into the wheels.
It's something they should give dull priority for the upcoming races.

Not sure about the integration - if they just used a coarser thread, it would tend to start more easily without cross threading.

There must be a reason though why all the teams seemed to standardise on that size thread, before Ferrari this year.

[myurr]

It could be that, seen the car struggling in FP3, McL decided to go on a quali-oriented setup to "hide" their weaknesses.

I think they lack downforce

They didn't earlier in the year. I think they brought the wrong setup for the race, focusing too much on top speed instead of downforce and grip.

[beelsebob]

Yes this is the thing that sticks out the most. Too much time lost in the pits.
They need to have the wheel nuts built into the wheels.
It's something they should give dull priority for the upcoming races.

Not sure about the integration - if they just used a coarser thread, it would tend to start more easily without cross threading.

There must be a reason though why all the teams seemed to standardise on that size thread, before Ferrari this year.

The shallower the thread, the more force is needed to pull the wheel off.

[QLDriver]

Yes, it could be that the solution would be to increase the stud diameter (for equal tensile strength), to use a different thread form (Acme?), or to use a higher tensile strength material - you lose some performance on track due to higher unsprung weight, but if it averages out to save up to 20 seconds a race due to no pitstop problems, it might be worth doing.

[Jef Patat]

As a noob I wonder what your thoughts are on this idea:
I think McLaren's exhaust solution is the best at sealing the side of the diffuser. I wonder however what the influence of the hot exhaust gasses is on tire life. Might it be that their tires degrade faster? If this is the case they should be managing their tires more than other teams which might nullify the exhaust sealing advantage? The idea of blowing hot exhaust gasses to the side of a tire seems so unintuitive to do?

[ringo]

A coarser thread on the wheel has it's draw backs. It's not as strong.
As for vibration maybe there are concerns as well. Though i think coarser can be an option if the fasteners are over designed.

The nuts could also have more than one start. There are double and tripple start thread as possibilities.

I just feel F1 is a copying game. Try to equalize as much as possible as the other guy to keep close. An integrated nut is the quicker less error prone solution.

[Nico]

Jef Patat
i do tend to agree, last season there were some reports that RB was using the exhaust to heat the tyres - helping them in quali and on the first lap. I never realy took to this solution since in teh long term it will degrade the tyre.
posable that mclaren are doing it - yes that might explain their poor tyre wear in hot conditions when copared to the first 3 cooler races.

[myurr]

It's more likely they just got the setup of the cars wrong. They looked off colour all weekend, throughout free practice. I was actually surprised they did as well as they did in qualifying as they hadn't really shown that level of pace until then. They were overworking the tyres, particularly at the rear, and were suffering thermal degradation as a result.

They'll bounce back next race with a better setup and a bit more understanding of both the car and the tyres.

[scarlet]

It's more likely they just got the setup of the cars wrong. They looked off colour all weekend, throughout free practice. I was actually surprised they did as well as they did in qualifying as they hadn't really shown that level of pace until then. They were overworking the tyres, particularly at the rear, and were suffering thermal degradation as a result.

They'll bounce back next race with a better setup and a bit more understanding of both the car and the tyres.

Almost certainly. If they can hit the tyre window at Barcelona without the track temp dropping by 10 degrees from quali to race(!), I can't see anyone touching them around the high speed sweepers.

[gloomyandy]

Could the exhaust solution be part of the pit stop issue? Perhaps some part is getting hotter than intended and as a result jamming, or making it harder to fit the cooler wheel nut? It must be pretty hard to control exactly which part of the rear of the car gets heated by the exhaust this year...

[strad]

Not sure about the integration - if they just used a coarser thread, it would tend to start more easily without cross threading.

NO...They need to run a Higby thread so it CANNOT crossthread.