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McLaren introduce imaginative front wing

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As all teams have brought updates to Barcelona, Ferrari and especially McLaren are catching most sights. The Woking based team have developed a front wing with a "bridged" upper element over the nose cone. While most other teams attach their upper flaps onto the nose cone McLaren may have developed an improvement to that. The new layout obviously has increased potential if air above the nose needs to be conditioned. It also allows changing the angle of attack of it, contrary to the solutions where the elements are rigidly connected to the nose. The new wing also have a completely revised lower plane which is now far more curvy than the rather simple layout McLaren runs for several years now.

Comments

By jwielage on 01-05-2007 at 15:45

An interesting development from Mclaren in that they have finally adopted a \"bi-plane\" front wing. Development on F1 cars is a path dependant process, i.e. current development is contingent upon optimizing the existing car (the aggregate of all past development choices.) Noting the fact that Mclaren is a high budget team and they had yet to incorporate what was becoming a standard aero element, one must ask why this is the case. There must have been some characteristics about their setup made a more traditional \"bi-plane\" design inefficient on the McLaren. As such it makes logical sense that when Mclaren released their \"bi-plane\" front wing it would be drastically different than the others.

Personally I think it is really cool. So what do you guys think silver or red? :?:

By manchild on 01-05-2007 at 23:26

I like it a lot but just as the \"rabbit ears\" on BMW in 2006 this upper wing on Mclaren seams to represent obvious threat to driver\'s head in case of braking off or collision. There\'s huge chance that if it brakes of it could hit and perhaps even penetrate driver\'s visor.

FIA should ban wings completely, allow small controlled (strictly defined shape) ground effect and increase mechanical grip trough wide slicks and 2 meter wide cars.

What we have now is a barrage fire every time something brakes off from a car which causes SC periods and damage on other cars, especially tyres of cars that have to pass over sharp carbon fiber shrapnels. I\'m not even mentioning obvious threat to drivers, pit crew, marshals and spectators.

By chasefreak on 02-05-2007 at 00:40

manchild... this is a sport... and if they plan to make everything safe... i dont feel there will be any fun...there should alwayzz be an element of risk...this brings abt more enthu...u may have a diffrenet opinion..
------back to topic---------
it is definatly agressive..... the new wing is something that all teams will look on....but the question is how will they stop it from flexing...it will flex at 300kph..there is no way it wont...or they may add a support just the way renault did to those mirros and it may compromise the whole design..ferrari will be paying close attention to the whole flexing part

By mini696 on 02-05-2007 at 02:06

It wont flex as much as you think... The design is quite restrictive to bending, for the wing to bend down it will have to push the end plates out.

Looks to me that they are conditioning the flow over the newly modified suspension arms and towards the viking horns and rear wing. Also creating vorticies to pass down the sides of the cockpit.

By Ian P. on 02-05-2007 at 02:27

You can take the worlds stiffest material and no matter how low the load or stress, it will deflect. Te question is how much and in what direction(s).
It would appear that McLaren is playing an interesting game (remember BMWs front horns...) so don\'t be too disapointed if this wing is gone before te next event.
I wonder if they are playing with the torsional stiffness so that at high speeds the wing elements don\'t move per sé but twist to reduce the angle of attach of the thicker part of the wing. Would pass the FIA Flex-Test but still do something novel.
I am waiting for someone to cut out the center part of the front wing altogether and just run side wings off the nose. With the noses getting narrower all the time it would be a decent way to reduce turbulence under the front of the car.

By Steven on 02-05-2007 at 12:37

Ian P, I don\'t think that will happen soon. The latest models of low nose designs had pretty thin noses too and still it appeared to be more efficient to use a full width front wing under a higher nose.

Anyway, this wing is an interesting idea. It also looks to me like they can easily remove the upper panel if it would be outlawed by the FIA. There\'s more to this new wing that the nosebridge.

By megz on 06-05-2007 at 06:05

Its ugly, thats all I have to say :P

By beerbellybob on 08-05-2007 at 19:20

I posted this in the forum too but got no responses. But I was wondering if this upper element has anything to do with conditioning flow while closely following another car. I will be interesting to see how the aero is affected behind a Ferrari. If that is the purpose and I am not at all sure about that, the element could even be optimized taking into account the Ferrari\'s aero characteristics. I\'ll also revive that forum topic.

By Seas on 09-05-2007 at 09:17

About nose cone, they can’t go any thinner. Technical regulations taking care of that. Safety reasons, again. By the way, wing look great, and Ferrari have to take look on that innovation. And I’m sure they will!

By teecof1fan on 23-05-2007 at 05:20

I don\'t think this wing is very surprising or particularly aggressive or any of those other adjectives. McLaren have jumped on the \'bi-plane\' wing bandwagon like most other teams, and theirs is a bridged wing I think simply because the nose of the car is so low. I think if you put this bridged wing on the Ferrari it would run into the nose of the car, which, of course, is exactly what it does on the F2007. Obviously they saw some gain in running the bridged wing (as some of you mentioned) instead of connecting it to the nose like Red Bull and STR , who also run a steep downward angle on the nose. But enough of my opinion. As we all saw, the wing obviously flexes at speed yet the FIA allows it. My question: is there some trick McLaren is pulling that gives them the passing grade during flex-testing yet allows the wing to flex during the race? Considering the video evidence, it seems a bit ridiculous to allow this as a non-moveable aero device while the mass dampers of yesteryear were banned as such and this year the floor aprons were stiffened per McLaren\'s (of all teams) request. I\'m also reminded of the 248F1\'s upper wing element that separated from the nose at speed last year which comparatively seems like nothing...Oh well, I guess the real question is about consistency within the FIA...

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