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McLaren playing catch up with diffuser

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After many teams surprised McLaren by coming up with a blown diffuser at the European Grand Prix in Valencia, Woking had its blown diffuser ready at Silverstone, only to find though that it didn't work as expected. Diffusers and exhausts around them are an especially difficult area to model, and it is in this area that teams are suffering most of the in-season testing ban.

McLaren added shark gills on both sides in FP2 but finally decided against the system. Another new attempt will be done at the German GP in Hockenheim after the team has learned the system better thanks to the on-track data in Silverstone.

Comments

By Jonsson on 22-07-2010 at 18:17

It's very methodical; the exhaust blown diffuser. Teams rely on CFD to design it, and slowly gather track data to fine tune it. I doubt McLaren has had enough track time to refine its blown diffuser to ideal performance for Hockenheim. I'd say Hamilton and Button will use the weather more than their upgraded down force package to gain an advantage on the Bulls. In Budapest, the cat is out of the bag, and Red Bull will need to get clever after Hockenheim if they want to keep their aerodynamic advantage. I haven't been this excited about F1 in a long time.

By BreezyRacer on 27-07-2010 at 21:34

I think McLaren will have to do a new floor before they get their diffuser to measure up to RB and Ferrari, and even Renault. The McLaren intake looks too open and subject to turbulence at the entry. Also since it has an open bottom it's somewhat more susceptible to ride height changes. This is all just my opinion but we'll see what happens .. or maybe we won't see .. those parts are hard to view.

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