Mclaren Chassis Vs Honda Power Unit

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McG
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Re: Mclaren Chassis Vs Honda Power Unit

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Terrible idea for a thread. If you care to read through this years McLaren threads you will see the same as this. First couple of pages and already the couch potato wanna be analysts spouting pure crap.

If you're going to put forward data, make sure you have all of it instead of some lazy graphs.
Finally, everyone knows that Red Bull is a joke and Max Verstappen is overrated.

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Juzh
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Re: Mclaren Chassis Vs Honda Power Unit

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McG wrote:Terrible idea for a thread. If you care to read through this years McLaren threads you will see the same as this. First couple of pages and already the couch potato wanna be analysts spouting pure crap.

If you're going to put forward data, make sure you have all of it instead of some lazy graphs.
Those graphs could mean a lot of things, but I doubt they're "lazy". Quite a lot of research went into them.

Jolle
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Re: Mclaren Chassis Vs Honda Power Unit

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I think it's safe to say after Brazil, where McLaren got their but kicked by STR, a car build in a very short time with an engine from last year with no development. If the chassis was a top three design, it should have shined in the rain. One point and finishing last with two former WC.

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McG
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Re: Mclaren Chassis Vs Honda Power Unit

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Juzh wrote:
McG wrote:Terrible idea for a thread. If you care to read through this years McLaren threads you will see the same as this. First couple of pages and already the couch potato wanna be analysts spouting pure crap.

If you're going to put forward data, make sure you have all of it instead of some lazy graphs.
Those graphs could mean a lot of things, but I doubt they're "lazy". Quite a lot of research went into them.
No there wasn't quite a lot. Considering all the information available, there was very little research.
Finally, everyone knows that Red Bull is a joke and Max Verstappen is overrated.

mrluke
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Re: Mclaren Chassis Vs Honda Power Unit

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McG wrote:
Juzh wrote:
McG wrote:Terrible idea for a thread. If you care to read through this years McLaren threads you will see the same as this. First couple of pages and already the couch potato wanna be analysts spouting pure crap.

If you're going to put forward data, make sure you have all of it instead of some lazy graphs.
Those graphs could mean a lot of things, but I doubt they're "lazy". Quite a lot of research went into them.
No there wasn't quite a lot. Considering all the information available, there was very little research.
By all means please feel free to share your enlightenment. What data are we missing?

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diffuser
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Re: Mclaren Chassis Vs Honda Power Unit

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Jolle wrote:I think it's safe to say after Brazil, where McLaren got their but kicked by STR, a car build in a very short time with an engine from last year with no development. If the chassis was a top three design, it should have shined in the rain. One point and finishing last with two former WC.
Did you watch the race ?

The only reason why STR finished ahead was cause they never pitted for new tires.
McLaren Gambled and when for the intermediate Wets (which they couldn't get to work).


I fact we could clearly see a HUGE improvement on McLaren in Qualifying in S2 (the section with all the curves) over STR.

08_14_F. ALONSO ___37.278
11_26_D. KVYAT_____37.329
14_55 C. SAINZ______37.579

It could be the new parts on Alonzo's car. They reinforced the diffuser to prevent it from flexing and being sucked down closer to the ground , they changed the brake ducts and blocked off front axle blowing. I think they were loosing the seal on the floor when they tried to add too much down force to the front wing.

It could be that or there is just isn't as fast of a change of direction at Brazil and McLaren are just better at that.


That being said I don't think they're still in the top 3 but I think they might have crawled up into the top 4.

mrluke
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Re: Mclaren Chassis Vs Honda Power Unit

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Reposting the circuit map for reference

Image

While we are looking at speeds at Brazil im going to post up a quick chart that shows the speeds at S1, S2, S3 and the speedtrap.

I apologise that it isn't very clear and if anybody has suggestions on how to improve the clarity then please pipe up, this is as best I can get it.

Image

What has caught my eye is that the speeds recorded through the S1 speed trap are very tightly grouped and are actually faster than across the Start/Finish, in contrast to the circuit map. Also of particular interest is that the team order is somewhat different in both of these places.

At S1, Mercedes, RBR, Mclaren and the mid field are covered by 3kph, with STR hanging out the bottom a little.

At S3 (start/finish) the spread is much wider. Mercedes / Ferrari occupy the top spots then RBR then Mclaren and finally STR with the majority of the cars sitting within a 10kph range.

I think what we are seeing here is either a difference in available ERS deployment or at the very least a difference in deployment strategy. I'm leaning towards the former, with the different PU users having more or less harvesting ability than their rivals.

Looking purely at Brazil 2016 Qualy, I would say that either Ferrari have ultimately more peak BHP than Mercedes, but they are unable to sustain this as long, or they just have a different deployment strategy, either way I think they are very even. Honda look to be matching the Renault for ultimate power but have a slight deficit on harvesting. Finally Honda are beating Ferrari 15 on peak power by a noticeable margin and look like they can harvest slightly more effectively.

I think that we can also explain the difference in driver top speeds at S3, not through different drag levels but through different deployment strategies, if you look at how consistent all of the drivers are through the S1 trap, I think that those that are slowest across the start/finish have chosen to use that energy elsewhere on the lap, or alternatively, some drivers are saving deployment for the start/finish straight and therefore carry more speed across the line but must lose some time across the rest of the lap.

Finally I would look to pull your attention to the S2 trap speeds, if you refer back to the map you will see that the S2 trap is on a very short straight betwen T11 and T12. Here more than at any of the other speed traps the cars are clearly grouped by team. I have provided another chart to illustrate it better:

Image

You have Mercedes with a big clear gap to Ferrari and RBR with a small gap to Mclaren, Haas, Force India and STR, and another small gap to Williams, Marrusia, Sauber and Renault.

I think this serves as a very good illustration of the relative strengths of each teams "chassis." The speeds are still low enough that the exit speed from T11 has more bearing on their velocity at the speed trap than the amount of bhp/drag they are running.

TLDR; Mercedes "chassis" is a bigger advantage to them than their PU. Honda PU equivalent to Renault on peak power, slightly worse on harvesting, but more power and harvesting than STR (Ferrari 2015).

I know I have turned this thread into a bit of a soap box and I apologize for that, I would just like to channel all of the energy spent bickering about Mclaren / Honda across the forum into actually testing the assertions that are being thrown around as if they were irrefutable fact. Some of them will hold up and others wont.

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hollus
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Re: Mclaren Chassis Vs Honda Power Unit

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Nothing wrong with a soapbox full of data!
Rivals, not enemies.

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PlatinumZealot
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Re: Mclaren Chassis Vs Honda Power Unit

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Will have a whole season under our belts and yet this question will never be answered! And rightfully so! If one could be so good at differenting chassis performance with a sample size of ONE car you are the telemetry God. Cray computer aint got nothing on you!
🖐️✌️☝️👀👌✍️🐎🏆🙏

Racing Green in 2028

mrluke
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Re: Mclaren Chassis Vs Honda Power Unit

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PlatinumZealot wrote:Will have a whole season under our belts and yet this question will never be answered! And rightfully so! If one could be so good at differenting chassis performance with a sample size of ONE car you are the telemetry God. Cray computer aint got nothing on you!
Yes and no, when I first started this thread the general consensus was that Mclaren had a very good chassis which was held back by a terrible Honda engine. I think that we have now reached a general consensus that both the engine and chassis are fairly average, a trend that has been reinforced with recent performances.

Of course we will never get a complete and comprehensive answer but I'm happy to reach a consensus based on data.

:)

Manoah2u
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Re: Mclaren Chassis Vs Honda Power Unit

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next year return of the U-pods then?
"Explain the ending to F1 in football terms"
"Hamilton was beating Verstappen 7-0, then the ref decided F%$& rules, next goal wins
while also sending off 4 Hamilton players to make it more interesting"

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Nuvolari
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Re: Mclaren Chassis Vs Honda Power Unit

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mrluke, you went to a lot of trouble doing analysis on data from Brazil, and have tried to show that Honda is really on par with Renault PU and McLaren's chassis is really bad. I'm wondering if the altitude of Brazil will have any relevance to your argument, making it not representative of the general form of the McLaren/Hondo combo. After all, Mexico showed a weak point of the McLaren chassis, so I'd expect it to be more of the same in Brazil. The wet race, will only serve to exaggerate such weakness...so can you really draw conclusions of real meaning based on a team's form in Brazil? I doubt it. :)

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diffuser
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Re: Mclaren Chassis Vs Honda Power Unit

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I think that cars that do well in the rain are those that can run more DF. The 2016 McHonda doesn't even have a heavy DF config so ultimately they will always suffer in the wet.

With regards to S2, Merc have enough Power to run Heavy DF and still be near the top in speed in the straights. That's Huge in maintaining a higher speed in T11 and on getting on the accelerator early out of it. Which is why in my opinion they have such a big lead there.


With regards to the PU I think the Honda is still dead last. By how much? I don't know . They seem to be ahead of the 2015 Ferrari PU in peak power but still trail it in harvesting(we've seen that on a couple of occasions when STR and McHonda are head to head during the race). I have big hope of big gains next year.

The Chassis in my opinion is either 4th or 5th.(which is technically the same as the PU). I'M hopeful that they are 4th. That they found the Monaco issue with the reinforcement of the diffuser/rear floor and the removal of the blow front axle.

That being said from a chassis perspective , the beginning of next year, will be a bit of a crap shoot. Who will of found something that will give them the edge while the other teams catchup? I guess we're all hoping it's McLaren

mrluke
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Re: Mclaren Chassis Vs Honda Power Unit

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2016

For those that are interested here is how last year finished up:

Image

and here it is stripped down to the main teams:

Image

These charts set Mclaren Honda as a baseline, the gap between the black line and the lowest line (usually Mercedes) is the gap to pole as a % of laptime from the fastest Qualy laps.

I don't think there is really much to add from my previous post following the Brazilian round.

2017

But we are now into 2017, I am jumping the gun a little bit as we only have 3 data points for this year but here goes:

Image

Image

I dont think the performance has settled down enough yet this year to read too much into it but it is interesting to see how much RBR caught up at Bahrain.

Also Bahrain is Mclaren's worst performance of the year by some way, Force India also seem to have struggled, both teams setting a best time slower than last years. Renault on the other hand have excelled finding 3.5s against last years time while the remainder of the grid found between 0.5s and 1.0s

Looking at Bahrain in a little more detail, here is the track map:

Image

Unfortunately it doesn't show the Speed trap, but it is placed at the end of the DRS zone prior to T1.

The end of S1 is the slowest speed trap we have access to and is at T5, chart below shows the relative positions of the teams:

Image

As you can see within the teams there tends to be one driver that is noticeably faster than the other, this is something that repeats through all of the charts and I wonder whether it has to do with the changing track conditions as the circuit cools at Bahrain, maybe the cars running in Q3 had much better track conditions. I would state this was likely due to different strategy re drag vs downforce however the faster driver in each team is faster through every speed trap.

Renault are a bit of an outlier but otherwise Mclaren are in the mix with all of midfield teams, Mercedes, Williams and Ferrari maintain a small advantage.

S2 follows the fast turn 12.

Image

Notice how far Mclaren have fallen back from the other teams? In S1 they were 5kph behind Mercedes, now they are 10kph behind. They have also fallen behind the Renault powered teams. Renault is again pushing ahead of RBR.

We complete the lap at S3 (Start/Finish)

Image

S3 sees the gaps between teams close up once again. Maybe T15 is less of a performance differentiator than T12? But if that was the case then why were RBR so far down at S2?

For completeness here is the Speed Trap:

Image

This shows the biggest differences between team mates, perhaps the speed trap is within the start of the braking zone for T1?

Some interesting points but I am reluctant to read too much into it as I remain nervous that the track rapidly improved during Q2 and Q3.

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Juzh
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Re: Mclaren Chassis Vs Honda Power Unit

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Turn 12 is easy flat this year. It's all about power in that corner. In 2014 they were also flat but they wouldn't deploy ers in that long turn because it would mean driver had to lift. In 2017 they're pumping ers and still cars are flat, some 20-25 kph faster. That corner is a balancing act, too much ers would mean you have to lift, too little and you're too slow. Clearly merc works team is still by far the best in ers management.
Mclaren is obviously not deploying anything there.