trinidefender wrote:DiogoBrand wrote:Can we expect a Merc style FW next season? I mean, no one can know for sure what's best, but it seems the two most aerodinamically advanced teams are using it, so it must have one or two qualities to it, right?
Not to mention... it's f*****g beautiful!
https://www.formula1.com/content/fom-we ... medium.jpg
I actually find this funny. In 2013 everybody was banging on how Mclaren and others should copy the RedBull style front wing with the last element attached to the outer endplate. Now that McLaren has adopted that design idea that PP brought across (with the last element attached to the outer endplate) from RedBull everybody is off their rockers again saying that McLaren should copy the Merc style wing with a separated outer endplate and last wing element.
You guys crack me up, can never make up your minds.
To be honest, teams all followed such trends, so there is a sense of "X is better" here.
In 2012-2013 we saw pretty much the whole field applying the Red Bull end plate design.
In 2014, we saw the whole field apply Merc's design in some way.
The Red Bull solution seemed to be more focused on the wing itself, which makes sense with the full-width front wing. The solution Merc uses seems to be more about turning the air around the tires, with a less wide front wing, this too makes sense in the rule set.
The whole field has in some way applied Mercs solution(or in the past, Red Bulls solution). Is this because the solution is better? probably. Is this because Merc is the fastest team? Probably too.
Of course no one of us has CFD vision and thus makes it all a quick guess, but when the majority converges towards the same idea, it is fairly safe to conclude that this solution is better.
McLaren generally has been behind on this trend. In 2011 Teams first started to experiment with vortices from the wing tips, creating some fancy bends in this area. The first time McLaren utilized this? 2013. That's already two years later.
end 2009 teams started applying smooth curves from the wing elements to end plates. The first time McLaren fully applied this? 2013(iic) Remote end-plates is the same thing, McLaren was far later to the party. If we judge past and current trends we can see that the McLaren front wing still follows previous trends(which isn't all that surprising, as the initial front wing was a Red Bull carbon copy).
In my personal opinion(Oh, this isn't fact based) McLaren never seemed to have grasped the aerodynamics after 2008. They either had a silver bullet(F-Duct, Coanda exhaust etc.) or they were late to the party. And in 2015, this still seems to continue on.
