2023 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[mwillems]

As a sub plot to this year I'm looking forward to watching Piastri develop and to see how he can deal with Lando.

I'm excited to see if he has a couple of stellar performances up his sleeve this year.

[organic]

As a sub plot to this year I'm looking forward to watching Piastri develop and to see how he can deal with Lando.

I'm excited to see if he has a couple of stellar performances up his sleeve this year.

Im expecting him to be very quick in qualifying and not mistake-prone but suffer a bit in the first laps and perhaps lack aggression/assertiveness that can be handy in the midfield.

He will be good and already seems confident and assured. Doesn't seem like a rookie to me really

[djos]

Red Bull is a bad example as they are the fastest team so they have the privilege to get a few things wrong.

They are the *best* example. They didn't get there by adding extra weight to every part 'just in case' so they never have any issues. They pare everything down to the last 0.1% as they showed last year.
Your performance delta from a winning car to the back of the grid is only 2-3%, you don't leave anything on the table just to keep fans happy at home about you doing twice the milage in testing but at the back of the grid.

You have a problem in testing when you have serious problems you can't fix and can't nail down the source of - we've seen before over the years teams only getting 30 laps in for days in a row. That's not the case here. It's a bit of cracked carbon. It's an easy fix. The time is what it is, you can't really change how fast the repair takes when it comes to resin, no matter whether you're Red Bull or Mclaren or Williams.

Please stop lecturing the ignorant, it’s clear they’d rather indulge in their tabloid fantasies than reality.

[MrGapes]

I like to think whatever developments coming in Baku has to be a massive delta difference. They've been bullish about this development even before the car launched.

[PhillipM]

No it's more just things they've seen already on cars they were hoping were behind them that are basically easy bits of laptime without much downside, that's why they're kicking themselves a bit. It's not magic massive differences, it'll maybe just put them clear to the front of the midfield where they wanted to be again.

[AR3-GP]

No it's more just things they've seen already on cars they were hoping were behind them that are basically easy bits of laptime without much downside, that's why they're kicking themselves a bit. It's not magic massive differences, it'll maybe just put them clear to the front of the midfield where they wanted to be again.

Every midfield team has aspirations of "being clear of the midfield"

I'm incredibly skeptical of teams who show up to pre-season with a bad car two years in a row, then claim they have some magical easy upgrade that will throw gobs of laptime on the car, while being remiss to note that the new developments were studies using the same people and tools that led to the poor design in the first place. As far as I'm concerned, teams thinking they have some easy bolt on upgrade (outside of weight reduction), will be fortunate if the upgrade isn't slower than the original car. Everything else is a bonus. This is very hard work. Mclaren do not have a lot of credit in my book after what we have seen with the latest rules package.

They will have to start delivering consistently before people start to trust them when they say they've got a "big upgrade" coming. the MCL60 was supposed to be a "big upgrade".

[swifteddie1]

No it's more just things they've seen already on cars they were hoping were behind them that are basically easy bits of laptime without much downside, that's why they're kicking themselves a bit. It's not magic massive differences, it'll maybe just put them clear to the front of the midfield where they wanted to be again.

As always thanks for your insight. Any idea where the team thinks they are in the pecking order? From your comment above i'm inferring that they believe they are in the upper half of the midfield and if they had gotten these things that will come in Baku then they will be clear of the midfield?

Is there any truth to what has been reported that they stopped development on the MCL60 a couple of months ago and that the Baku update is essentially a change in aerodynamic philosophy and a B version of the MCL60?

[gcdugas]

They should try making the beam wing almost flat like an open DRS. It will speed the air out of the diffuser and not feed air to the low pressure zone under the rear wing.

That wing creates more of low pressure / high pressure differential at the diffuser exit, sucking more air from the diffuser. The whole principle is to get as much air as possible round to the area above the diffuser to have a higher pressure forcing the lower pressure underneath it (Diffuser exit) to try to equalize, which by doing so will mean it will try to take some air pressure from under the car, which creates suction and downforce.

Yours is the "orthodox" view and it makes sense but who would have thought that by flooding the diffuser with exhaust, and thus technically "defeating" the low pressure zone, that you would increase downforce? It turns out that by making the flow faster under the diffuser, it increased the suction. I'm arguing the same thing. By having the air flow faster horizontally over the diffuser that it will actually "pull" air out of the diffuser and increasing its effectiveness and suction. Plus you will not be feeding air into the negative pressure zone beneath the rear wing and increasing its effectiveness... all the while decreasing drag on the straights. I am asserting that it is counter-intuitive just as the blown diffuser was.

[diffuser]

No it's more just things they've seen already on cars they were hoping were behind them that are basically easy bits of laptime without much downside, that's why they're kicking themselves a bit. It's not magic massive differences, it'll maybe just put them clear to the front of the midfield where they wanted to be again.

As always thanks for your insight. Any idea where the team thinks they are in the pecking order? From your comment above i'm inferring that they believe they are in the upper half of the midfield and if they had gotten these things that will come in Baku then they will be clear of the midfield?

Is there any truth to what has been reported that they stopped development on the MCL60 a couple of months ago and that the Baku update is essentially a change in aerodynamic philosophy and a B version of the MCL60?

What's his face said the goal is still top 4, for the year, but he doesn't think they're top 5 ATM.

[SmallSoldier]

No it's more just things they've seen already on cars they were hoping were behind them that are basically easy bits of laptime without much downside, that's why they're kicking themselves a bit. It's not magic massive differences, it'll maybe just put them clear to the front of the midfield where they wanted to be again.

As always thanks for your insight. Any idea where the team thinks they are in the pecking order? From your comment above i'm inferring that they believe they are in the upper half of the midfield and if they had gotten these things that will come in Baku then they will be clear of the midfield?

Is there any truth to what has been reported that they stopped development on the MCL60 a couple of months ago and that the Baku update is essentially a change in aerodynamic philosophy and a B version of the MCL60?

I don’t think there is a B Version of the MCL60, found the quote from Stella:

McLaren has not adjusted its goals despite the unsuccessful start: "We want to finish fourth. It's a long season." The first major package is targeted for Baku. It doesn't necessarily have to be a B version. "A few smaller areas have a pretty big impact on lap times. If we change those, it doesn't necessarily mean we'll have a fundamentally different car."

What has happened is that for example, they were working on a front wing for the current package and they discovered late the loophole that allows you to have small flaps to connect the elements of the front wing to the end plates and the potential to add a few winglets in that location (what we are seeing from Mercedes for example), therefore they stop the work on the wing they were working on to start design, CFD, wind tunnel and ultimately manufacturing of the new wing (those flaps + winglet greatly helps create vortexes that help manage front tire wake).

Since the front wing dictates a lot of your downstream aero, the new wing will have an effect on what you need to do in the floor, which also implies changes to the floor edge for example… Since they found this late and there are several parts that probably need to be introduced simultaneously for them to work as intended, they won’t have all of them ready until Baku… In addition, since there is a month gap between Race 3 and Race 4 it makes sense to push development / analysis of the new path as much as possible (also considering the cost cap), they could have had an interim wing / floor to use, but it doesn’t make sense to manufacture them and introduce them for only 3 races if you know you can have better parts early into the season.

[kc_f1]

Mclaren is now just a mediocre team which is comfortable in its mediocrity. Feel really sad, been a Mclaren fan for nearly 2 decades. Since 2012 have been hoping for a car worthy of fighting for podiums. Don't think it is going to happen in the current regulation specs, or even beyond 2026. They just dont seem to have the hunger or the killer instinct to produce a gold-standard car. If you're aiming to be 4th, then that's what you deserve.

Lando will probably jump to Merc once Lewis retires, which i think he should. He deserves it.

[mwillems]

They should try making the beam wing almost flat like an open DRS. It will speed the air out of the diffuser and not feed air to the low pressure zone under the rear wing.

That wing creates more of low pressure / high pressure differential at the diffuser exit, sucking more air from the diffuser. The whole principle is to get as much air as possible round to the area above the diffuser to have a higher pressure forcing the lower pressure underneath it (Diffuser exit) to try to equalize, which by doing so will mean it will try to take some air pressure from under the car, which creates suction and downforce.

Yours is the "orthodox" view and it makes sense but who would have thought that by flooding the diffuser with exhaust, and thus technically "defeating" the low pressure zone, that you would increase downforce? It turns out that by making the flow faster under the diffuser, it increased the suction. I'm arguing the same thing. By having the air flow faster horizontally over the diffuser that it will actually "pull" air out of the diffuser and increasing its effectiveness and suction. Plus you will not be feeding air into the negative pressure zone beneath the rear wing and increasing its effectiveness... all the while decreasing drag on the straights. I am asserting that it is counter-intuitive just as the blown diffuser was.

Due to its properties and behaviour the Hot air created a low pressure zone in the same principal but many times more efficient.

The speed at which the exhaust gasses came out also dragged more air out from under the car as it sought to take more air from the diffuser to equalise the air pressure from the low pressure zone which was also highly energised.

They would be aware if your solution would work, so I think this one misses the mark.


I just fact checked myself on t'internet and I seem correct but missed that it also helped manage the rear tyre wake also.

[JordanMugen]

Mclaren do not have a lot of credit in my book after what we have seen with the latest rules package.

Yet they had a solid 5th fastest car in the 2022 season?

Seems rather good, really!

[JordanMugen]

They should try making the beam wing almost flat

By having the air flow faster horizontally over the diffuser that it will actually "pull" air out of the diffuser and increasing its effectiveness and suction.

More flap angle makes the air flow faster, not less flap angle. That's how a wing works after all, the air travels further on the suction side because of the camber and therefore goes faster on the suction side!

The whole point of having a slotted wing, like the beam acting as a flap on the diffuser, is that it can increase the angle of attack that can be tolerated before the system stalls.

[CjC]

No it's more just things they've seen already on cars they were hoping were behind them that are basically easy bits of laptime without much downside, that's why they're kicking themselves a bit. It's not magic massive differences, it'll maybe just put them clear to the front of the midfield where they wanted to be again.

Sorry just trying to understand this.
Are you referring to the Baku upgrade?
So they’ve seen parts on other cars who they thought were going to be slower than Mclaren so they’ve decided to ‘copy’ (not the best word) and integrate said part onto the car in time for Baku?