Vodafone McLaren MP4-27 Mercedes

[Owen.C93]

Apparently they're aero testing at in Spain this weekend. We might get a look at the new package earlier than expected at least.

[Coefficient]

Apparently they're aero testing at in Spain this weekend. We might get a look at the new package earlier than expected at least.

Yeah, hope some photos are leaked. I'm going to have a guess at a new gearbox casing, new front and rear wings, modified sidepods/exhaust housing, new floor and modified rear upright winglets.

If they do happen to reveal a new monocoque with a stepped nose (which I am 75% sure they won't) they may well have stuck a DDRS in it too. Why not if you're going to all that trouble.

[aral]

Apparently they're aero testing at in Spain this weekend. We might get a look at the new package earlier than expected at least.

Yeah, hope some photos are leaked. I'm going to have a guess at a new gearbox casing, new front and rear wings, modified sidepods/exhaust housing, new floor and modified rear upright winglets.

If they do happen to reveal a new monocoque with a stepped nose (which I am 75% sure they won't) they may well have stuck a DDRS in it too. Why not if you're going to all that trouble.

A new monocoque would need a crash test, and there has been no word from the centre in Italy, that a monocoque has been tested. As regards a DDRS, as flogged to death before, this is only of benefit in quali and if passing in the DDRS zone. It hasnt done Merc much good, so it appears to be a blind alley.

[ell66]

I think their understanding of the tyres is weak.

With the tyres there is not much you can do setup wise... Pressure, camber, preheating, differntial settings, anti-dive, scrub radius.. blah blah blah.. These things are what Mclaren CAN DO with their genius enigneers, advanced instruments and supercomputers - quite easily in fact.

However.. the other half of the story, the TYRE conditioning by the DRIVER... how you preheat the tyres, the heat treatment, the way you brake, how you accelerate, how you roll on the tyres. This has to be understood first by the drivers WITH the help of the engineers THEN the computer analysis, simulation and optimisation comes after... then that is given back to the driver for him to EXECUTE the "tyre activation and maintainance" process in the race.

It's obvious that the second part has flew over the heads of the Mclaren drivers and the engineers. They are not working in harmony to analyse and solve problems. This the crux of why other team/driver combo's have figured out the tyres and Mclaren have not. Here, lets check out who has mastered the tyres, getting the tyres to work in pretty much all conditions since Bahrain.

1. Lotus - Romain, Kim.
2. Redbull - Marc, Sebastian
3. Ferrari - Alonso, Massa (oh yes he has, and damn good at it too!)
4. Sauber - Perez, Kobayashi
5. Williams - Pastor "I have mastered the tyres" Maldonado (and I believe him too), and Senna to an extent
6. Mercedes - Excellent race pace by MSC and Rosberg in the later stages of the race.
7. HRT - Excellent race pace.. to bad the car is so slow.. needs downforce.

Guess who has NOT mastered them?

8. Mclaren - Hamilton.... and ... Butoon.
9. Caterham - that one second in hand from the tyres sure would get thim into Q2!
10. Toro Rosso - Hmmm maybe the drivers..
11. Virgin mobile - Poor performance. Poor as hell. They do not understand the tyres. they don't even know how to put them on in a pitstop.

thats quite an amazing assumption as usual from yourself, did your "insider" tell you that the tyre problems were lewis & jensons fault to?

[wesley123]

Nah its because they dont have the raised tub

[CjC]

Apparently they're aero testing at in Spain this weekend. We might get a look at the new package earlier than expected at least.

Yeah, hope some photos are leaked. I'm going to have a guess at a new gearbox casing, new front and rear wings, modified sidepods/exhaust housing, new floor and modified rear upright winglets.

If they do happen to reveal a new monocoque with a stepped nose (which I am 75% sure they won't) they may well have stuck a DDRS in it too. Why not if you're going to all that trouble.

Well for starters I hope your right! If we see a new gearbox casing, new front and rear wings, modified sidepods/exhaust housing, new floor and modified rear upright winglets I will be extremely suited! But I think its wishful thinking, the list you stated seems to me to be a bit bigger than the 'decent' upgrade Whitmarsh is quoted as saying...

[Nando]

He did say we are looking into it with this car.. Who knows,

You haven´t noticed the raised nosecone?

No I havent noticed it, when did they put a high nose on!?

Considering I'm quoting Lewis Hamilton right after the British GP I think he and certainly I am talking about a raised chassis height, which is too big of a challenge mid-season. I do agree that changing the chassis now will be a mistake because as you say if they brought a new high chassis it will be a balled up compromise.

I'm just glad they are developing the rear and not wasting effort on the front. Leave that for next year, but then again they might be changing the rules for the nose/chassis height....

Considering I'm quoting Lewis Hamilton right after the British GP I think he and certainly I am talking about a raised chassis height, which is too big of a challenge mid-season.

Clearly you have forgotten what you write even though it´s two posts above your respond.

seems Hamilton has written the idea of a stepped nose off for this season, or has he? He did say we are looking into it with this car.. Who knows

Where can i find the word raised chassis in here?

I can see the word stepped nose which would lead me to believe both you and Hamilton are indeed talking about the raised nose first and foremost then of course the raised chassis is a given if you decide to build a car with that philosophy.

So again... when you say "who knows" i say we all know because of the raised nose and the test-plates they ran in practice.

[marcush.]

I think Mclarens form is indicative of the state and real value of simulation.
It all works well for a certain time but at some point you leave the boundaries in which your model shows meaningful correlation to the real world and whopp you are lost.
The big teams don´t allow themselves to go back to square one seat of the pants gut feeling adaptions they stick to their numbers and wonder why it does not corre´late anymore...We have seen this with all teams in recent years .
A good car does not suddenly turn sour ...and other teams did not make big steps as well....funny enough FI with mclaren engineering input seem to be alright performance wise..and on the way up..

[amc]

However.. the other half of the story, the TYRE conditioning by the DRIVER... how you preheat the tyres, the heat treatment, the way you brake, how you accelerate, how you roll on the tyres. This has to be understood first by the drivers WITH the help of the engineers THEN the computer analysis, simulation and optimisation comes after... then that is given back to the driver for him to EXECUTE the "tyre activation and maintainance" process in the race.

You don't think that in their infinite wisdom Mclaren might have worked this out? All of the drivers are good enough to do exactly what the teams tell them to so I am sure no fault lies with the drivers.

I'm also not surprised Virgin mobile can't put the tyres on a car. They run a mobile phone network.

Seriously, McLaren do have a problem with the tyres, but it is not anything to do with communication or understanding. I think it is more likely to be something to do with their stiff suspension and general aero setup. They need to consider things like doing two slow quali 'out-laps' to allow tyres to stabilise in pressure and temperature.

The nose profile of the McLarens has been incredibly constant over the last few years - even from the MP4-23 before the new front wings. This is while Red Bull in particular have had ridiculously high noses. So McLaren have been pursuing a different philosophy to other teams, which has, at times, been successful for them. I think I heard Paddy Lowe say that in an interview at the start of the season.

[CjC]

Nando,

ok
my 'who knows' was just leaving the door open to the thought that the car may feature a raised chassis this season, Hamilton and the team say its a possible development for next season but by writing it off to the media for this year could be a bluff - who knows...

get me?

just so you know I'm all for copying Reb bulls rear bodywork and I'm not that interested in higher/stepped noses/ rasised chassis height development, I have posted my views on these many times

[Nando]

Nando,

ok
my 'who knows' was just leaving the door open to the thought that the car may feature a raised chassis this season, Hamilton and the team say its a possible development for next season but by writing it off to the media for this year could be a bluff - who knows...

get me?

just so you know I'm all for copying Reb bulls rear bodywork and I'm not that interested in higher/stepped noses/ rasised chassis height development, I have posted my views on these many times

Ok now i understand it was written differently hence the reaction.

I thought you doubted Hamilton when he said they are looking into the concept of high nose/high chassis with this years car, which they are with the raised nose and wheel plates for visibility checks.

All clear on my part

[CjC]

Sorted, just a simple misunderstanding

[PlatinumZealot]

However.. the other half of the story, the TYRE conditioning by the DRIVER... how you preheat the tyres, the heat treatment, the way you brake, how you accelerate, how you roll on the tyres. This has to be understood first by the drivers WITH the help of the engineers THEN the computer analysis, simulation and optimisation comes after... then that is given back to the driver for him to EXECUTE the "tyre activation and maintainance" process in the race.

You don't think that in their infinite wisdom Mclaren might have worked this out? All of the drivers are good enough to do exactly what the teams tell them to so I am sure no fault lies with the drivers.

I'm also not surprised Virgin mobile can't put the tyres on a car. They run a mobile phone network.

Seriously, McLaren do have a problem with the tyres, but it is not anything to do with communication or understanding. I think it is more likely to be something to do with their stiff suspension and general aero setup. They need to consider things like doing two slow quali 'out-laps' to allow tyres to stabilise in pressure and temperature.

The nose profile of the McLarens has been incredibly constant over the last few years - even from the MP4-23 before the new front wings. This is while Red Bull in particular have had ridiculously high noses. So McLaren have been pursuing a different philosophy to other teams, which has, at times, been successful for them. I think I heard Paddy Lowe say that in an interview at the start of the season.

You answered you own self above. That is why I posted what I posted. At this stage, it is not a numerical problem for Mclaren they have to go back to the old ways of doing things.. seee
the post below:

I think Mclarens form is indicative of the state and real value of simulation.
It all works well for a certain time but at some point you leave the boundaries in which your model shows meaningful correlation to the real world and whopp you are lost.
The big teams don´t allow themselves to go back to square one seat of the pants gut feeling adaptions they stick to their numbers and wonder why it does not corre´late anymore...We have seen this with all teams in recent years .
A good car does not suddenly turn sour ...and other teams did not make big steps as well....funny enough FI with mclaren engineering input seem to be alright performance wise..and on the way up..

[rssh]

I am newbie so I may be wrong but I have been following this thread since testing has began . Macca designed the car with a low nose from the start and were confident about it and its development . Since the 09 regs many teams had started to experiment the high nose design and there was a more prominent development of the underbody aero package with all cars . The MP4-25 was a relatively high nose design of Macca since the 09 regs but it was a disaster with they tried to fit the blown diffuser .

The Mp4-26 was designed with the octopus exhaust in mind so they had the rear downforce sorted out even with the lower nose height (lower air volume to underbody compared to other teams) The L shaped side pods also helped Macca maximise the then redbull copied exhaust philosophy . Now in MP4-27 the nose is more lowered and without the rear blowing the air volume to the underside is furthur compromised . But with the lowered nose of MP4-27 Macca has the perfect front and rear balance but lesser overall downforce comparatively . Realizing the mistake Macca has made the nose higher thus more air volume is sent to the underbody to compensate for the clarification of the floor after China .

Now with higher nose the rear downforce is almost at the same level with the bent floor (before clarification) ,but now the front end seems to be compromised and there is a loss in downforce to counter this Macca may have stiffened the already stiff front end (for better times in low speed corner) but the rear had to be softened to get better traction . This lead to understeer in entry (due to lower front downforce) and oversteer on exists after the car is unsettled in the mid corner bumps (too stiff front end) hence the overall balance is gone for a toss and so is driver confidence (Button) hence Macca is playing with setup after Spain and even the little updates are useless due to poor driver confidence .

Other think to worry about the Merc engine needs more cooling than others and the engine itself is relatively bigger so less packaging for other components .

Don't get me wrong but from the visual point of view the rear end of Macca looks like a pig i.e. the engine cover is bigger than other front runner team and the higher nose to underbody transition looks awkward (the place were the ice cutter sits).

PS- I may be severly flawed in my analysis but I though why not give is a try

[Coefficient]

Apparently they're aero testing at in Spain this weekend. We might get a look at the new package earlier than expected at least.

Yeah, hope some photos are leaked. I'm going to have a guess at a new gearbox casing, new front and rear wings, modified sidepods/exhaust housing, new floor and modified rear upright winglets.

If they do happen to reveal a new monocoque with a stepped nose (which I am 75% sure they won't) they may well have stuck a DDRS in it too. Why not if you're going to all that trouble.

A new monocoque would need a crash test, and there has been no word from the centre in Italy, that a monocoque has been tested. As regards a DDRS, as flogged to death before, this is only of benefit in quali and if passing in the DDRS zone. It hasnt done Merc much good, so it appears to be a blind alley.

DDRS isn't a blind alley. The problem mercedes has is they have to run more wing to get on terms with the other top teams downforce levels so they lose less drag when the DDRS is deployed. A car with higher downforce levels from the floor/diffuser etc would stand to gain more from DDRS than mercedes currently do.

Also, I'm pretty sure someone claiming to have a source mentioned new Mclaren crash tests a few pages back.