Mclaren Mercedes MP4-25

[ringo]

For all we know the hole under the air intake could feed the diffuser.
That swollen area over the crash structure looks suspicious.
The rectangular sidepods are innovative. A rectangle has a bigger surface are for the same diameter of any circular shape. Mclaren are Maximizing the frontal area and packaging.

What also weird is that they brought back the vertical plates on the sidepods from last years car, and the mirrors look quite simple. At least not like the outboard mirrors on the ferrari.

What i am nervous about, is all the changes. The car could still be slower than the rest.

[ringo]

Look inside the airbox, two channels.

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/u ... 4_25_2.jpg

Dead zone located, I was suspecting all this time the inside of the bodywork could be used aerodynamically, however i did not want to spoil it for everybody. After the whole Goony thing from the start of the thread we all avoided the whole deadzone thing. Being a Mclaren fan too, i don't want other teams using Mclaren's innovations

That opening under the air intake, may well be linked to the shark fin round back, Similar to the 2008 Ferrari nose.

Entering in the air box and exiting here???

Pics of the rear:



The air box splitte exits here???

It's likely, but the air flow has to be controled in a way that it does not have an upward reaction force on the engine cover, causing it to lift.
However if it's like a diffuser in itself, expanding under there, then it could exit a top the diffuser at the back.
Other than that whole idea it could just be for added cooling.

[bonjon1979]

They have already said that there is a duct through the shark fin to cool components that they've been able to package at the upper centre of the car.

From the MP4-25 press pack.

The dorsal fin that attaches the top body to the rear wing is very striking – what does it do?

Tim Goss: “The principal knock-on effect of the larger fuel tank was the repositioning of some of the car’s internals. One of the outcomes of that was a decision to move some of the car’s cooling to sit centrally at the rear of the car.

“The dorsal fin is partly to accommodate the additional cooling duct and partly a logical development of the high-downforce wing we ran last year at races like Monaco, which feeds air more efficiently to the rear wing upper element. They’re both quite simple solutions, but they’re actually very neat.”

However, it seems strange that they're offering up this information, unless it's to throw the other teams off the scent.

[gibells]

So the marriage between Mobil and McLaren is still on then. I'd be interested to see if there was any performance differences between a Merc with Petronas oil to a Merc with Mobil oil.

And I'm sure Mobil wouldn't be too happy with Merc giving Petronas a sample of Mobil 1 to test.

[Richard]

it could just be for added cooling.

+1

As note dabove, they moved some cooling from the side pod to under the engine cover, so that could be the exit for cooling air. That engine cover/fin shouts "duct" to me. I half expected to see a vent in the rear of the wing from the fin!

I'm not sure how to describe what I'm seeing ....If you look at the shot below, from the exhaust outlet to the rear looks like a proper coke bottle, not a squashed one. The rear light sits at the bottle cap. Compare that to past cars where the body work would dive down. On the RB5, the crash light sat up in the air flow on its own.

I wonder if there is a monster DDD going on there that causes the bodywork to stay high?

They have pulled the bodywork sides in very neatly.

[bonjon1979]

You're right. There's definitely something going on back there underneath all that.

[SoftBatch]

Could they be using the sidepod exhaust to feed the diffusers somehow?

[xpensive]

It's the dead zone for crying out loud!

"Where the Bernoulli laws don't apply anymore"!

[ringo]

It's like the chassis and engine was shrink wrapped to give that coke bottle look.

The exhaust pipes will definitely drive the diffuser, they are so low and focused right where Mp4 24 had those 2 big DDD tunnel exists!

The engine cooling solution must be genius, The exit for the radiator exhaust is nowhere to be seen, so i think it might be over the diffuser as well. Hover the exhaust air is of a lower velocity than the free stream. If it is that the rejected heat re-energizes the air and there are nozzles under the bodywork, then i suppose it could be good enough quality to assist the diffuser.

Another observation: the side pods are nicely undercut, with strange dog ears on the floor corners ahead of it. Wonder if the dog ears on the floor will pass inspection?

More flat surface area for the floor near the rear wheels, instead of bodywork limiting it. The bodywork is not so good a keeping the air pressure at ambient, usually the upper surface of the bodywork creates lift so virtually having no bodywork at the end there will allow the higher ambient pressure to sit over the floor.


This definitely looks like a winner, and a difficult one to imitate at that.

[myurr]

You're right. There's definitely something going on back there underneath all that.

Enhanced as best I could from that source image:

[ringo]

The dog ears:
Last years car was a dog, but hey..



Is this bending the floor rules a little bit?

[ISLAMATRON]

The MP4-25 follows more of Brawns lead than the expected Red Bull philosophy. Following brawns lead last year with a relatively low nose, even placing their steering rack down inline with the lower wishbones. but then taking a cue from the Williams by having a snow plough under the nose. Although Brawn did have their own take on this device mounted above their splitter. Surprisingly there’s no Newey “V” nose.
The front wing was based on the one seen in testing late last year, with some added fences between the mandatory neutral central section and the four element ‘downforce’ producing outer portions.
The sidepods follow McLaren’s recent practice with inlets mounted high above a deep undercut, this year the inlets are rectangular section. The sidepods then drop sharply exposing the vast curvaceous fuel tank.
McLaren has shrunken the sidepods by raising the exhaust system into its own bulge and exiting high above the gearbox, this area probably also vents some of the hot radiator air, allowing the rear portion of the coke bottle shape to be extra thin. A shark fin has been added so a little Red Bull influence does exist.

I too am shocked they didnt go with the V-nose design, what may be any disadvantages to it?

Moving more of the cooling requirements centrally(through the airbox) away from the sidepods are a smart solution to make both the sidepods and their openings smaller as opposed to the huge ones on the F10.

The splitter under the nose(and incorperating the camara mounts into it) looks very effective.

With 15kg of extra ballast and the removal of KERS it is easy to see how they may have lowered the CG even while raising the exhaust headers.

I would have expected the drivers to be moved even further forward than they are, but it seems McL did not pay so much attention to shortening the wheelbase.

The new front tires look almost unchanged.

Even with the Super DDD's I'm still surprised that nobody has gone rear pullrod, although since getting more air to the more DF/drag efficient DDD, is more a priority than the less so effiecient rear bridgewing. They may easily be producing more than enough rear DF especially with the smaller front tires... dont want too much understeer.

[Longley]

plenty of room for a diffusor

[Richard]

Actually, looking at the pic above this post ^^, you can see the "Bridgestone" writing on the bridge wing. The bodywork stop abruptly at the end of the silver bit? Then a fin to support the wing. So that's a big open vent from the engine cover?

The bit above the rear light that we thought was a vent seems to have nothing leading into it?

[timbo]

Actually, looking at the pic again, you can see the "Bridgestone" writing on the bridge wing. Does the bodywork stop abruptly at the end of the silver bit? A big open vent? I'd initially assumed it was painted black.

It is clearly vent in RedBull's fashion.