F1 - McLaren's radical new front wing

Being trialed at the moment and aparently an improvement...

The introduction this year by most teams of a connector from the nose to the end of each wing has been developed even further by McLaren. Their new idea joins the wing-tips, spanning the whole width without touching the car's nose.


RW

Looks interesting.

Looks like it would reduce flex of the front wing.

I'd be keen to see if they race with it around Catalunya, a track where the car is so important.

There is no flex of the front wing, well none that matters. I think they're allowed only 5mm under 500 newtons of downward force which means they're insanely stiff. The upper elements seem to be designed to steady the airflow before it hits the front suspension area. If you look at McLaren's upper wishbone also, they're a totally new design with a bend in them.

All of the teams are running upper elements like that tho, it's nothing new... except that everyone else's join to the nose-cone of the car instead of bridging the entire span... Toyota's new idea which is sort of half-way between is so ugly it's hillarious...


RW

just goes to show, the amount of time and energy they put into reducing minute amounts of drag from the wing, must mean they cant squeeze any more power out of their motors.

They're not really reducing drag, more readying the airflow for the suspension struts.

As for engine power... we'll they can't get any more power because there has been an engine design freeze since last year. You have to use the exact design (submitted and audited) from now on.

In any case, finding aero advantage was far better than trying to find more engine power as the engine is fighting the aero of the car... A 1/10th of a second lap-time improvement from engine power would require 15 to 25 horsepower.. but to gain the same from aero you could just tweak something tiny. I.e. the possibilities are almost endless.

RW

Very true, now that I look at it I can see that a lot of the new top wings do follow the suspension line.

Rob, have you read the article in this months F1racing about the new Ferrari, quite a big change in design philosophy for them this year.

And it's still fast.

Damn it.

Longer wheel-base.... interesting move for them.. and zero keel also which Ferrari traditionally haven't done that well.

F1 Racing is good, but it gets here a month after all the news has been on the various F1 sites already.

RW

That is true but the articles are what I enjoy, the bits that are too detailed and indepth for your regular F1 "news" website.

The delay is strange, we get the Aussie one, my mate just moved back here from Sydney, he had bought and read the Oz F1racing 3 weeks before it came out over here. I can't see why there is that much of a delay between Oz and NZ.

We didn't used to have the delay in delivery... not sure what's happened. Anyway, if you look, there are plenty of good places to read technical articles and up-to-date commentary on car design mids online.

RW

probably cos they only sell 12 copies nationwide.

LOL... not so sure about that. Foodtown and Woolworths have them pretty much everywhere so they must sell a few. Supermarkets drop mags quickly if they don't sell enough.

RW

Yup I can usually find it at Bp on the way home by suprise,

Or pop down to pick it up from Mike down at Mag Nation or whatever they are called on Queen Street.

Where are all the other F1 freaks on here?

I'm sure you and I are not the only night owls every second Sunday Rob?

I'm an F1 Freak!!!!!!!!!

It seems they are developing elements to deflect wind onto elements which already deflect wind!!

Looking at the testing pics of the Mclaren for the Monaco Grand Prix, it looks like they only have one "horn" on the Mclaren. Interesting.

Also what are everyones views on the Massa/Alonso incident at turn one of Catalunya.

I can't see how Alonso feels he was in the right there to be honest.

Interesting also the relationship between Nando and Lewis, Lewis and Massa were very chatty and congratulory at the end of the race, and Alonso looked like he had just dropped his ice cream on the floor.

who is number one in that team?

No. 1 in McLaren is Alonso. Ferrari, it's supposed to be Raikkonen, But Massa is out performing him IMO. Melbourne (rub it in and say I was there!!) was unlucky for him.

I'm gonna hunt for the pics of the Maccas. Sounds interesting!

My view of Massa/Alonso... Racing accident. I've watched it over and over. I think Alonso put a very aggressive move on Massa, nothing wrong with that but Massa held his own well. I praise Alonso going for it, although he nearly took out Raikkonen and Hamilton coming back onto the track!! The trouble with F1 that basically once you hit the front you can stay there. Modern aerodynamics makes drafting really hard and if you want to win, it's at the start IMO. Thats how F1 is nowadays. The points system should change too. I was never for it in the first place!

Anyway, those are my opinions!!

There is no number 1 at McLaren.



Alonso was half a car ahead of Massa - the general concensus is Massa should have given way... although we know he knew that Alonso had a lot more to lose if they went off and so left it to him to pike out.



There isn't really any drafting in F1. People do try to get a tow on the straights to line someone up but not drafting as in other series where you do it to save fuel. In F1 anything more than a few seconds close behind another car starts to affect your engine performance as it'll start to overheat from the warmer air it's sucking in.

The points system is fine-ish. It rewards the drivers who are most consistent over the season, not the ones who win a couple of races and crash/fail at the others. Alonso and Schumacher have consistently been the best drivers over the whole season for the past four-five years and they were rewarded with world championships fairly because of it. McLaren still won plenty of races and were clearly fastest in the 2002-2005 seasons but were not good enough over the whole season.

It's the whole season that should count. (and def not points from fastest laps, qualifying etc as it does IRL, NASCAR etc)

RW

That’s not what they "say". But a rookie as opposed to a World Champion?



In Saying that you can't just fly into a corner and as long as your car is halfway past you automatically assume the right of way. Care and skill has to be exercised. These are arguably the world’s best drivers.



I mean it’s hard to stay in contact with another car, due them being designed to throw dodgy air. I'm talking about the lack of traditional out braking manoeuvres at the end of straights. It’s rare during the GP. Most position changes are now through error or retirements.

I would like to see the winner rewarded by getting more points. Consolidating a place is boring, sensible given the rules though.

And NO fastest lap points or bonus's!! Eewwwww!!

The cars aren't designed to throw bar-air into following cars at all... they would hurt anyone as much as they did others i.e. Pointless. Not to mention that trying to do that would create more drag on your own car.

The cars do it because they have (previously) followed a path of development which adds more and more horsepower year to year but you use it wisely by adding more downforce. So top speeds generally haven't improved but overall lap times have as they can brake later for corners. As this design path started to get dangerously close to the limits the FIA said, enough!, we're going to add grooves to the tires to reduce grip and therefore roll the cornering speed back a bit. The next year they added another groove to slow them even more.

With two suppliers tire technology improved at a massive rate to F1 cars were forced to reduce speed another way: by engine size - first from 3.5L (any cylinder config), to 3L (V10 only) and then last year to 2.4L (V8 only).

A way proposed to improve overtaking chance is to remove driver aids (i.e. traction control) which is happening next year. It'll mean that, out of slow corners especially, driver skill will be more important than it is currently.. (although diff settings will still be able to aid a lot of that).

Outbraking people will always be only one way to pass - being able to follow closely out of the last corner before long straights is another one..

RW

They are bringing back fully slicked tyres in the future too. And taking away driver aids is good. Yet they probably would have taken longer to be developed for road cars had F1 had not pioneered it.

They wont unless they can change the tire compounds... but then no tire company will want to be involved in F1 - as Michelin decided after last year.

Slicks increase the chance (and penalty) of high-speed crashes due to higher speeds in fast corners and at the end of straights.

Reducing downforce or egine size is the only way to slow the cars safely... Engines wont happen though because the technology developments which stem from F1 ideas (pre-Engine homologation that started late last year) flows onto consumer cars. Once they get too small in size the major companies will lose the developmental relevance from their F1 teams and start looking elsewhere.

I'd say we're going to see front wings move higher from the ground and/or get narrower, likewise for the width and/or number of planes on the rear wing. That would slow cars down safely and improve overtaking ability too. A win-win situation.

RW

Well they are thinking of bringing turbo charges back for 2010 and making Kinetic Energy Recovery System's compulsory too. Both involve increased speed, so I wouldn't count removing grooves on tyres out.

There are heaos of ways to "slow" the cars down, but then they talk of these things. I find it strange!

What's faster? A Turboed car with grooved tyres or a non-turbo with groovless tyres as the only factors? Not the latter!

They will not bring back turbos and I haven't read anything which suggests they will outside of F1 message-board bollocks. F1 makes most of it's technical decisions based not only on what suits F1 but also what is relevant to the manufacturers participating in F1 (such as fuel economy and torque curves). Turbo technology is basically irrelevant in modern 'general' motoring so I just don't see it happening. Likewise, adding turbo's to he mix allows for another whole grey area which would be hard to police - something F1 are moving away from.

Re: what's faster?... Who the hell knows? You can't compare things which have so many unknown variables. You can't make a racing engine and then just add a turbo onto it like you can consumer car. The air-intake geometry, compression/stroke settings, exhaust length and more would have to be completely redesigned (unlike a consumer car generally)

The grooved tires thing is being considered in conjunction with other things - not aside from them. With slicks coming back they would surely be accompanied by a reduction in wing area and an increase in front-wing height. This would allow grip levels to rise, but be offset somewhat by less downforce = all equaling more overtaking opportunities. (Not to mention that today's grooved tired still have considerably more grip than the slicks which were last used in the last 90s in F1)

Basically, if it isn't either improving safety, or relevant for consumer car development it wont be in F1.

RW

You can't just bolt a turbo onto a production car either. The whole engine has to be strengthened.

I was saying, is a turbo faster or grooved tyres... Which they have TALKED about, not said they ARE bringing back. Same with the grooves.



I never said they would bring turbos back. I have just read Max who has said they are considering it.

I didn't comment on the return energy systems. I think the idea is great, but when it happens that some teams absolutely dominate others with some amazing idea then they'll see it isn't the best idea for creating a good F1 spectacle.

Max Mosely has said hundreds of suggestive things like the turbo comment - mostly none of it happens. He is in his last legs at F1 anyway so anything he said which relates to beyond 2008 should be taken as publicity and comment PR whoring.

RW

Well I like F1 for the technology and developments made by teams. That’s as interesting to me as the racing is. It's like the Americas Cup.