British Grand Prix 2011, Silverstone Circuit - Race 9/19

weyland yutani · 12 Jul 2011 at 16:07

Not helping them one bit though is it

, considering they had the worst ever start to a season.

Kerming · 12 Jul 2011 at 16:14

utajoker said:
dont williams have the best back end out there? isnt their whole design this year on making the back end as small as possible to maximise the rear wing?

I think the hole is for cooling, but also as a hot blown defuser, but not useing the engine but the heat from the engine and the gearbox.
what do you think about this thought?

sunama · 12 Jul 2011 at 16:15

utajoker said:
dont williams have the best back end out there?

That's exactly what I was thinking.

Kerming · 12 Jul 2011 at 17:06

im not going to measure it but i think roughly there is about half as much air going to that rear end compared to the redbull, and about 1/3rd of the air compared to the ferrari.

you could argue that the angle of the image is diffrent but after looking at the image's my dad took at the weekend and seeing the cars my self im amazed that the mclaren crew and the others havn't twigged that the idea is to get as much air as you can over the car to that rear end as smoothly as possible. just look at the edge of the floor on the redbull there is no lips or bumps all straight and curving round tite.

Skeeter · 12 Jul 2011 at 17:09

McLaren get more air over the top of the sidepod though, due to the L shape.

Kerming · 12 Jul 2011 at 17:26

Skeeter said:
McLaren get more air over the top of the sidepod though, due to the L shape.

but it disturbs the airflow, if they got rid of them and just made the sidepod lower like the redbull the amount of air going over the top to the rear would be less disturbed there for better efficiency and more downforce. but i remember from that weekend the mclaren was a lot faster down the straights...........it could be due to the lack of downforce maybe lol.

may i add that the mclaren at the front is all titely compacked which is the oposite to redbull's car which is all wide and open letting as much air threw over and under the car, i think this is why they can run such high rake angle so they can get as much air over the top of the car and have the wing closer to the ground creating downforce under the front wing.

JonnyGLC · 12 Jul 2011 at 17:37

Kerming said:
but it disturbs the airflow, if they got rid of them and just made the sidepod lower like the redbull the amount of air going over the top to the rear would be less disturbed there for better efficiency and more downforce. but i remember from that weekend the mclaren was a lot faster down the straights...........it could be due to the lack of downforce maybe lol.

may i add that the mclaren at the front is all titely compacked which is the oposite to redbull's car which is all wide and open letting as much air threw over and under the car, i think this is why they can run such high rake angle so they can get as much air over the top of the car and have the wing closer to the ground creating downforce under the front wing.

Seriously, just go over to f1 technical and spend some time reading the relevant threads on there. It's common knowledge about the rear end airflow.

The main flaw with the McLaren is the fact that the U shape sidepods would be superb and are superb at providing clean airflow for the beam wing. Unfortunately McLaren didn't have a crystal ball to see that infact the diffuser would yet again be developed in such a way in that it's once again the main focus of development.

And again you mention RBR's front end... It's not relevant because of their U shape sidepods. They have designed a front end which throws much more air OVER the car rather than around and under. If they shoved RBR's front end on their car it'd be even more dog turd.

Duke · 12 Jul 2011 at 18:13

I'm pretty sure Mclaren know what they are doing, they don't exactly have a slow car. They went a different way with the sidepods, maybe it will change later in the season?

Williams have the smallest gearbox on the grid.

TaKeN · 12 Jul 2011 at 18:53

If only things were that simple Kerming

NathanE · 12 Jul 2011 at 19:37

A random name said:
Unfortunately McLaren didn't have a crystal ball to see that infact the diffuser would yet again be developed in such a way in that it's once again the main focus of development.

I think they did... why else would they have been developing the "Octopus" exhaust system in the pre-season? All the teams knew that EBD was going to be critically important this year, as it was last year.

Glaucus · 12 Jul 2011 at 19:40

They just seem to be comparatively rubbish at building a new car.

All most like they are blinded by one or two designs and forget or so blinkered they don't see others. Spider exhaust and L-pods but drop the ball on everything else.

arknor · 12 Jul 2011 at 19:49

Skeeter said:
They do have KERS? It just doesn't work very well

its half the power of regular kets to keep the battery size small?

Skeeter · 12 Jul 2011 at 20:19

NathanE said:
I think they did... why else would they have been developing the "Octopus" exhaust system in the pre-season? All the teams knew that EBD was going to be critically important this year, as it was last year.

Because advantage is gained by doing things different to other teams. If you just follow everyone elses designs designs you will always be behind them. You have to come up with your own ideas. Sometimes these work, sometimes they don't.

Kerming · 12 Jul 2011 at 20:27

Skeeter said:
Because advantage is gained by doing things different to other teams. If you just follow everyone elses designs designs you will always be behind them. You have to come up with your own ideas. Sometimes these work, sometimes they don't.

some times you just have to go with the flow so to speek.

TheGamingGeneral · 12 Jul 2011 at 21:06

Skeeter said:
I just remembered something. Anyone else notice that the Red Bulls seemed to gain little to no advantage from DRS compared to other cars?

See I dont understand this. Can someone point out where I am going wrong here:

RBR Highest downforce (probably) = mega grip in high speed corners/low top speed.

Merc low downforce = mega high speed/less grip.

OK. So, if the RBR has the highest downforce, and that downforce is killing the top speed, surely they have more to loose (downforce) therefor the DRS should allow the RBR to basically shrug off its downforce disadvantage down the straight (atleast in practise/quali). Thus high top speed.

Can only assume that because the other cars are starting with less downforce, they are starting with a top speed advantage out of the gates anyway so all things being equal with regards to DRS gain (rougly anyway), I suppose that must be where they lost out. (i.e RBR starts at 200MPH + 10MPH DRS = 210, merc, 210 MPH + 10MPH DRS = 220 MPH)

Does anyone get what I am saying ? :confused:

Glaucus · 12 Jul 2011 at 21:12

I think that's eaxactly what RBR is doing in qauli, mega high downforce and use DRS sometimes even mid corner in qauli and that's why they are so far ahead.
It also explains why they lose so much time in race pace, as they can't use DRS. But then they also don't need DRS as they out in front.

It's not that they don't gain speed by using DRS, it's just that other cars are faster anyway, so they only make up the speed difference and maybe a tad more.

NathanE · 12 Jul 2011 at 21:14

A greater % of RBR downforce come from the diffuser / EBD. McLaren particularly were quite proud of their U-shape sidepods in the pre-season and suggested they were designed to feed good air to the rear wing for downforce production. This could be why the RBR sheds less speed from DRS.

Skeeter · 12 Jul 2011 at 21:17

DRS doesn't shed all of your downforce, it sheds a small amount on the rear wing. Its about 10-15mph. If the RBR is already 10mph slower in a straight line than their rivals then the advantage from opening DRS will just make them as fast as their rivals, not faster.

Kevin Clark · 12 Jul 2011 at 21:29

Dunno if this was posted

Slam62 · 12 Jul 2011 at 21:52

you can see why he's popular.