you may have answered your question.

They can't stand the look of the new rear wing.

No sense at all imho. If they want only to test KERS it's not relevant what wing do you use. Morover, with 2009 wing driver could get more running with new regs which is so important with so few testing days. Or maybe that car is that bad that it eats its tires with 2009 rear-wing spec? It just doesn't stick.

Sorry, try harder boys

you may have answered your question. (I don't want to try harder today).

I have to say that I honestly don't know, and unless Mclaren tell us (unlikely) none of us do!

Here's what McLaren said last time (when we saw the 08 rear wing on the 09 car)

"With much to be risked by running in the slippery conditions, the test team conducted a minimal on-track programme today, using a 2008-spec rear wing as a precautionary measure to increase downforce during the runs."

Read what you will into that.

Was that not in Portimao with lots of rain though?

Not really relevant to the sunshine iin Jerez, it may be some sort of comparison, though I think your idea of using it to keep the rears in check for longer stints in order to test KERS has some merit.

But at the end of the day we don't know.

Yeh. Will look at the post-session press release.

What intrigues me is that they have a "2008 wing" that fits on the 2009 car, the mountings are not the same so it appears that its a specially made "2008 wing" they intended using all along. Its not like they discovered they were off the pace and rushed back to Woking to fetch last years wing. Makes you wonder what the reason is for using that wing, more downforce that the current "2009 wing"? in which case it would mean they have a radical wing they are not showing and want to test with those downforce settings. Less drag than the current 2009 wing? in which case again a radical wing that isn't being shown.

This does not make sense.

If the 2008 rear wing has more downforce how can the 2009 rear wing with less downforce be harder on the rear tires?

hmmmm... funny you should mention that. Autosport (print) had Gary Anderson do an analysis of the 24 (launch car spec). He pointed out that the rear wing that was on the launch car (which was to the 09 regs) was not very sophisticated and not mounted very well and he expected work to be done to it.

less downforce=more sliding/spinning=destroyed tyres

Cheers!

Aerodynamics is quite obviously something I know nothing about

I suppose the same, or I'd like to. They don't wanna show their best 09 rear wing (the same might apply for the front), so they're testing an 08 one with similar downforce applied.

Maybe they've developed a new one, which produces a lot of downforce, but don't want to show it to other teams. So they use old one to produce same amount of downforce.

hahaha..... these Mac fans dont accept the truth!
well go on and find excuses!

Am not a McLaren fan but I don't think they are doing it because the car is "crap"

I'm happy to accept the truth once we can confirm what the truth is. If there is some kind of airflow problem then I'm confident they'll get to the bottom of it. It's unclear at the moment.

We're just betting on what might be the truth. We'll see in Melbourne who were betting better.

Use of the flow paint doesnt worry me, but the fact they keep going back to the old rear wing does. It has to point to an issue of some sort.

Agreed. Something's up.

They are back with the 09 wing and using flow viz again - now I am beginning to think something is up

They seem to run the 08 wing to get through the day's scheduled program then try sort the airflow with flow viz

This makes the most sense to me. If their real 09 rear wing was not working they'd be running it to analyse it, surely? Because that would mean what worked in CFD/the windtunnel didn't work on track and they'd be looking at why, with the flow-vis and whatnot.

If they're using a detuned 08 wing then that ought to mean their real 09 wing is pretty good. And the Brazil 08 rear wing was probably from a pretty good design process (even if it didn't allow for rain).

The way we saw Mac guys eyeballing the RB5 at the pit exit shows why teams would want to hang on to their secrets as long as they possibly can.

Damn! Another theory out the window

Unless... where's the flow-vis? They'll need the open 09 rear wing to have the correct airflow over the sidepods and rear.

You might want to re think that line

Does the rear wing alter the air flow forward of it?

But you won't get any proof straight from McLaren. It's obvious. It was the same with BMW in 2008. We knew the car is crap, but never got confirmation until season started. We only based our opinions on small details, but fans weren't wrong because once the season started we were given the confirmation how bad things initially were straight from Mario Theissen and drivers.

It doesn't have to be the same but if McLaren has problem expect to hear explanations from McLaren boys only after Melbourne. But you know: "The Truth is out there". You just need to look for it carefully ;)

Well I would have thought so, the decoupled diffuser and everything, but glad to be informed if someone actually knows

Why? The pressure there, whatever it is, is bound to affect the flow into that area from around the sidepods.

This "hidden" stories are . When was the last time that certain front runner have hidden during testing a radical wing from their competitors?And everybody during first session were like Ive been watching F1 since 94 and really cant remember such thing..

with the leading edges the airflow ahead of the rear is going to be so minute that for all intents and puposes it an be ignored. as for it affecting airflow around the sidepods, i think not.

its definitly going to be interesting to read todays report,
from my point off view there is something going on, how big a problem i dont know. I have never seen them use this much flow vis, they keep changing the rearwing, without any obvious reason, they need to make the cooling holes for the kers device a lot bigger, even though their bodywork is the fattest by far, and at only 15 degrees. In the past when they had problems they always filled their fans with bs, lets hope this wont happen today.
But seems like they are far from happy with the flow strucs off the car and perhaps has cooling problems with kers.
and sorry i dont buy the secret wing,

Well in the area under the high 09 wing there's a lot going on. The flow arrives from around and over the sidepods, the engine exhausts are there, the cooling exhausts there, and the diffuser kicks up right behind it. Sticking a low 08 wing into the middle of that lot is bound to change things. Or even might change things, would be enough.

Not really. At subsonic velocities (which of course these are) you get small (I mean minuscule) upstream effects of any aerodynamic component but nothing anywhere large enough that it would effect the aerodynamics pieces upstream.

Only thing I can think of is that they want to test something further forward (i.e. the front wing) but don't have enough data for the 09 rear wing to use as a constant.

I personally think there is no problem, but that's just me. This is testing, this is what they do. You don't run cars trying to set fastest times. You run them to analyze if your design worked, and fine tune the car accordingly.

That's what I would have thought, but asked the question in case I'm missing something.

OK well you obviously know a lot more than me . Let's hope they tell us a bit more.

I guess going back to 08 wing indicates there is a dissonance between data predicted by computer/windtunnel and the actual data gathered on track, so they mount it on to compare current data with simulations/real testing done with a hybrid car during the autumn-winter of 2008. They want to determine where the problem lies before they develop the car further. Just my guess, of course.

Going back to my original thought - was the '08 wing used for a series of longer runs throughout the day with the '09 reserved for shorter stints?

I'm not sure how who where we know that the fast time was fully '09 compliant, but if it was then it would seem your suggestion makes even more sense. Especially with tyre limits.

So there is a "high-downforce" 09 wing, different from the one they ran briefly today. That's good

So they don't have a 'high downforce spec' rear wing
Are different spec wings still allowed? I'm puzzled now, seems like another excuse.

I remember Todt saying that the F2004 would have an 'even more radical' nose than the FW-26 Walrus before it was finally unveiled...

What does McLaren think the point is of having these test round ups for fans when they only cause for question marks... Yesterday the vague description of the flow-vis now the rearwing. Just be straight forward or either leave stuff out.

that is bs, plain and simple. Just look at the 09 rearwing, just look at the angle on the wing, its almost a wall, there is no high downforce wing, their current one simply doesnt deliver the exspected results and hence they need to revert back to the 08 in order to keep the tires working

Come on. Who had the most advanced wings last season? McLaren.
Who had the most busy development rate with wings last season? McLaren.

I'm confident.

Well, but if they do have some problems, they can't really be straightforward about them at this stage or their sponsors would rip their collective balls off.

McLaren set '09 car pace in Jerez


http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/73226

Could this be another catastrophe year in the making for McLaren, as they have so far been slower than both the Williams and especially the new Red Bull, which at least at the moment seems to have the capability to lap the MP4-24, based on pace. Who knows if the Ferrari and BMW are also faster than the Mac. At least they have been able to run their cars without bolting last year's rear wing on for most of the laps. Perhaps the fat rear end wasn't that brilliant of an idea after all.

Of course McLaren (and every other team) are still testing a rough version of their 2009 car, but at the moment it's a bit funny to see McLaren having to use flow viz every day, when they have a car that looks in comparison to the Red Bull like it came from the stone age in terms of aerodynamical complexity. Then again I'm not an aerodynamicist, so I could be completely wrong, but those are just my observations.