What's sad is that if and when McLaren ARE on the pace come Melbourne, the same people who are bashing the 2 seconds a lap rear wing fundamentally flawed piece of trash will come up with other excuses as to why they are on the pace, as if it has absolutely nothing to do with the car/driver, etc.

Ah, must have misread a post somewhere about the tires, my mistake.

As to the hard on tires thing - the only thing I've read in relation to tires with McLaren is that they're too easy on them - hence for the need for a new rear wing. That was also complete speculation, however. So we're pretty much clueless.

Same as always during testing then.

Come Melbourne, issues like this rear wing thing or the Renault's Portugal test could be distant memories and most likely will. But it's hard to stay quiet about these things, when you are eager for the season to start and this is all we have to talk about (that's interesting).

"Wait and see until Melbourne".. but then what do we talk about? Driver bashings and fanboy arguements.. Lewis vs Alonso arguements.. Kimi vs Massa arguements.. How Max is out of control and Bernie is greedy and insane.. how fun. I'd rather talk about the cars, even if in the end it means nothing.

Agree, but it's hard to comment on who used what and when. I saw pics of Williams for example using both. Didn't see pics of the others. You would assume all teams used both. Would explain some of the stint times too, some would be improving as the car got lighter and some were the opposite.

We can talk about McDonald being a sponsor for Renault

Man, there were a full bunch of journalists there telling you in which stints they were using what, even how many soft sets have been used by whom at what time of the day

providing the information shouldn't be a problem for you then should it? and did these journos have scales to weigh the cars too? cos according to yourself the mclaren had 50kg's of fuel onboard.

info is widely spread in this foruns. you must understand that f1 isn't a english exclusive info. it's a international sport.
and spanish press did a good job this week.
(and you should also try to understand irony)

of course i understand its an international sport. But you also have to understand that Spanish press seem to tell a few 'whoppers' when their 'hero' is involved.

there's not such a thing as spanish press. there are a number of spanish newspapers and sites. and they coverage quality differs a lot.

you should google it more if you want some good quality reports sometimes.

You'd be surprised. There is such thing as Spanish press, just like the British press. Both biased in their own right, but I think its fair to say, if it involves Alonso, its more than likely favorable from his point of view. So if articles from Spain comment on such things like Hamilton trying 'at all costs' to be quicker than Fernando in Jerez, then i take none of it seriously. Nor any big news reguarding Alonso seriously. Just like the amount of articles Spanish newspapers wrote last year saying Fernando will be driving at Ferrari this year.

if you really believe in that keep reading what you read this days then.

Exactly , "BUT" it can also go the exact opposite!
these same guys would come up with excuses why they are slow, etc. !

P.S : i am not here to bash , but here to tell anything can happen

terrible drivers??
let me guess , Lewis Fan!??

Folks, if you read my posts carefully, it's all "ifs" and "buts". Even if I am right, and Mclaren are way off with their schedule and have some issues - they still have time to fix things. BMW are said to turn performance of their car at the last moment in 2008 and they nearly grabbed a pole position on the first race. In no place I (or anyone else, I think) said that they'll be trailing at the back in Australia. I think they do have some, possibly big, problems now, that's all.
And there is a possibility I am completely wrong and Mclaren have a their own vision of testing, in which running a 2008 wing is a-ok. In that case it's all fine, just a bit risky - there will be very little time to fix issues (if there will be any) with 2009 wing when it finally arrives. But even in this, it is a bit puzzling they weren't able to come up with a functional 2009-shaped interim wing. I am as sure as one can be sure about something in F1 that they'd much rather have a wing in actual shape of the final wing on the car already, especially that everyone else has. Well, everyone except TR, but they'll be given a car from Red Bull, and aren't aiming the championship (but who knows?). Look the endplates of the BMW F1.09 front wing - that's 'not reviling secrets'. But if BMW mounted a 2008 frontwing on the car saying it will be better for the car development than the interim 2009 wing they also made, that would be a bit too much to cover with 'not reviling their secrets'.



And as Holden says, at least we're on subject with this talk. What's the alternative, analyzing how Hamilton was going to win at Monaco in 2007 etc.? Trolls will do it once the season starts, no worries.

I don't think Mclaren have any serious problems at all. Maybe they thought they could get away with the medium df 2009 wing but realised they aren't getting useful enough tyre or set up data with that. Not having a high DF 2009 wing they simply switched to a 2008 spec. As for the fow viz, it is a little strange at a public test but don't forget the limited testing mileage and that they did the same in december last year with no visible concerns.

totally agree with u

Fact of the matter is that the season hasn't even started yet. If McLaren can't get a high downforce rear-wing for Melbourne then it is a problem, but that is simply not the case as of right now and I really don't see what all the fuss is about. They say a high downforce spec rear wing will be ready for the next test, so I suggest people sit tight and quit fussing until then at least. And besides, McLaren have already said that the car would look alot different at Melbourne, and as far as I know, the spec wing they were using at Portimao and Jerez was the one seen at launch, or a small variation of it at least.

@sreevishnu
Agree. I was thinking about writing sth in the same spirit.
1. McLaren are very confident, they have a design that's not been seen on other cars and don't want to reveal it until it's too late for the competition.
2. They have seen a possibility to explore the rules in a different way than they initially did or got an idea from another teams concept and are busy making a new back end.
3. They have miscalculated something, something went wrong and are redesigning the back of the car.

Those are possibilities, but not all. There's still time to test and improve and sooner or later we'll have more clues.

In the current climate, I can well understand why a team might decide to cancel a test or delay testing.

The days of doing thousands of miles of testing just to check the performance of a winglet are gone. Tests now have to be very tight, with a firm and fixed purpose.

There is no point wasting a test on just an extension of what you were doing at the last test.

It may be the case that Mclaren (or Renault, another said not to be testing next week) want to have more time to analyse their Jerez test, or it may be that the development schedule means that what they want to test next won't be ready next week, or it may be a mix of the two.

Back in the day, and due to limits on our budget, the team I worked with when I first started in motorsport had to plan our tests with great care, simply because we couldn't afford the luxury of coming back next week. We would wait until the developments were a full package, rather than an addition to the existing car, and then run it in full package mode and remove different developments as the test went on. That way, we could see more quickly if they were a major advance.

Of course, fine-tuning was always an issue, but I can see why Mclaren & Renault are holding fire on using up their test limit. It doesn't necessarily mean that there is anything fundamentally wrong.

Of course, it doesn't prove that there isn't anything wrong either, but then topping the timesheets is not the purpose of testing anyway.

Quite possibly there's little wrong with the current wing - but Mclaren are not running their 09 diffuser design until the last moment to prevent copycats appearing at Melbourne. In the absence of the diffuser, would it not make sense to generate downforce using the old wing?

Okay, I'm going to make another attempt to convince everyone that you're making mountains out of molehills: If Mclaren running an 08-style setup wing is in any way worthy of comment, why hasn't anything appeared in the mainstream F1 media about it?

Yes I like Lewis but there is no way that u can say that Mclaren has lost anything and has become less competitive since they dropped Raikkonen

They've cured their reliability. Thats the only difference!

Your right that it probably isnt a serious problem, but it is an issue and until I see Mac running a fully 2009 compliant car, and posting some decent times I'll remain concerned.

But the current limitations are not financial, but due to the limited amount of testing now allowed. Given a freehand the likes of Mac and especially Ferrari would be on-track as much as possible.

So what about this testing limit? If there is only one interseason test (Monza?) then how could they possibly reach their testing limit in a single season?

There isn't...

De La Rosa broke the track record in Portimao on the MP4-24's shakedown IIRC...

OK, I've spoken to my contact at MB HPE and there is mostly good news -

- They have been able to run the KERS system and produce the maximum 60kw output

- Running the 2008 wing which has been exciting everyone so much this week was purely to provide a known base for measuring KERS output, which was the focus of this weeks test

- The engine was running at reduced power all week, so there is plenty more to come.

Now the less good news -

- The engine was running at reduced power due to reliability concerns

- The concerns are due to the KERS system, it attaches to the opposite end of the engine to the clutch and they are putting opposing stresses through it

- They were supposed to send 4 engines to the test but only one passed the quality control checks due to the KERS stresses


On a positive note they are confident that they will tame these stresses and are likely to start with KES in Melbourne.

Ya, but there hasn't been much running at Portimao. The 2008 STR did eventually beat his time. DLR ran a 1:28.719 on shakedown.

http://www.mclaren.com/latestnews/mclaren-...php?article=227

Buemi ran a 1:27.987 on 1/21.

http://www.mclaren.com/f1season/portimao-jan-21.php

DLR's shakedown time was faster than every other team's 2009 car at Portimao by over a second. Not bad for a shakedown run .

Great news (overall), but is there really a new revolutionary 2009 wing coming out or was the one shown at the launch the real deal?

Thanks. Is it the clutch that's the problem do you know? And whatever it is can they alter it within the freeze rules, or does "tame it" mean a workaround?

Good news overall. Hope they can fix the engine issues, otherwise they'd be wise not to use KERS just yet.
That rear wing rumors about design flaws, tires not getting up to temp etc. couldn't have been further off the truth.

I don't know about the new wing, my contact is an engine man he just new about the baseline test.

Do you know how much they reduced the engine?

It's the directly opposing stresses through the engine that cause the issues, it is possible that they may need to ask the FIA for clearance to make reliability changes.

I suggested the same thing regarding KERS and not running it, but he said that so much had been invested in it that it would be a very difficult decision not to run it.

Sorry, I don't.

When he says 'baseline', are you sure he doesn't mean the predicted baseline for the 2009 car with the final wing? Just running a 2008 wing wouldn't give you the same results as the 2008 car, as a reasonable portion of the rear end-df is going to be from ground effect.

They need to create a baseline i.e. What is the effect of KERS alone? then they can add the new wing and see the effect of that (with and without KERS). Until they understand how much KERS effects the car they won't understand the other changes.

Oh, sounds a bit like the crank or block? But hopefully Max is so keen on kers they will get clearance.

Right ... but if they just needed to establish a fixed baseline, they could have used the interim 2009 wing for that, no? The only reason to use a 2008-style wing would be if they needed that baseline to be at a level of higher downforce.

...or because they have a very clear understanding of that wing, perhaps?

Crank..., I wouldn't want to have to rely on Maxxx tho, let's hope they don't have to ask.

Mmm yes, Max would be torn. On the one hand, his beloved kers, on the other hand the season hasn't even started and already a chance to get Ron

There is the Honda card, if Merc/Mac pull out of that it's game over, that could swing it.
Not to say, with FI it would be 3 teams without kers. Luca and Dr Mario could decide to join the party and a non-kers car wins the championship.... no, Max won't risk that. I think

I don't know ... it's similar to the 2008 medium downforce wing, but they've added what looks like a large gurney flap to the rear edge, so it would have a different performance profile:

2008 Wing

2009 Test Wing

(Sorry about the huge second image)

You've made my day, sir!

Many thanks!

Thanks for the information paffett4F1

The engine/KERS issues aren't so thrilling, and lets' hope it gets sorted, but it's great to hear something other than rumour mill on the rear wing.

thank you for the info, paffett4f1. it's making all mclaren fans feel much better

however, what you described doesn't account for the use of flo-vis (or however it's spelt).

can you shed any light on this? the way they used it seems like they had encountered something unexpected with the aero, but i could be (and probably) wrong...