all the teams have similer machine tools to that one, theres some really good factory tours on radiolemans site

Yeah, if you put "5-axis" into Google Mazak is about the 13th result.

If Mac have an advantage with it, it just has to be very expensive.

Yep, and I think Mazak wanted this to go public to enhance image and sales probably because Mclaren could not or would not claim exclusive rights to their product or technology.
Either way, there must be an advantage to Mclaren in doing this.

It's a milling machine, not a stealth bomber, the specs are in the catalogue.

knock a few quid of the installation price, and post the endorsement on your website, it's all good:

http://www.mazak.eu/jkcm/default.aspx?pg=249&lang=1

... when was the last time you saw a machine-shop floor that looked like that?

I wish those photos were a bit bigger, wouldn't mind the fifthdriver starting at the loading bay, and apart from a few secret-squirrel rooms, taking a proper walk through the MTC and posting the video ... not just the concourse and the bays, show it off properly.

Sorry I should have been clearer.

What I mean is, is it likely that one of the race drivers will do the shakedown rather than Paffet... as he's not had much running under the testing regs brought in in 09.

It'll probably be Hamilton.

With regards to internet streaming, I'm pretty sure McLaren would be much better at doing it than FOM.

Mythbusters did it with a normal road car and found that the car with golfball dimples used 12% less fuel vs a normal car.

There is a video showing the whole show here:
http://www.autoblog.com/2009/10/22/mythbus...e-dimpling-mpg/

But you obviously wouldn't use them in F1 because it would mess up all of the aerodynamics.

5days2launch

No picture from TheFifthDriver today.

So I made this from this: http://www.mclaren.com/images/homepage-sto...-launch-195.jpg

The countdown must go on.

Nice one. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I did miss this feature today. Hopefully normal service will be resumed tomorrow with an extreme close up of Jenson Button's ear plug, or something.

This season is coming round real quick.... can't wait till FRIDAY!!!!!!!


J

nice! finally we get a decent pic of the invisible engine cover.

You really want to risk it? We saw how McLaren messed up their internet launch last year no thanks to some silly programmer who worte the wrong code for their website hourly countdown

Next pic up......

http://twitpic.com/zolnu

The tub this time

Mythbusters massively screwed up in that test. They put all the clay that they'd removed into a box on the back seat to keep the weight the same. However, this changed the weight distribution and the rake angle of the car.

No worries boys, McLaren still has the best livery in the game

Also i doubt that were going to have the mercedes star on the nose anymore

Mercedes still owns like 30-40% of the stocks at the moment (Don't know the excact numbers) so I am sure it will be there.

They are slowly breaking down their commitment, but this year they will still be a "works" Mercedes team, as that was in the contract signed a phew years ago. The Mercedes GP team is actually owned by an Arabian partner of Mercedes until the Mclaren contracts comes to an end.

Martin Whitmarsh is in Stuttgart at the Mercedes -Launch as guest, has been said

and if Mercedes were going to copy, copy the best
Even if it is from 1997.

oops..

Yeah they are not enemies. But for Mercedes it was a great opportunity to buy a Formula 1 team with high end facility's for a very good price.

One has to admit that the common perception of team's rivalries are probably not a but like the real relationships. Fans tend to exagerate things like these.

This is fairly positive reading:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81047
But time will tell.

yea, although this line



bothers me a tiny bit.


we already know our car was the Beyonce of last year's grid...which in the end, was not too bad...sexy but functional just like Beyonce

But I hope they havent overdone it this time though cos there is no KERs to compensate poor aerodynamics...fingers crossed we get an Alicia Keys instead... I think that will be better...still a nice ass, sultry, smooth, sexy and efficient

I digress

I can't wait for the 29th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Judging by the tub shot on Twitter, we may have Queen Latifah or Missy Elliot.

This is part of the basis why there have been rumours regarding Ferrari's car possibly not being competitive. Mclaren behind the scenes have been bullish(which was officially confirmed in Whitmarsh's Autosport article) of Woking having met its engineering/aero targets. Conversely the opposite is the rumours coming from Maranello, of Ferrari engineering/aero not having met its performance targets.

Now before people get too excited or depressed, it entirely depends what their respective performance targets were. Was Mclaren conservative in their goals and Ferrari super aggressive? We must not forget what goals Mclaren set themselves last season, only to find out they were bucket load of aero points behind the leading cars, which equated to 2.5 seconds a lap slower. By the time they threw the kitchen sink at the car, they were still 1.5 seconds a lap shy at Melbourne. If previous years are a valid indicator, then it is safe to assume the leading car in 2010, will be roughly 1 second quicker than the fastest car of 2009.

Mclaren will do it

http://twitter.com/TheFifthDriver

OT: Beyonce is the most overrated girl ever.

I'm doing my best to remain cautilously optimistic, I just hope all this pre-season talk doesn't come down to nothing. They don't even need the outright fastest and best car, but they do need something quick that keeps them at the sharp end. orm then on, Hamilton and Button can take over.

i hope what martin is saying is backed up on the track. i think to be the best car is critical this season as there is to many good drivers in good cars. any advantage the mp4-25 has or can should be a benefit to jb and LH.
i feel the team with the best consistently at the front car will win the WCC and WDC. Therefore mclaren can forget trying to bring a car in the first race a bit of the pace as the pace of development this season will be relentless.

Mclaren bullish?

Certainly not, they are cautiously optimistic. Autosport header was not reflected in Mclaren's statements.
Now where did that come from Autosport?

Absolutely, and with the new points system (just announced) the winner will get more points, compared to second and third, so to get winning car to the first race, will be more crucial, then ever before.

Paffett does first shakedown on new car
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81049

Whitmarsh was present today at Mercedes GP launch

"Yutaw Taw"

I am always fascinated by carbon fibre weave!

Ambiguous picture of the tub, but the tub all the same .

I wouldn't take any rumors from january seriously. I believe there was a very similar article on autosport last year as well - mclaren thought that they did a great job on the car but when then after the first few tests it was obvious that it was a really bad.

I doubt this years car will be faster considering weights have jumped considerably.

I am glad the boys are confident - please not another 2009.

15 kilos isn't much at all. They'll definitely be faster, I expect some lap records to actually be broken.

I'm kind of puzzled by the thinking, set a target and aim to reach that, and if they do, they reached development, job done.
Surly they should be thinking to get as high as possible, setting futher and further targets???

Nice to see that Whitmarsh went to the Mercedes launch. I suppose that at least Haug will also attend the McLaren launch, then. After all Mclaren remains a kind of semi-works team of Mercedes, for the time being, and Haug was with Mclaren for many years. Happy to see they didn't turn into bitter rivals overnight.

I hope the Mp4/25 will be good, but people were optimistic before the -24 launch as well. Let's wait and see how it goes on the track.

Now that Mercedes launched the silver car, there is no reason why Mclaren cannot run Kiwi orange with red.


I surly think that 25 will look aggressive, and brain catching.


Battle of the two teams will be so strong that there will be more to come on Media talk than drivers competition stories, between the races...

No reason other than:
-it would look pretty horrible, and be bad for the sponsor who wants his red decals to stand out, not fade into the orange
-Mercedes still quite likely has a say in the livery as long as they are paying for the engines
-the present livery is very good; it it ain't broken, don't fix it

As for "the battle of the 2 teams", there are some other teams in F1 including the pesky Red Bull and Ferrari, who might want a say at the front.

These targets arent just random, out of thin-air targets. They are calculated so that the development team can indeed achieve them. A team needs a goal they can achieve, thats their motivation. There will be many targets set for many deadlines, some they will meet, others they wont.

Define as high as possible???

You cant can you? That is why targets are set, because targets are defined goals.

On text it is a bit hard to talk, but in theory I understand your claim.

But on the second point, I hold my hand and say now it is the time to put Mclaren's identity. Needless to say it is not necessary that NZ Kiwi orange should be featured, but silver is a big question mark, in terms of competition.

About the conservative attitude towards colour scheme,... not sure neither. It is something that may please their sponsor more now that Mercedes is not or will be not involved as heavy as before. Vodafone can enjoy their presnece now more than ever. You may think that they were under the thumb of Mercedes the last years. The bank uses also red, and that could be given much more strong presence.

kiwi orange (or any other color) like Black, can be a strong match, imagine a car that has Red graphs on Black Carbon FIber chassis, with stream line that accentuates the body shapes. I think it can be very sexy.

In Lewis's recent-ish quote, slightly between the lines, the one that described him talking with the aero guys, there's a bit about him saying to [edit] the Chief Aerodynamicist Tim Goss not to settle for a target, that that was part of the mistake they made with the 09 car. Keep pushing, he said, and call me any time

True.


I think that the quote refer to the methods to adjust the target on further point(s) at the moment when a development or streams of developments strongly suggest that the target can be surely met with lesser trouble than expected.

Yet, in reality the engineers are so well informed about their capabilities, both for individually as well as for collective, so the focus on setting the target is a science in itself therefore being set through out the development period...

If Mclaren wants to go away from the silver (or is asked to do so by Mercedes/Bernie, in order to leave this colour to Mercedes GP), something like black/red or black/orangish may be doable.

I don't think the logos of Santander and Vodafone would ever look good on a car in Kiwi Orange, though, and not on the orange tint used by the prototype MP4/12C (road car) either.

Super Aero shaped up thing of the recent Formula One car is that The shapes are so unfitting to fit one of old school racing motiefs like parallel stripes or even a single line. Most of the sexy lines becomes unreadable as the visual weights just accentuates one theme. SO the shaping of the logos and so on is a direct challenge to open up new generation of car paint scheme. Just see how complex recent F1 Helmets are, how fancy designers make use of the round, but complex curved shapes. Chassis have more of those so in theory the beautifully curved surface could be exposed more with contemporary technique.

I am saying this because I think that the case of Mercedes is a great failure on this 'modernizing' the formula One car's look. Was better of Not trying in their case. Oriinal Silver Arrows concept has its strength, more than the current car. I am wondering why they have NOT opt to keep car Unpainted.

So I think Mclaren should succeed in this, because Mclaren should beat Mercedes in all aspects, not only in races but also with the way car looks, with the way team is oganized. The paint scheme should be one.

(So where are those guys who motivated arguments on Uniform-USF1? )


I think that keeping their car silver is a statement that says Mclaren is NOT going to fight Mercedes, they are friends, and that sounds so untrue to me.

vodaphone has a big competitor called orange, who has orange everything pretty much, a orange f1 car would not go down well

you got the whole ferrari issue with a red car too... :\