Formula One: McLaren's race against time to get its upgrades working
McLaren has amassed 300 points so far and is currently leading the championship by 28 points. The two McLaren drivers are at the top of drivers’ table separated by only 14 points. McLaren has won 4 out of 11 races and secured 11 podiums in all. Only races they have not been on the podium include Malaysia, Spain, Monaco and Germany.
This is a phenomenal result by a team that is not the fastest and is coming up with many developments to catch up with the race pace of Red Bulls and Ferraris. Two things have played hugely to McLaren’s advantage. One is their straight line speed in high speed circuits and the other is the consistency and back-to-back impressive performances of Hamilton and Button, where other drivers have been making mistakes regularly.
The fact that McLaren is currently at the top and has defended its lead so far is not enough to win the championship. Red Bulls have already been a threat to McLaren and a little more consistency in the past by the Austrian team could easily change the standings. Ferrari, has upped its pace and performance on the back of their upgrades to add to McLaren’s woes and are breathing down their necks. While Red Bull will look to move to the top of the standings in the next few races, Ferrari will aim to pass McLaren too, if they do not cope with the challenge soon enough.
McLaren’s Engineering Director Paddy Lowe has shed light on the work that is currently going on in Woking to bring McLaren at par with its competitors. He has given information about various upgrades and their likelihood of success.
Lowe has said that Red Bull has had the blown diffuser advantage since the beginning of the season and Ferrari won the race against McLaren to install these parts. McLaren had already developed these parts before the race in Britain but did not go ahead with them. Germany was their first race with the new diffusers but they did not provide the required advantage. The upgrades are not easy to assess, as they affect all aspects of set-up including aerodynamics, engine, exhaust and thermal management and time is needed to optimize their performance. The team is constantly working on the data gathered from Germany and they are hopeful to get them working sooner than later.
Recently, Red Bull and Ferrari introduced the flexible front wings which have been ruled legitimate by the FIA and both teams managed to get considerable advantage from these parts. Lowe has said that the low wing is a new phenomenon and the McLaren engineers need to understand them before they can be developed. Like diffusers, low front wings affect a lot of things including fuel weight, tyre pressure and high speed set-ups and a lot of time and effort is needed to imitate them perfectly.
The reason McLaren was off the pace against the competitors in Germany, Lowe said, is that McLaren’s advantage was its F-Duct, which was successfully developed by other teams and this cancelled out McLaren’s advantage. He said it is important to get parts and fuel early before any race, so that it can be easily phased in.
McLarens are being considered favourites for the next race in Hungary, which is more about down force and less about pace. Lowe has, however rejected the notion of any advantage and said that the team has performed better in circuits that require low down force and most of the circuits did not correlate to McLaren’s strengths. The only hope the team has of doing well in Budapest is that its upgrades will improve.
Lowe shares the point of view of all team principals and engineers about the ban on testing. He said that it is quite frustrating when there are a lot of upgrades to test and all a team gets is three practice sessions before every race. He said that after those sessions there isn’t enough time to get the new parts working perfectly for the race.
Apart from getting the upgrades to work, McLaren has another challenge this season in the shape of coming up with a competitive car for the next season. Usually when a team focuses all resources on the current season, it is left with less and less time to make developments for the next one. This is an uphill task for the McLaren squad, who need to incorporate all the upcoming changes in the new car.
One of the biggest challenges surrounding the 2011 car is wheels. The team will have to go through a lot of changes and testing to adapt to the new manufacturer Pirelli. McLaren is also looking forward to redesigning wheel tethers. Wheel tethers are the parts that connect the wheel, rim to the chassis, and prevent the wheels from coming free and bouncing around dangerously. Currently the wheel tethers are not reliable enough for any team and all engineers are looking forward to attach two tethers to every wheel to increase reliability.
Whatever work is going on in McLaren, they will have to sort it out soon. Currently, they can either fight for this championship this season or the next one and this is a huge trade-off. They will have to step up their efforts to get done with the upgrades as soon as possible to defend their lead this season and be a force to be reckoned with in the next.
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