02-02-2015, 13:15
12:15
And on the subject of the new McLaren, here's an extract from the Mark Hughes column which we will be uploading to the site shortly:
'Visually, in the way that its body surfaces flow, the MP4-30 has more in common with the Red Bull RB10 and 11 than it does with the MP4-29. In a way, this is unsurprising, given the recruitment to McLaren of Red Bull’s former aero chief Peter Prodromou. Essentially, he seems to have designed McLaren a Honda-powered Red Bull.
'Just like the Red Bull, the stand-out feature is how tightly the car’s bodywork is waisted between the cockpit and rear wing. This ‘coke bottle’ profile is extreme, as the sidepods cut in very aggressively in plan view. Ron Dennis calls it ‘size zero’ and points out that it has been facilitated by how aggressively compact Honda has made the power unit. Gone are last year’s ‘mushroom’ blockers along the rear suspension that linked up the airflow of the diffuser and rear wing and which did so much to boost rear downforce (but at the expense of drag). The new car generates its rear downforce instead from that tightly-waisted rear bodywork. That has been made more easily achievable by Honda’s placement of the compressor at the front, just as on the Mercedes motor.'
And on the subject of the new McLaren, here's an extract from the Mark Hughes column which we will be uploading to the site shortly:
'Visually, in the way that its body surfaces flow, the MP4-30 has more in common with the Red Bull RB10 and 11 than it does with the MP4-29. In a way, this is unsurprising, given the recruitment to McLaren of Red Bull’s former aero chief Peter Prodromou. Essentially, he seems to have designed McLaren a Honda-powered Red Bull.
'Just like the Red Bull, the stand-out feature is how tightly the car’s bodywork is waisted between the cockpit and rear wing. This ‘coke bottle’ profile is extreme, as the sidepods cut in very aggressively in plan view. Ron Dennis calls it ‘size zero’ and points out that it has been facilitated by how aggressively compact Honda has made the power unit. Gone are last year’s ‘mushroom’ blockers along the rear suspension that linked up the airflow of the diffuser and rear wing and which did so much to boost rear downforce (but at the expense of drag). The new car generates its rear downforce instead from that tightly-waisted rear bodywork. That has been made more easily achievable by Honda’s placement of the compressor at the front, just as on the Mercedes motor.'