Looks like its shed some drag this year. Last year despite its engine it was usually a few cars off being fastest in a straight line.
The car looks the same as last years accept from some changes to the rear wing, front nose and side pods. Looks like they are not following the trend of the platterpus nose.
looks like something interesting going on under the nose of the car, on the 26/27 side shot comparisons there is something hanging down from the nose under behind the front wheels.
I like what they've done to the sidepods and nose but overall the car looks conservative, not what I was expecting. It doesn't look like something that will beat Newey, though I suspect they're hiding a lot of things.
The RB's look pretty conservative too, I wouldn't go on looks alone, quite often the stuff doing the work is well hidden. Also I doubt much of what you see here will be the same as what is tested from next week on. On a side note passed 4 Williams F1 trucks going south on the M3 on Friday night on my way to get the IoW ferry. Look alike they are on their way to Spain early.
I note some critical remarks about the MP4 -- 27 in this thread, to which I admit to being more than a little surprised! My opinion is that it is an exceptionally beautiful car for modern era F1!
Poor Mike Gascoyne. He must be looking at that today thinking, "oh, I get it." What do people think of that chunky bit of carbon fibre that Bob pointed out behind the front axle? Could that have the effect of pushing the front of the nose into the ground, with the axle acting as a pivot?
Don't judge a book by it's cover. Aerodynamics is important but where Mclaren having been lacking over recent years is at the rear. Their rear downforce was not in the same league as Red Bull's and judging by the rear of the new car you can tell some work has gone into it. Hopefully.
I thought the Caterham was cute but it looks like a kit car compared to the svelte MP4-27. I don't know what all the nit-picking's about really, until 10.59 this morning it seemed everyone was just worried it would be fugly but it's f'ing beautiful. How it drives, though, is still anyone's guess... At least it should dispel some fears that this year's cars are all going to be eye-sores.
I do not get what Mark Hughes is trying to get at there. Mclaren went radical last year and it went wrong and their car was getting stronger near the end of the season so it makes sense to evolve it. Also a large part of Newey's 'secret' as he called it, was about how much he expoilted the EBD and how the entire car was designed to maximsed that. So when the EBD has been banned why would you want to try and copy it?
i think maybe in previous years they were looking for innovation before having a sound base to work on and that was probably their downfall in 2010 with the f-duct that everyone copied anyway and in 2011 with their "octupus" exhaust system that no one wanted to copy and they then later scraped. i think that this focus on the aerodynamics and no innnovations could help mclaren go toe to toe with redbull throughout the season, noit just a few races in the season
Absolutely, I agree. But such is the cult of Newey, nowadays... Seriously though, there's more than one way to skin a cat, as they say; surely it's admirable that McLaren go their own way than the follow the presumption that the only way to beat Red Bull is to copy them. McLaren built a new car last year, they refined it over the course of the season and this year it evolves further.
Interesting, although Goss and Lowe contradict each other a bit. I'm more inclined to go with Paddy Lowe's version, it just sounds more credible, less hyped.
I'd agree with SLick-or-ish here. I was highly critical of McLaren's persistence with the extremely long wheel-base, which I believed - and suggested at the time - that they should have shelved after 2010. And although the new MP4-27 wheelbase may not look much shorter in the 'official' side-view comparison, it is significant enough*! Another significant subtlety is the steeper rake of bodywork between air-box and rear wheels, which now leaves a larger volume of air between itself and under the rear wing. More obvious differences are the 'flat' topped surfaces of side-pods (binning the 'L-U' bend which was more susceptible to cross-winds and inherently less capable during cornering), which now emulate the curve of surfaces ahead of the cockpit. This car looks far more 'together' than the MP4-26 of 2011. Bobbinz and Genji (above) have raised an interesting question about the object/s seen just behind the front wheels, which at the moment I cannot answer. However, from this first glance of the P.R. shots, a tentative guess is that it would appear related to the front suspension and may provide some aid to bump and/or rebound damping. Then again, it could be a mechanism designed to induce a 'Red-Bull' wing-flex; or even both! (Oo-err … Then, once again, it could be a deliberate black-herring - [edit: Now, after reading AbsGlorious' comment below, I somehow doubt this and would expect it to appear on the grid if it is legal…] - - - o0o - - - *The photos have been taken from slightly angles and distances (2011 shot from slightly higher and further back; then re-scaled to fit below the new shot) and that the overhang of nose ahead of the front wheels is still very similar despite the illusion seen in the pictures. Bear in mind that real-life tyre diameter is identical despite appearing larger in the 2012 picture, particularly at the front wheels; thus, the real-life space between the wheels is now shorter than it was for 2011.
I don't think that was anything significant or they wouldn't have put it on the car before it hit the track. I don't think it looks as aggressively packaged as the RB7, but they were using a miniKers. I expect Red Bull to be leading the way again, and I think Ferrari will be second ahead of McLaren.
