I'm not a McLaren fan but I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing what they have to offer. The launch starts live at 11am and is streamed on their website: http://mclaren.com/2011revealed/ From the little teaser pic you can pick up a few things about the car. Most notably is that they've gone down the route of a low nose, in contrast to pretty much every other team who have higher noses this year. It also looks as if they haven't gone for the groove down the length of the nose first seen on the RB5 to improve airflow to the rear of the vehicle. However the rear looks very tightly packaged, something which a lot of the teams have tried to achieve. It'll be interesting to see which little tricks they have on the car, and why they were so keen to hide it from the world during the first test. One of the first things I'll be looking for is where the exhausts exit. Roll on 11 o'clock.
The teaser pic shows the car without mirrors... anyway i'm expecting to see great things when they launch this car.
I hadn't noticed that. It looks like they might have gone for the half shark fin that the RB7 has. I expect most people will have that by the time we get to Bahrain, Mercedes especially would benefit because from what I've heard they're struggling with rear stability.
http://mclaren.com/2011revealed/ now has a 3D viewer on there. Unfortunately its proving difficult to zoom in on the rear of the car.
Damn, I missed it, was out! Am friends with Jensons mum (don't laugh) and she's been posting a few nice links on another site so will check those out later.
Wasn't impressed with that at all. Aesthetically it's a bit of a mess, but if it goes fast they won't care on bit about that. It'll be interesting to see how it goes at Jerez, but I'm not expecting great things myself.
Not that I want to start a Lewis Vs Jenson flame war but it was interesting that Button said by being the taller driver he was the limiting factor so the car was designed for him and that he had been pushing the development in his direction.
Also isnt the design of the top of the body not supposed to be dramatic to aerodynamic flow hence why they banned the little aerodynamic bits on it
El_Bando I am not the one to answer all these questions I am **** when talking about f1 knowledge and car design and all the tech stuff but what I would say is Mclaren would score a big own goal if their "innovative car" did not meet the regulations and they realised on Thursday the day before practice in Bahrain.
I think it's clear Mclaren were unable to figure out what RB were doing to make their wings flex, so Mclaren are doing something different. I applaud them for their innovation, hopefully it pays off. What I hope they don't do is try to copy RB again, that's what went wrong last year. I hope they stick to their own development plan and maximize its full potential. It looks like there may be room for front exhausts and I'm sure we haven't seen the new front wing yet. Clearly the rear diffuser was a dummy.
Lets face it, these guys are genius at exploiting loopholes in the rules so I wouldn't assume there is something unethical or illegal - or at least that it will get caught out with them. If the flexiwing, double diffusers and f-duct survived then rest assured the designs may be slightly unpalatable to some but they will be innovative to others. That's if they work of course. I'm guessing the design over the top body won't be for aerodynamic purposes but rather cooling devices.
