Articoli

MCLAREN

Until not many years ago the English team got us used to present their car directly on to the track, only few days before the season to take everybody by surprise, to morally destroy the competition, to finalize at its best every single detail till the last minute. Everything would have worked perfectly with great results...

But by now the competition is tough and Mclaren last year had one of the most complicated season of the last times suffering Ferrari and sometimes even Williams superiority, engine fault’s and not only that.

Woking’s team travelled road is a profound innovation and maybe between the top teams is the most mysterious one, meaning it could positively surprise more than anybody else. Surely there are a lot of new elements in order to allow a big step forward in comparison to the competition: the new tyres supplier could be the winning card against Ferrari; Mercedes heavily re-touched its engine widening the V angle to allow and incentive the performance; young Raikkonen could surprise and Coulthard, as driver number one, could give a lot more.

For all this, Mclaren decided to get to the track much sooner than usual. This choice is driven from the need to test the new engine on track (not adaptable to the old chassis) and to understand Michelin to be able to use their characteristic better, playing on the suspension geometry.

The new Mp4/17 is really fantastic! Every year it seems like the new car could overtake the design limits but every time next car is able to surprise. The nose is close to last year Ferrari’s solution but sharper and made with a chassis of small dimension, the sides are very short, the rear narrowing starts early and it’s really stressed, the bonnet looks even more aerodynamic than before with a small air vent; in this area the additions to stay inside the dimensions of the regulation are small, meaning that the chassis has been enlarged.

Still all major changes are found in the particular suspension scheme with special junctions (that the car pictures don’t really show) with some unusual profile used as aerodynamic function and suspension arms with fairing.

The conformation of the wings in front of the rear wheels has been sensibly changed leaving the team classical design to get close to what we saw last year on Ferrari and Benetton.

Another important modification compared to the Mp4/16 is the high exhaust solution conforming to the teams present fashion started last year with leaving behind the blow in the extractor. So far the major perplexity are coming from the engine side that had some problem at the V angle because of the major re-make of the engine which can be considered brand new.

After all Mclaren left every delay to create a perfect car on the aerodynamic side and, compare to the other F1 presented cars, seems years in advance. Naturally we will need to see what other teams will be able to do and which one will start at once without a problem. Often the stability prescribed makes the cars evolution exasperate with problems arising in the entrusting and management compartment.

Technical data

• Indietro
• Avanti