All 10 teams are currently working flat out on their 2022 programs, developing completely new cars to meet the requirements of the largest regulatory package in years.
They do this against the backdrop of a cost cap that keeps the most spending teams in check and a sliding scale of aerodynamic test constraints that work against the best. These two factors give a new context to the usual pattern of development.
McLaren isn’t in the same division as the established top 3 spending, but the team had to make some adjustments to ensure it comes below the $ 145 million cap. And as the third-placed team in 2020, it had the third-lowest wind tunnel time and CFD usage by the end of June.
Also read:
In the new edition for the second half of the season, based on the half-year placements, the team was back in third place in the table. This means that by the end of 2021 he will still have to do less aero work than all but two competitors Red Bull and Mercedes. And assuming it retains third place, that competing restriction will continue until 2022.
It’s an added challenge for McLaren Technical Director James Key and the rest of his team as they advance the new auto project. It’s about making the most of the resources you have.
“In that regard, last year introducing P3 had some drawbacks as it is a bit of a hindrance to what you can do with the new regulations this year,” says Key.
“And to be honest, that was definitely a victim of the COVID situation and the sporting impact with the 22 governments’ delay because a lot of what was supposed to happen within the cost cap was supposed to happen and” this year should actually happen coincide with technical regulations that complement the cost cap somewhat better.
“It is an unfortunate situation that we were on this scale at a time when these two cars need to be developed in parallel and there is obviously a lot of emphasis on ’22, with a fresh sheet of paper that we had.
“So it throws us back a bit, but you adapt to that. And this month there was a new hiring. Would I have ditched the great job Lando and Dan did in the last race and the podiums?
“Of course not, because we’re still here to race. But I think you need to tweak your mindset a bit about how you divide the cars [between 2021 and 2022 aero work] when you are at the end of the scale. “
The start event of the Formula 1 car 2022 on the Silverstone starting field. Rear wing and diffuser detail
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
The good news is that the delta between the aero work that McLaren can do compared to other teams is less than it could have been.
“This year it’s a little softer than originally planned,” says Key. “The slope between places 1 and 10 should be even steeper, and that will be even steeper next year. I don’t know if it’s right or not. I mean, we were never really excited about this idea when it was first introduced a while ago.
“But we also saw sense in that, as there was a massive difference between first and tenth place at the time, and the ability to catch up within a cost cap and within a narrower ATR makes sense anyway. Otherwise you risk getting stuck.
“I think we’ll see how it goes next year. And if it causes rocking season after season, that’s clearly not the way to go. Maybe we need to soften it up a bit. But in the short term, it works a bit against us, suppose me on. “
Key insists that the 2022 project is still in its infancy. The learning curve is steep and there is still a lot to discover about the new rules, even if they are quite restrictive in many areas.
“The number of devices and the freedoms we have now are leading to fairly productive development rates in current cars even now,” he says.
“With these large areas that you have in a 22-series car, it’s a different kind of development. So you’re looking more at the basic principles, especially at this stage, in the summer of the year before the race, and trying to get those big box surfaces to work properly. And then it comes down to the details. .
“And you usually see a year like this being pretty productive. We’re still learning a lot, we’re defining our most important geometries and architectures now, at this point in the year.
“Then you go through a long process of almost six months of pure aerodynamic work until Christmas, once these geometries have been defined.”
The start event of the Formula 1 car 2022 on the Silverstone starting field. Bow and front wing detail
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
Key says big strides will be made after the cars start madly driving next February and the numbers are crisp. The teams not only get feedback on their own cars, but also see what the rivals have done.
“You get a couple of kicks. For one, you see your car on the track and begin to see if you have a connection somewhere that you could improve, or you begin to see your car’s strengths or weaknesses. Maybe there are a few unexpected things.
“And that will mean that priorities will be set in development immediately. And you get such a kick in that direction.
“And of course everyone can also see each other’s cars. And, just like this year, with the simple changes we had on the floor, you might see driving directions that make you think, ‘Okay, we have’ Don’t think about it, that’s a good idea, let’s see if that applies to our car. ‘ “And so you will get another kick into the next year.
“So I suspect we’ll see a pretty strong rate of development between now and next year.
“Maybe it will flatten out next year. But when it flattens out it means there will be a lot of close races. So maybe that’s a good thing.
“When it flattens out, it leads to ’23 cars that are mechanically much more pushed to their limits, because then you have to find advantages elsewhere, be it aerodynamic advantages through difficult mechanical design or just mechanical advantages.” by going the extra mile there. “
Key believes that it is inevitable that the teams are currently following different routes, which makes it all the more interesting to see what everyone has tested over the winter.
“I think everyone will come up with different interpretations,” he says. “The last time we had a change of this magnitude was probably 2009 when the whole car changed. And we saw different approaches.
“Apart from the double diffusers, which have become commonplace in the middle of the season, we had different ideas about the body, the chassis and the nose.
“And at some point they somehow merged into something similar. But with fewer tools at your disposal, we’ll likely see bigger differences between cars when we launch them next year. “
Wind tunnel
Photo by: Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
McLaren’s 2022 development program was made more difficult by the fact that the team is still using the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne until construction is planned.
Using a customer tunnel in another country is not an optimal situation, but the good news is that Woking’s CFD resources are now state-of-the-art – and the time was right for the latest upgrade.
“We are aware that we do not have access to the new facility that we are investing in now,” says Key. “But one of the new systems that we have invested in and that have been successful are the upgrades to our CFD hardware.
“I think when you make big architectural decisions for a car, a lot of it can be modeled from a wind tunnel environment, for example. The wind tunnel generally still plays its role with a lot of verification data.
“We now have tighter regulations on how much CFD and wind tunnel can run, so you need to choose your moments when you do this type of work. Then we can choose the dates that we are happy with and that we can get the most out of.
“But the big architectural decisions, when you have huge bulk areas that you need to develop, format and shape, I think the kit we have is broadly capable of making those decisions at this stage. It will be the finer details where we might have a slight disadvantage. “
An important aspect that will only become really clear when the test phase reaches the core of the 2022 rule package. Will the cars really be able to follow one another more closely?
“I think it’s just getting started because there is still a lot of research to be done about a 22cc car and how it works,” says Key. “But a lot of effort has been put into the regulations to keep them true to their goal.
“So when there were potential loopholes or sensitive areas that might counteract the ability to follow closer than we are now, they were discussed and usually closed or modified in some way.
“So I think where we are now, probably if you were releasing cars in mid-2021 then you’d get pretty close to something. At the beginning of the year, I think they will certainly still be a lot easier to drive than current cars, but if the teams start taking advantage of the finer details of them, it would drift a bit, I suspect. “
The start event of the Formula 1 car 2022 on the Silverstone starting field. Diffuser details
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
F1 boss Ross Brawn has made it clear that the door has been left open to make such necessary tweaks for 2023 and beyond, especially if teams have found things that violate these principles to make it easier to follow. If there are any changes it will be an additional curve ball for Key and his team.
“I think these are usually discussed very amicably,” he says. “There will be discussions, there will be some back and forth, and sensible decisions will be made.
“Teams have regulations, they have been developed over a long period of time and of course we will try to exploit as much of them as possible. So I think it has to be a fair trial. “
Changes for 2023 are a challenge for another day, and they may not happen. Meanwhile, McLaren is working to interpret the rules as they are currently written and looking for any benefit that may be claimed.
“I enjoyed the fact that we are all convinced of what we are trying to do as a team,” says Key. “And the fact that we looked at it very conceptually from the start, the team somehow accepted that and did it very well.
“I think if we can hit these early milestones fairly soon, and in the right way, and have done our best, then hopefully it will just be a matter of continuing our plan into next year and hoping that we have all Box checked. “
Also read:
The presentation of the Formula 1 car 2022 on the Silverstone starting field
Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images
The post How McLaren tackles the F1 2022 challenge first appeared on monter-une-startup.
