FORUMula1.com - F1 Forum

[acosmichippo]

I only casually browsed the thread, so forgive me if this has already been posted. But it's an interesting comparison between the stepped nose and mclaren's sloped nose. You can see the Ferrari definitely has more room underneath for airflow.

[madbrad]

If McLaren aren't taking advantage of the highest allowable nose height then they must know something we don't or have something up their sleeve. OTOH perhaps their nose might rise mid season.


So th enose can only be so high and then at some mark the fuselage can(or must?) be another, higher hight? How do you determine where that mark is?

I hope that soon they will word the regs in such a way as to make it impossible to have a nose that looks like that. Of course, they never outlawed Alain Prost's honker.

[darwin dali]

If McLaren aren't taking advantage of the highest allowable nose height then they must know something we don't or have something up their sleeve. OTOH perhaps their nose might rise mid season.


So th enose can only be so high and then at some mark the fuselage can(or must?) be another, higher hight? How do you determine where that mark is?

I hope that soon they will word the regs in such a way as to make it impossible to have a nose that looks like that. Of course, they never outlawed Alain Prost's honker.

[bud]

I only casually browsed the thread, so forgive me if this has already been posted. But it's an interesting comparison between the stepped nose and mclaren's sloped nose. You can see the Ferrari definitely has more room underneath for airflow.

McLaren has the "snow plow" underneath their nose while Ferrari doesn't. Difference in concepts for flow to the cars rear and diffuser are seen with these new regs.
From the launch cars it appears McLaren are aggressive with the new exhaust regs basically having what Scarbs calls a BRW blown rear wing. I'm sure most other teams will be trying this too but FIs exhaust weren't. Ferraris weren't BRW either, though it appears they are pointing to the lower part of the rear wing. probably why montezemolo was quoted saying he wanted the spirit of the new regs adhered to.

[acosmichippo]

If McLaren aren't taking advantage of the highest allowable nose height then they must know something we don't or have something up their sleeve. OTOH perhaps their nose might rise mid season.


So th enose can only be so high and then at some mark the fuselage can(or must?) be another, higher hight? How do you determine where that mark is?

I hope that soon they will word the regs in such a way as to make it impossible to have a nose that looks like that. Of course, they never outlawed Alain Prost's honker.

Again, I'm not sure if this has been posted before, but this is a great video discussing the nose and exhaust design on the mclaren, and some more details on the new regulations. I wish BBC had more stuff like this last year.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/16864721

[geetface9]

If McLaren aren't taking advantage of the highest allowable nose height then they must know something we don't or have something up their sleeve. OTOH perhaps their nose might rise mid season.


So th enose can only be so high and then at some mark the fuselage can(or must?) be another, higher hight? How do you determine where that mark is?

I hope that soon they will word the regs in such a way as to make it impossible to have a nose that looks like that. Of course, they never outlawed Alain Prost's honker.

I'm at work so I can't see the vid that acosmichippo posted, and I hope someone else has not said all this already, but I will try to explain as best I can in plain text. I hope I understood your question correctly. I read that the noses have to be lower because the FIA is worried that if car A hits car B in a T bone type of crash, the nose of car A could hit the driver of car B straight in the head. So with the lowered nose, that's not an issue any more. Think about how vettel's nose speared into the side of button's car at spa 2010. The nose could have possibly hit button in the head if vettel's car were a little farther forward than it was.

The regs say that the nose height can be up to 625mm (I think) above the reference plane to a certain point at the front of the car, but then the nose has to drop down to a height of 425mm by another point a little farther towards the front of the car, which is why you're seeing the stepped noses. So the teams with stepped noses built the nose to be as high as possible until the point where the regs say it has to drop down to 425mm. Mclaren said that, we're gonna just make a nice smooth slope down, instead of doing the stepped nose idea.

again, I hope i understood your question correctly, and anybody feel free to correct me if i'm wrong

[LewEngBridewell]

Again, I'm not sure if this has been posted before, but this is a great video discussing the nose and exhaust design on the mclaren, and some more details on the new regulations. I wish BBC had more stuff like this last year.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/16864721

Highly interesting video there, and Gary Anderson seems like a big asset to the BBC's new presenting team. Very informative.

[scotty]

Lotus main website, 5pm CET (4pm GMT) for their car launch today

[scotty]

Looks like they'll have the bumpy nose too:

[LewEngBridewell]

Looks like they'll have the bumpy nose too

Either that, or it's just really short

[LRW]

Well I make it 17:11CET.... and all i can see is a guitar player....

[scotty]

Site crashed... fail haha.

Car just looks like the 2011 car with a new nose:

[stonemonkey]

Site crashed... fail haha.

Car just looks like the 2011 car with a new nose:

They must've moved the exhaust tho.

[scotty]

Site crashed... fail haha.

Car just looks like the 2011 car with a new nose:

They must've moved the exhaust tho.

Yeah, couple of other small things like the extra inlets on the airbox have gone but aside from that, visually just looks like an evolution of the old car.

[LRW]

finally watching launch video on youtube. Worst Launch Ever.

[youtube]KjgSaYQ_GeY[/youtube]