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[Griff]

When testing in Portimao in January Mclaren brought out a modified 2008 rear wing to cope with the extreme wet weather which is fair enough but on the second day at Jerez it made another appearance for no apparent reason. Does anyone know why.

[bud]

they said they didnt have a high downforce 09 spec wing to test, so used this modified 08 wing to give similar downforce.

[Griff]

thats even worse then i thought. i had assumed there was something tactical about it but the fact that they just didnt have one seems odd

[Jabberwocky]

It is not the sort of thing you would expect from McLaren, but then again, perhaps they have stopped the development of the rear wing, whilst they sort out a toyota/williams style rear crash structure

[bud]

yes it is odd they dont have a high downforce spec wing yet, its possible they are redesigning their rear wing but then again Melbournes not a high downforce track like Jerez is.
The car they launched had what looked like what you would call a medium downforce wing.

[dwightschultz]

McLaren has recently been using a 2008-spec rear wing on its new MP4-24 as a "reference point", test driver Pedro de la Rosa insists.

At times during its Portimao debut, and then again last week at Jerez, the 2009 car conspicuously featured the lower and wider wing of the title-winning MP4-23.

Throughout the wing anomaly, the explanations have been varied. Initially, at the wet Portuguese test, the McLaren press office said the 2008 wing was used "as a precautionary measure to increase downforce" in the conditions. Last week at Jerez, when the European weather had improved, McLaren said the 2008 wing was used because the team is currently "without a high-downforce 2009-spec" piece. Latterly, it was explained that the Jerez wing is actually "a hybrid-spec" wing "in order to more effectively simulate expected downforce loads". The team added that "a raft of new components" will appear at the next winter test.

In the pages of Spain's Diario Sport, de la Rosa said of the recent reappearance of the 2008 wing: "We wanted a comparison point, a reference, to compare (this year's data) with the data of last year.

Source: Wheels24

So what is McLaren doing in development? Are they really just comparing or is something else (fishy?) going no here? As far as I know none of the other teams are using this tactic...

My guess is they are having problems with the stability of the rear of the 2009 spec car and are using the 2008 wing so that the development of the rest of the car isn't running behind.

[Gert]

It's just possible that they designed a 2009 rear wing wthout having 1st seen Toyota/Williams' & have realised that with a re-design they could get a lot more downforce & are having to wait for the part.

Or they have the part & just don't want to show it to people.

[Griff]

Just found this explanation online seems good enough really. Not entirely sure they don't have some wierd rear wing in the closet that they don't want other teams seeing though.

http://f1.gpupdate.net/en/news/2009/02/16/mclaren-using-2008-rear-wing-to-understand-2009-specs/

[bud]

yeah we are talking about it here too viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5301

[iPod]

I really hope they haven't cocked things up. The fact that they were only a few tenths ahead of the RedBull using a 2008 spec wing can't be a good sign. I just hope they are developing the rear wing as we speak (which I'm guessing pretty much every team is doing right now).

[dwightschultz]

I really hope they haven't cocked things up. The fact that they were only a few tenths ahead of the RedBull using a 2008 spec wing can't be a good sign. I just hope they are developing the rear wing as we speak (which I'm guessing pretty much every team is doing right now).

I'm thinking the same thing about cocking up... They can design all they want but history shows that if you don't have your act together a few weeks before the season starts the first few races you will suck big time until you catch up with the learning curve...

[bud]

they have stated they will be using it at the next test session.

as for the test times, you must take them with a grain of salt.

[Gaz]

they have stated they will be using it at the next test session.

as for the test times, you must take them with a grain of salt.

renault lol

[McLaren Fan]

The 2008 wing has been heavily modified as well, so it's producing similar amounts of the downforce to the 2009 car anyway. I'm not too worried that McLaren have got it wrong or anything along those lines, but I am slightly embarrassed for the P.R. department. There's been several different versions of events, so any nasty suspicions some have are not exactly unjustified.