February 10, 2011

Tech: Where's Mclaren blowing?

Let's move on to something F1 that does not, at least not yet, involve lawyers.

You might have noticed or heard about Lotus Renault's (the black and gold one...) and their forward placed exhaust. This picture from AutoMotor und Sport and Autosprint hints that Mclaren did one better: they have the exhaust blowing from the leading edge of the lower tub, the knife edge about where the body ends and the nose begins. It must also be more or less below where Hamilton and Button's buttocks will rest so one would hope it's well insulated.

The idea is to blow hot air over the longest possible length of the underbody as possible. Rules prevent designers from blowing air through the floor as they did last season so this is an attempt to blow around the rule.
Some who know aero more than I are not convinced but, as usual the proof will be in the lap times. In the meantime viva out of the box thinking!


end of post

4 comments:

  1. Don't forget that air exits at 800deg, then cools down, probably to 400/200 deg by the rear diffuser. What do gases when they cool down... They contract. This looks like a thermic ground effect.

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  2. http://yfrog.com/h6kvluj

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  3. I'm sure Mclaren's smart enough to go testing with different solutions, don't you think?

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  4. Ferrari don't seem to have...

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