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12 Apr 2015

McLaren tested a minor revision to their front brake ducts during Free Practice in China with a new arched fin at the ducts base, pictured on the right by Giorgio Piola.  The new fin is used to control how the airflow dissipated by the inside of the front tyre impacts on the airflow moving down the cars centreline, especially the Y250 vortex which the team are always eager to maintain control of.


  1. Matt....I enjoyed reading this, despite thinking before I clicked on your insight from NewsNowF1....that Im more than distressed that we are even talking about modded brake ducts when the PU is not making enough gains from race-to-race to warrant modifying brake ducts! I thought we were more worried about keeping the PU and ancilliares at optimum temperatures. I didnt think we were running fast enough at the moment to have "brake cooling" concerns just yet. Especially since as we are being told the PU is only running at 80% !!!!!! This car soon had better turn into an absolute %*((!^ monster beating Mercedes by 1.5-3.0 seconds a lap faster or my respect for Ron Dennis might take a slight dent!!! #:)

    1. Hi

      I can feel your pain but when Honda only have 9 tokens to spend and are still looking at ways to fix their issues patience is the only thing you can have. When it does this car will be a great machine, keeping apace with development is a must though otherwise once they do get the power they could be left a little adrift.

  2. Matt, this is off topic but I know you are well aware of the unusual cylinder deactivation Honda is using. Looking at the GP this weekend and hearing Martin Brundle's criticism of the Honda's exhaust note it occurred to me that Honda and McLaren may be doing something a bit clever here. The McLaren P1 has been widely praised for the seamless way it blends ERS energy to fill holes in the turbo boost, so its not like McLaren don't know what they are doing..OK this does not occur so much with a PU having a decent MGU-H but its widely known that the MGU-K coming in along with the turbo causes some pretty lurid torque fed oversteer. What interested me was Brundle's comment about how long the Honda ICE continued to misfire - he talked about lack of drivability and that got me wondering. Lets face it 6 years ago everyone wondered why F1 engines were making loud banging noises on the overrun and complaining about the sound but soon the reason became clear. So, I think he is missing the point: I suspect Honda McLaren may be using Cylinder deactivation as a form of Torque Control so that torque is vectored gradually as cylinders are brought on-line - this would certainly smooth the massive spike in torque that leads to some hairy oversteer . If its true it sounds suspiciously like TC but if they can get away with it full credit to them.


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