How much is McLaren worth? The feeling is that the Woking team in Bahrain did not show its best side: Lando Norri's sixth place and eighth are certainly not in line with the expectations of the race, even if the Sakhir track was one of the least congenial to the characteristics of the MCL38.
The tune should change already in Jeddah, where the Papaya single-seaters should be more at ease. In the opening round of the season, the single-seater kept a very interesting technical secret which reveals the care with which the MCL38 project was developed.
Detail of the McLaren MCL3: the steering column in front of the chassis is no longer visible
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
Even the most attentive observers have missed the fact that the steering column is no longer visible from the front, mounted low in the body, with the arm creating a blowing with the front element of the lower suspension triangle.
On the McLaren, the technicians led by former Red Bull, Rob Walker, decided to move the steering to the floor of the chassis, beyond the rear arm of the lower triangle. In addition to having moved the weight lower and closer to the center of gravity, from the design of Giorgio Piola it is easy to see that an aerodynamic advantage was also sought.
The steering arm, in fact, appears to be the last element of the sequence: it is positioned behind the rear one of the lower triangle and helps to create a blowing with the suspension useful for laminating the flow which is destined for the Venturi channels in the bottom.
Detail of the steering arm mounted on the McLaren MCL38 behind the suspension and very low
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
The first red arrow identifies the arm, the second, the one closest to the body, highlights how this part has been adequately machined to facilitate correct movement.
On the 2020 Red Bull RB16 the steering arm was behind the suspension compared to the RB15
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
This is an extreme version of a concept that could produce results. On the 2020 RB16, Red Bull had dared something much less extreme at the front: the steering arm was mounted at the rear, but at half height with respect to the chassis. A solution that in 2021 had been copied from the AlphaTauri AT02 without great results, so much so that Adrian Newey then returned to more orthodox concepts on single-seaters that gave birth to the era of ground effect cars.
2021 AlphaTauri AT02: Suspension detail with the steering arm mounted at the rear and mid-height
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
Neil Houldey and Peter Prodromou wanted to dare, introducing a new, decidedly more extreme concept: Norris and Piastri did not complain about the handling of their McLaren with a steering system decidedly different from the others: it will be interesting to find out if it is an idea that will be destined to teach, after Newey's gamble had not yielded all the expected results.
:McLaren MCL38: The steering arm has been moved from being in front of the suspension triangle to behind
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
In Woking they looked for more consistent aerodynamic feedback to feed the surface more efficiently: having had the courage to promote a new line of research must certainly be credited to Andrea Stella's engineers: the MCL38 is still an F1 that needs to be discovered in all the details. We will see in Jeddah if he will be able to extract the potential that was expected from McLaren after the amazing comeback carried out in the second part of last season.
#McLaren #MCL38 #steering #arm #suspension
