McLaren explains U-shaped sidepods

The Woking-based outfit caused a stir on Friday when its new 2011 challenger featured some innovative design concepts - especially the raised U-shape sidepods.

McLaren technical director Paddy Lowe said the team had pushed so hard in this area of the car design because it wanted to recover a lot of the downforce lost due to the ban on double diffusers.

"I think there are some novel features on the car - the long wheelbase and U-shaped sidepods are probably the most obvious examples," said Lowe. "The thinking behind that is to feed as much good-quality air as possible to the rear-lower main plane and the floor of the car. We want to get the rear-end working as well as possible following the loss of performance caused by the banning of the double-diffuser."

McLaren engineering director Tim Goss reckoned that as well as pushing hard to find downforce, one of the key factors for success in 2011 will be in having a car that is well suited to the new Pirelli tyres.

"For me, there have been two: recovering the rear downforce we lost following the banning of the double-diffuser, and fully exploiting the Pirelli tyres," he explained. "The tyres only last for around 10 laps, and making them last longer is quite a challenge. So we need to look closely at how we configure the set-up and suspension to make the tyres last.

"We set ourselves a very ambitious aerodynamic target for 2011. We always want to do more and we're always very critical about performance, but we feel we've done a good job. We've identified some areas where we can add performance to the car - over the next weeks, the task will be to get them on to the car and reliable by the first race. That's the big challenge."