How did McLaren get Indy so wrong?



Fernando Alonso failed to qualify for the Indianapolis 500. How is this possible? The McLaren entry is a new team, but surely it can't be that difficult to set the car up to be quick enough to be in the top 30 at what is a simple track?
Karl Wagner, via email

The three drivers who didn't qualify will all tell you they were flat out for their four-lap runs, so in reality couldn't do any more with the package that they had. Indy is all about very small margins, and these come from the car.

I don't think you should ever underestimate how difficult it is to get the performance out of a car around an oval, especially an oval where the speeds are in excess of - or at least knocking on the door of - 230mph.

I have been there and when it is all going well and the car is responding to those minute changes, it's all good. But when it starts to go wrong and nothing seems to make the difference it is soul destroying.

The simplest things like wind direction, temperature, cloud cover, the after effects of rain or even the difference in running with others or being out there on your own changes the car dramatically. As such, experience is critical.

The basic car set-up is complicated but fairly well defined as far as differences from the left hand to right hand side of the car - springs, different cambers, caster, damper settings, toe etc are all necessary - but it is the finetuning of wing levels and ride height that brings the final couple of mph. And remember, it's the average of four laps not just one white-knuckle ride.

One thing that the experienced IndyCar driver likes is for the car to have to be held to the right in a straight line. This means that in the corner the steering wheel is straight and as you release that load in the steering wheel that's keeping the car in a straight line, the car wants to turn the corner on its own so you can feel the car that bit better.

I notice that Alonso's steering is straight on the straights and has some lock on it in the corner. I think this means that the car has to be forced into the corner and it doesn't want to do it on its own, which means that the steering feeling will be different and the feedback sensitivity will also be different.

It is a McLaren entry but I don't know who has put together the engineering structure behind the entry or how - and even if it is made up of good people it always takes some time to get it all working together. On top of that, adapting it all to a driver who is doing just his second oval event would not be easy.

Alonso did a fantastic job last time, but that was driving for a team with bucketloads of experience and he probably just got on with what they gave him.

This year it was his second time around, he was with a 'new' team and he might just have been doing too much of what we have seen from Alonso for quite a few seasons in Formula 1. He tends to just get too involved in everything himself. When it gets like that and you can't or don't stand back and just be the driver, give your feedback and let the team's experience see you through, you just end up going around in circles. I think that is what I am seeing with Alonso's 2019 effort at Indy.

By contrast, Marcus Ericsson qualified in a very solid 13th for his first Indy 500 after dropping out of F1 and moving into IndyCar with the experience of the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team behind him. That's a better run than his 2016 Indy 500 pole-winning team-mate, James Hinchcliffe, and shows what can be done with a team that's dialled in and a methodical approach.

Is the switch to a spec brake system a good decision for F1? We often hear drivers talking about different systems suiting them better or worse, so would the plan to have brake pads, discs and the braking system the same for everyone favour some drivers and go against others?
Ben Smith, via email

Any change to a spec system in any area of the car will reduce the opportunity for a team to optimise its own design. Some would say that there are a lot of components that cost a lot of money and don't really influence the performance, but I don't think brakes are among them.

Formula 1 has spec tyres and some teams get them to work and some don't. This is very similar to the brakes - you can either have the team philosophy of 'blame' or 'responsibility'.

It is each team's responsibility to take whatever makes up the package and get it to work to suit its own requirements. The more spec parts you have, the more difficult that is to achieve. But if you can just go out and spend your way to achieve that, then the better-funded teams will do so faster.

If it was my decision, I would go in a slightly different direction and try to help the smaller teams and, on the way, hopefully cut the costs for everyone.

I would suggest that a team that isn't manufacturer-backed should have the option to buy components that are listed as non-performance ones from a manufacturer team - or even an outside supplier. In reality, that is what happens at the moment with engines and gearboxes but it could extend to braking systems, power steering, upright assemblies etc.

If the price was pre-set at what the FIA believes is an acceptable level - and that should include engines - then let the works teams spend as much as they want on developing it with the knowledge that the sale price to another team is set.

You could build up a jigsaw of bits with an engine from Mercedes, a gearbox from Ferrari and a brake system from Renault, but I would suggest it would be better to work with one manufacturer.

It would also justify the higher payments from Liberty Media to the manufacturer teams as this could be used for development, so the price to the smaller teams could be really reduced.

Do you think Mercedes finishing one-two in every race makes for entertaining viewing?
David Nielson, via Facebook

No, I don't think it is good for anything. When you more or less know the result on a Saturday afternoon and it gets confirmed by lap five of the race it doesn't really spice anything up.

But what do you do about it? If a small team gets a jump then the big teams will always be able to spend their way to success even if it might take a bit of time. And history has proved that these upsets don't happen very often. I suppose the last time was 2009 with Brawn, but even then that wasn't really a small team and the car design was well under way when Honda decided to pull the plug - and actually the swap to a Mercedes engine was also a positive step.

What we all want is more battling, with more potential overtaking moves in proper racing conditions. We don't want a destruction derby and we don't want motorway overtakes like we often have now with DRS. So, how can we achieve that? For me the only way is reverse championship grids. Many people will say it artificial but I don't agree. We will always remember the drives where the best came from behind and scored a good result.

If this was done we would head into Monaco and the grid would be: 1 Kubica; 2 Russell; 3 Giovinazzi; 4 Grosjean; 5 Kvyat; 6 Albon; 7 Stroll; 8 Hulkenberg; 9 Ricciardo; 10 Sainz; 11 Norris; 12 Raikkonen; 13 Perez; 14 Magnussen; 15 Gasly; 16 Leclerc; 17 Vettel; 18 Verstappen; 19 Bottas; 20 Hamilton.

Now would that be a race to watch. Would we have the same winner as last time out? Probably not. Would Kubica hang on to win? Probably not. Would we know the winner before the chequered flag? Probably not. That's the suspense we want to be watching.

It would also force the teams to take on the responsibility of designing cars to be aerodynamically efficient in traffic as opposed to the waste of effort from the powers that be to come up with a set of regulations that will achieve it.

It will never happen, but if it did I'm pretty sure the viewing figures would increase as opposed to the opposite.

When teams have trouble getting tyres up to temperature, why don't they put a touch more toe (in or out) to generate heat? It would slightly change the handling, but I think I'd rather have hot tyres on an imperfect set-up than cold tyres on a perfect one.
Nigel Charman, via email

As you say, it would impact the handling and set-up but more importantly if the increased toe in or out induces higher tyre temperatures for that critical one-lap qualifying they would then overheat over a stint distance. Remember, the cars are in parc ferme from the start of qualifying until the lights go out for the race so no opportunity to tinker with anything like that.

As most teams are able to show, it is possible to get the tyres working for qualifying and in the race it is very easy to 'blame' the tyres. But they are just another part of the car that the teams are 'responsible' for making work.

Getting the best out of tyres is not easy, but it has never been easy and with current car design all heading towards optimising the aerodynamic performance of the car, suspension design has taken a back seat. But when someone gets it all working together, they end up getting the results.

I think Mercedes is proof of this. Go back to 2013 and Mercedes was fast but the car ate the rear tyres. Since then, the team has been working on getting the best out of both situations and five world championships in succession shows it is now reaping the benefit of all that effort.

Have you heard anything to substantiate Liberty's claims that there are teams interested in joining the grid once the new regulations are formalised?
James Frankland, via Facebook

I'm afraid not, but during this time of change I am not surprised if a few potential teams are enquiring. When it comes to the final rules and, more importantly, what gets sorted relative to budget control, most will be scared away.

Currently, you need a budget of something like £100million per season just to survive and no matter how deep your pockets, that is a lot of money. To add to that, it is not only for the first year that you need to look at as you would need to have a minimum of five years' funding before you could be confident that performance would pull in some reasonable sponsors.

Add to that budget, which is just to show up to races with a car, you also need to invest in facilities and equipment. Depending on how you want to go about it that means a huge initial investment. I haven't done any budgets lately, but I wouldn't be surprised if you needed another £100m to £150m just for the bare bones of a facility - and that wouldn't include anything for a windtunnel or any other luxuries.

Zandvoort returns to the F1 calendar next year. What memories do you have of the place and will it be as bad for racing as everyone says it will be?
Thomas Dean, via email

Zandvoort is just another circuit and I see no reason why it will be worse or better than some of the circuits that F1 currently visits.

Changes are being made to the track and if the corner onto the main straight is banked as planned then, as long as there are two lines through it that give the same lap time more or less, perhaps we will see someone driving around the outside of another car! But I'm not holding my breath.

As far as memories are concerned, the one that I can publish is about how we used to go about handling the sand that blows about everywhere. If you let it go through the engine it would just destroy the valves and valve seats, reducing the engine performance.

For the practice sessions, we would grease the inside of the airbox to try to attract the sand in the air to stick to it. At the end of every session, we would wash it out and re-apply it but for the race we would take with us, or go out and find, some ladies' stockings (not too difficult at Zandvoort), and after greasing the inside of the airbox we would use small strips of tape to stick the upper leg of the stocking around the opening of the airbox, tuck the middle of it, which we also greased, inside the air-box, bring the foot area back out again and tape it to the driver's headrest area.

At the start and for the first few laps, cars were always going everywhere so there was lots of sand getting blown up but by about lap five when everything had settled down the driver would reach behind their head, grab the foot of the stocking and pull it off - getting rid of all that excess sand.

That's back when it was hard work! But we were also able to contribute and have some fun on the way.

Ground effect has been said to be the saviour of future F1 aero rules. Yet back in the 1980s drivers were complaining about it, and indeed it did go too far. It became physically dangerous and the risk of a massive crash if something went wrong was always there. So what needs to be done differently if F1 decides that ground effect is the way to go?
Juuso Taipale, via Twitter

As you say, ground effect in the past was out of control. The underbody tunnels just got bigger and bigger, and the throat of the tunnel, which is where the peak low pressures are created, moved more and more forward, and as low to the ground as possible.

But this also meant that the underbody suffered from airflow separation. With all this, and to keep some aerodynamic consistency, the front of the cars were run more or less solid so if anything went wrong you were in the hedge before you knew what happened.

In the late 1970s, I remember a Ligier going past the pits at Monza and it had such a huge airflow separation problem that it created some dramatic porpoising. So, instead of just the suspension moving up and down with the varying aerodynamic load, it was actually lifting the front wheels off the ground. When the airflow would reattach it pulled the car back down. It was scary from the outside to say the least, so in the car it must have been horrendous.

If ground effect were to come back, some basic controls of where the throat of the tunnel is positioned, as well as the size of the leading edge and the exit area, this would keep the downforce produced under control. This would need to be done in line with a wing size reduction to, at worst, keep the downforce at the current level.

You often talk about controlling the aerodynamic centre of pressure. Can you explain a little more about how you do this as surely it remains similar in all states? In what circumstances does it help to move it and how much can it vary by?
Lucas Martin, via email

If you take all the downforce-producing devices that are spread all over the car, they all produce forces. Take all these together and they produce a distribution of that force that, let's say, is something like 40% front and 60% rear.

If you reduce the front wing angle that will then be, let's say, 39% front and 61% rear, or increase the front wing angle and you might get 41% front and 59% rear. The total may decrease or increase, but the distribution will always be what is on the front and rear axle - that is the centre of pressure.

When the car is running, the ride height will change as the load increases with speed. Between slow speed, let's say 80km/h, and high speed, let's say 320km/h, this means the front ride height will reduce from about 25mm to 5mm - so that's 20mm.

The rear will reduce on a normal low-rake car such as the Mercedes from 80mm to 20mm - so a 60mm reduction. That is a 3:1 ratio and it is during this change in ride height that you want to, as a minimum, keep the downforce distribution at a stable percentage. It will be more on a high rake car like the Red Bull.

The thing that influences this is how aggressive the front wing loads are when they are away from the ground at low speed. This will mean that the front wing will stall as it gets closer to the ground, meaning that this load distribution will go rearwards. If it doesn't and the diffuser stalls early then the load distribution will go forwards.

This centre of pressure can also be influenced by steering angle, so there are many things that can work for or against you depending on your car's requirements.

Current F1 cars normally tend to understeer a bit in slow speed corners, so you want to have the centre of pressure forward in slow corners - at say 41% front, up to 150/180km/h - then start to move consistently rearwards, ending up at around 39% front in the very fast corners.

On top of this, with increased steering lock you want the centre of pressure to move forward. This means that if you have an understeer problem more lock will increase front grip, reducing he understeer.

If it all works like this, you will have a car that makes sense to the driver and you can optimise it. If it works in the opposite way then you will end up with a car that will spend more time parked in the gravel trap than it will spend on the track.

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