Malaysian GP reveals key car details

The Malaysian Grand Prix isn't the obvious race for a plethora of updates, but there is a huge amount of technical interest in aspects of car detail that are only just starting to emerge.


Aside from race-specific cooling set-ups related to the power units and brakes, and McLaren's upgrades, there is still plenty to look at at Sepang.



Mercedes

Unsurprisingly given its performance to date, there are no obvious changes to the W06 for Sepang.


Its performance aside, the striking thing about the car is how neat and integrated it has become. And last year's W05 was already a tidy car, especially the power unit installation and the electronics around the sidepods.


Looking at the front bulkhead as a case in point, the detail work is apparent. This is a busy area of the car, where the inboard suspension, steering, sensors/electronics and brake reservoirs are mounted.

With this complexity hanging off the front of the car, Mercedes - like many teams - fits a carbon cover over them to protect them during nose changes.


When removed, the brake-fluid reservoirs are immediately visible for better access to the rest of the hardware, and the team temporarily cable ties them out of the way.


At the bottom of the bulkhead is a carbonfibre structure that seals the fairings under the nose to streamline the underside of the car.


The packaging of the W06 has impressed our technical expert © LAT

In this beak-like structure is a small window. Correspondingly, above the window is a laser sensor for measuring road speed, the sensor itself sitting in a bespoke carbon housing that also covers the steering rack.


Mercedes is unique in making its steering rack a hybrid structure. The outer body is made from carbonfibre bonded to the thin aluminium internals.


This creates a lighter, stiffer structure, which also loses less strength when hot, a problem with aluminium parts.


Above the rack there is hydraulic manifold, with fluid lines and dry-break connectors, which is for the front suspension.


Many of the parts associated with this are similar to the FRIC (Front Rear Inter Connected) system run up until the German GP last year.


However, the hydraulic system is only applied to the front suspension and not linked to the rear, and is therefore still legal.


Mercedes runs both a coil spring and a hydraulic spring for heave control of the front suspension, with the weight of the car taken by the mechanical spring and the tuning achieved with the hydraulic element.


Access to pressurise and tune the hydraulic suspension system is via the front-mounted manifold.


Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg split the Friday honours in Malaysia © LAT

Just as with the heave springing, the front bulkhead houses the anti-roll. But in contrast to the heave spring, the anti-roll appears to be purely mechanical.


The anti-roll bar is mounted to two stout metal brackets at the top of the bulkhead. Two levers connect inside the footwell to the pushrod rocker and are then joined by a torsion bar that engages with the splines in the levers.


Changing the anti-roll bar stiffness is achieved by pulling the torsion bar sideways out of the bulkhead and fitting a different stiffness spring.


The ARB mounts are very strong as they also mount the wheel retention tethers, which can be seen emerging from the upper wishbone.


Other electronics on the bulkhead are for the different sub looms that connect to the car's main loom.


There's one loom for each separate front-suspension upright (brake, wheel speed, pushrod load), one for the front end (pedals, steering, dampers) and one for the front wing (rideheight/load sensors, FOM camera).



Ferrari


Ferrari's top speed has been impressive, as has the fact that it can run relatively closed bodywork in the Sepang heat.


These two are the product of similar designs; the Ferrari sidepods are particularly tight and the radiator packaging is novel as we explained in Melbourne.

Ferrari has fitted a series of louvres to turn the airflow from the duct into the radiator and more vanes to turn the airflow back within the sidepods.


The team's technical director, James Allison, confirmed that their purpose is to divert the airflow through the radiator core, as Ferrari has such flat-mounted radiators.


He explained the venetian blind-like carbon covers over the top of the radiator prevent airflow separation over the radiator, adding that the vaned set-up is worth a significant amount of performance.


These radiator vanes therefore allow for smaller sidepods and fewer outlet ducts, which both reduce drag.



Williams

By reducing the radiator and sidepod package over last year, Williams has needed to open up the bodywork this weekend to cope with the Malaysian heat.


Already Williams runs permanent louvres around the roll hoop and just inboard of these are the removable panels near the cockpit opening.


For this weekend these panels have been aggressively opened up. Just as the panel widens towards the rear, the louvres become ever larger to create more cooling area.

Equally, the opening at the rear of the sidepods has been enlarged to further aid cooling.


While these changes do help they come at the cost of increasing drag, which hurts top speed. Williams was relatively slow on top speed compared with its rivals on Sepang's long straights.



McLaren


After completing a race distance in Melbourne, McLaren continued its progress with a clean pair of practice sessions at Sepang.


Despite the heat, the car remained reliable, albeit some way from the pace. However this improvement in power unit reliability is still coming at the cost of performance, with less than 100 per cent power available from the Honda engine.


Regardless, the progress has allowed McLaren to start work on new chassis parts, with both a revised front wing and a ducted nose on both cars this weekend.


At its launch, the McLaren's odd junction between the nose and chassis suggested a ducted nose was to be introduced at some stage.


The cars were altered with a new vanity panel, internal S-Duct and cosmetically revised nosecone. With this set-up an inlet is created under the nose that collects air and ducts it back over the top of the chassis.


This cleans up the airflow both under and over the car, as well as allowing for a slimmer nose cone.


This was originally a Sauber idea, then adopted by Red Bull. The link between McLaren and an S-duct is Peter Prodromou, the ex-Red Bull head of aero who is now at the team.


Unrelated to the S-Duct was a new front-wing flap set-up. This is essentially the same front wing as the Melbourne spec, but the cascade winglet loses the smaller outer winglet and the wing's two front wing flaps are subtly reshaped at its inner tips.


This brings McLaren yet closer to a contemporary front-wing set-up, with more complex shape to the inner section of wing and less complexity of cascade design.


We can expect further development from McLaren in this area over the season.