The first of the big guns to release their car were McLaren, with their MP4-27. Heralded and hyped by the team as radical, the launch was somewhat of a let down. At least from the front nothing looks radical at all.
That said, what of this car will be the car we will see in testing? McLaren have a habit of keeping things under wraps to protect any clever tech and this year was no different. The diffuser was completely covered and Martin Whitmarsh today announced "Our exhaust was made of plastic, you will never see these components in this form again."
Last year I do recall McLaren launching their car in Berlin with engine cover off. Of course the team didn’t disclose the cars real internals – what featured would have been a watered down version or something from a car years old. But we did see the very interesting ‘L’ shaped pods which have been sadly dropped this year. Apparently this is because of the revised rear packaging for the conventional layout exhaust rules. However those exhaust exits on the Macca looked distinctly odd, with strange bulges encasing them. This has led Spanish publication Marca to claim that the FIA’s Charlie Whiting will be travelling to Jerez to clarify if McLaren’s trick exhaust system is within the rules. They got away with the F-Duct, if this story is true let’s hope they get away with it to spice the season up...
No comments:
Post a Comment