F1 Fanatic

Just a thought that occured to me, and wondered if anyone knew the answer for sure.

Basically, I remember not so long ago that teams would sometimes change cars during a season, or use the previous year’s car partway through the season before introducing the new one. I know this doesn’t happen any more, with teams rolling out effectively a new car every season and then binning it at the end of the year.

But what got me thinking is that McLaren are struggling a little with their new car. Now I fully expect them to work on it and make it work properly, at which point it will all pay off. But imagine it didn’t for a moment, and they realised that the new car was a mistake and last year’s car would be quicker.

Last year’s car would still be more or less legal, barring a couple of tweaks, and has passed all of the crash tests and so on. So would there be anything stopping them from just showing up with last year’s car to do back to back tests, or run the older car in a race?

They definitely used to be able to do this, but I wonder if that’s changed and now they’d not be allowed. Anyone know?

Would it? The chassis are already homologated and passed FIA safety standards, so would just need to pass scrutineering surely?

(note – that should say ‘entries’ in the subject line…)

As great as it would be, there would be some problems. Getting the old car out would probably give them a lot more performance, but it would be at the detriment of track time of the new car, which means they may never figure out how to get a good handle on it. But, if they do think they have figured it out, and bring it out to a new race, and it doesn’t work, then it’ll be another wasted weekend.

If it is possible, then it’s an idea that they’d probably consider. However, I as I mentioned before, they will probably stick to their guns and try to figure it out. I reckon that they’ll have a good handle on it, and be a lot closer by Barcelona.

i forget where i read it, but a mclaren person explained they have already reached the maximum of the previous chassis’ development. while 2+ seconds off now, surely they will be comparable to the fastest cars at some point in the season.

i went through the 2013 sporting and technical regulations, but i can’t find any language relating to homologation of chassis/survival cells. engines yes, chassis no.

strangely i did find (tech) article 15.1 (permitted materials) which outlaws the coolest thing on earth, carbon nanotubes:
13) Carbon fibres manufactured from polyacrylonitrile (PAN) precursor which have :
- a tensile modulus ¡Â 550GPa ;
- a density ¡Â 1.92 g/cm ;
- unidirectional or planar reinforcement within their pre-impregnated form, not including three dimensional weaves or stitched fabrics (but three-dimensional preforms and fibre reinforcement using Z-pinning technology are permitted) ;
- no carbon nanotubes incorporated within the fibre or its matrix ;
- a permitted matrix, not including a carbon matrix.

I agree with all these points, I was just interested in whether they would be able to if they chose to. Thankfully, Whitmarsh himself has confirmed that, yes, they could if they wanted to, and that right now the MP4-27 would likely be faster than the 28, but that they intend to stick with the difficult new car because they believe that its potential for development is higher than the 27. I suspect there are other things there, such as gaining experience with the pullrod front suspension, so that they can decide whether it’s something that’ll be worth having on the 29.

Still, interesting to know that they could potentially fall back on the 27 if it all seemed to be going badly wrong.