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Push Push Push - McLarens Woes
Adrian Newey
Newey is an aerodynamics or a fluids guy. His forte' is aerodynamics and not the mechanical function of the car. This is why he wants to design a "Cup" sailboat, because it is nothing but fluid dynamics that makes the boat fast with exception to the crew. Granted I'm sure he does have some input into mechanical aspects of the car but I would suspect his focus is on aerodynamics. As far as I can tell visually, the -19 is a very sleak car that appears to be efficient.
The first of the -19 problems is with a twitchy and unstable car under braking. The drivers have complained of this and Kimi has probably been the most vocal on this.
Personally, I don't believe this is an aerodynamics problem but a mechanical grip problem contributed to the suspension primarily. I think this is a real struggle for them and they can't come to grips (no pun intended) with how to set the car up to overcome the problem or maybe the problem can't be overcome.
The 2nd of the -19 problems is of course with the engine. It is unreliable and underpowered. Mercedes quite other forms of racing 4 years ago so as to focus more on F1. They should have better results than this.
My honest opinion of the Mclaren is this. They simply forgot what was important when designing a race car. They made it aerodynamically sleek, very small car. They designed it for aerodynamics, but they forgot that while it needs to be efficient, it also needs to still be a race car.
Newey is the 'chief aerodynamacist' so his function on the team is to handle the basic packaging of the car so that tings are in an area conducive to high aerodynamic efficiency. He is not designing control arms, nor is he running ADAMS simulations to get the suspension sorted out right.
After the 18 fiasco, and now this w/ the 19, keeping in mind that the 19 was the first new car out on track, and it can't even finish a damn practice session. I have lost a little bit of faith in the boys in silver. I have no doubt that they will be back, ferrari came back from some bad years 80's and early 90's, but if they want to do it quickly, they should scrap this current design philosophy, go back to a more conservative package, and just make sure everything works well.
IT seems that mclaren and to a certain extent williams are on the 'leading edge' as far as design goes (read fooling around with the ridiculous twin keel), but when you go out on the 'leading edge' it takes a while to get things sorted out, if you ever do at all. If you go out and design a fundamentally sound car, it'll likely be bloody fast, and bloody reliable.
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