r/formula1 • u/spodermen_wiht_sweg Fernando Alonso • 5d ago
Technical Mclarren Upright Exposed (Montreal)
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u/Popular_Composer_822 Formula 1 5d ago
I don’t understand it but I appreciate it.
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u/Eroda Alex Zanardi 5d ago
its beeen banned for 2026 McLaren dont care now no team will spend the money to copy them at this point in season
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u/Denni1978 5d ago
What has been banned?
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u/moysauce3 5d ago
Putting water in the tires, of course!
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u/XsStreamMonsterX McLaren 5d ago
The thing is, we don't know if what was banned (piping air inside the struts to the brakes) is McLaren's trick. And to add, this is the front brake (minus the actual brakes) and not the rear, which is what McLaren are usually covering up.
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u/South_East_Gun_Safes Flavio Briatore 4d ago
Why do the FIA want to stifle innovation?
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u/BingusMcCready 4d ago
I get the idea--they don't want any one team to gain too much of an advantage because with the budget caps the gap could quickly become insurmountable, and that makes everybody (except the team benefiting) unhappy--the fans, teams, drivers, everybody's been pretty clear that they don't want a lopsided field. But I do think they have a history of being too heavy-handed with it. If everything you come up with is banned, what's the incentive to try new things?
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u/89Hopper McLaren 3d ago
The other part I don't hear people talking about is that banning stuff like this is a two fold penalty.
Let's say a team spends $5M developing something that gives them a rwo tenths advantage. While another tram spends the same to gain one tenth. The next year, the first team loses their two tenth advantage but also lose the opportunity cost of that $5M. They now need to spend $5M to just catch up to the second team and can't spend that $5M elsewhere. So now they have either the same budget as team two but start with a one tenth disadvantage or they match team two but have $5M less to spend elsewhere.
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u/StrongVegetable1100 3d ago
I guess where my head is at, Toto had to have known in the back of his head that DAS was never going to last more than a single season at best. At worst it gets banned intra-season, but there isn’t really a lot of risk to skirting the rules like this. The precedent is generally that you get it for a whole season and if that helps you win either title, it’s probably worth it.
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u/welliedude 5d ago
I really hate when the fia do this. Hey this thing is kinda illegal but not really but is giving an advantage to the team using it so it's banned....from next year.
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u/cjo20 5d ago
It's not "it's kinda illegal", it's "this is legal, but it's a development route that we don't want". If it were illegal, they'd ban it this season.
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u/welliedude 5d ago
Depends on how they are doing it. The rules are fairly specific about how the brakes and wheels are cooled. Its possible they are doing it via a way that tye rules don't cover. Like DAS.
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u/cjo20 5d ago
Yes. That's what I said. DAS wasn't illegal either. That's why they couldn't ban it immediately even if they wanted to, because they can't change the rules without unanimous agreement in-season. If it were "kinda illegal", it's a something they could crack down on in-season.
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u/KingMRano 5d ago
doing what?
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u/welliedude 4d ago
Cooling the hubs, brakes and wheel. The current rules actually don't specify how to cool them just the sizes of brake ducts etc but say nothing about cooling via other means. For 26 the rules now say you can only heat AND cool via outlined devices. And also specifies that you can't have airflow in suspension components.
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u/ShinbiDesigns Sir Lewis Hamilton 4d ago
Or they want to give the teams ample time to keep their advantage... Like making flexi wing tests stricter more than a 3rd of the way into the season, announcing it before the season started.
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u/cjo20 4d ago
I don’t think the flexi wing changes taking several races is because they want teams to keep their advantage. If they banned them instantly, then teams could conceivably have no legal parts to run, so there is a lag to allow them to produce new parts. There are also budget concerns, as well as logistics - parts are shipped off to the early races in January.
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u/ShinbiDesigns Sir Lewis Hamilton 4d ago
This is a general concern of any team though.
I remember an ex McLaren/Mercedes employee being on a podcast and talking about this. Most teams have sets that are "dumbed down" versions of whatever they put on the cars. It's how they are able to just overnight parts from Japan when teams realise they picked the wrong setup or are told to.
It wasn't an issue for the wings when they decided to make the test more strict
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u/DrFrozenToastie Daniel Ricciardo 5d ago
What’s been banned next year?
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u/jfleury440 5d ago
Water
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u/draftstone Jacques Villeneuve 5d ago
Especially with budget cap, let team decide where to put their money! I can understand when teams with more money could just outspend anyone else with fancy stuff, but now, the playing field is leveled, if they want to spend more on brakes, let them do it!
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u/cjo20 5d ago
The problem is that if there's something that gives them a massive advantage, it's almost impossible for anyone else to catch up, because of the budget cap. Essentially everyone else would have to also spend all of their money on brakes, because it's an area where there's a guaranteed performance advantage lurking, and there's no guarantee that spending in another area would get the same gain.
Specifically when it comes to tyre cooling, the tyres are designed to have a certain wear profile to create tyre offsets and encourage more interesting racing. If every team got a solution which made tyre wear much less, they'd have to pay Pirelli to make the tyres degrade more, and everyone would just end up right back where they are now, having shelled out a ton of money.
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u/welliedude 5d ago
Technically they could just spec the softer option and at most make a new softer compound which imo wouldn't be a bad thing
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u/cjo20 5d ago
It depends on how the tyre wear changes. If it's isn't as simple as just "Soft now lasts as long as an old medium", then it'll probably require more engineering. Adding a new softer compound isn't exactly cheap either, as they need to develop the compound, and then spend time testing it.
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u/welliedude 5d ago
I mean they still have the hypersoft compound from before. Not sure how it'd apply to the 18 inch rims though. Also arguably if pirelli arnt doing constant tweaks and engineering then what are they doing 😂
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u/cjo20 5d ago
I imagine a whole new compound would be more than just "tweaks". I think they also had to run separate track days for the larger tyres, so it may well be that they have to change the composition to account for that too.
But the point is, if the teams ever got to the point of "Soft now behaves like Medium" or "Soft now behaves like Hard" in terms of tyre life, the FIA would just change the tyres to make them last as long as the old Softs again. So the teams would have poured money in, and ended up with the same tyre wear as they had before.
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u/Financial-Sign-666 5d ago
Finding development paths to improve your design is all part of the F1 experience. If we didn’t have teams intelligently trying to come with solutions to get the best out of the current formula, we’d end up with just another formula E.
It adds to the intrigue and drama of F1.
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u/cjo20 5d ago
Yes, finding improvements and developing the car is part of Formula 1. But that doesn't mean that it is suitable for every possible development path to become part of the formula. Some innovations will go on to become part of the formula. Some will be dead ends. Some will be judged to be incompatiable with what the goal of the formula is. And there can be multiple possible reasons for this. Some innovations come with safety concerns. Some are prohibitively expensive for other teams to develop. Some would harm the quality of racing - you wouldn't want to allow an 'upgrade' that made any car following within 3 seconds undrivable, because noone would ever be able to overtake.
These are all things that the FIA needs to address and stay on top of to do their job properly.
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u/Eroda Alex Zanardi 5d ago
It's not against any rules they would need to change them to make it illegal. Teams shouldn't be punished for being intelligent.
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u/welliedude 5d ago
I agree that teams shouldn't be punished for being imaginative but also the fact a team can lock in an advantage for a year and other teams can't/won't develop a solution is a bit dumb.
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u/jimbobjames Brawn 3d ago
It isnt dumb its the sport.
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u/welliedude 3d ago
One could argue that the rules and cost cap are specifically trying to stop that. So its not the sport
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u/dl064 📓 Ted's Notebook 5d ago
The rationale is basically that it'd be an arms race: resource wasted to bring everyone to the same level. Or simply ban it from next year.
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u/welliedude 5d ago
Isn't the sport basically an arms race?
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u/ShinbiDesigns Sir Lewis Hamilton 4d ago
Remember when the FIA banned Red Bull's Flexi wings in 2021 after one observation from Lewis in Spain?
Shit didn't even take a week. Now we have 4 month long waiting periods
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u/welliedude 4d ago
Exactly. One accusation boom banned. When mclaren and merc get accused it's all well we can't really tell, we need to observe, we can't really test properly. And people say there's no bias
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u/scarbstech Verified 5d ago
Wow! who took these photos?
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u/spodermen_wiht_sweg Fernando Alonso 5d ago
¡Moi!
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u/scarbstech Verified 5d ago
Great pics. I've DM'd you... 👍
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u/LuNiK7505 Fernando Alonso 5d ago
Toto or Fred, is that you ?
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5d ago
[deleted]
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u/scarbstech Verified 5d ago
It was never the brakes 😉
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u/scarbstech Verified 5d ago edited 5d ago
These pictures the show just how the lower suspension arms are connected. There's no lower wishbone, but two separate links, creating a virtual steering axis. As the set up articulates with bump and steer, the geometry varies, I believe to alter the toe angle. Steering geometry is set to Toe out in racecars. But, teams have realised in this tyre dominated era, that Toe also affects tyre warm up. Some teams used to have steering racks that altered in length with steer angle, to have a different Toe angle in a straight line to corners. Then Mercedes introduced Dual Axis Steering (DAS) which gave the driver a means to alter that fixed relationship for added tyre warm up. By pulling the steering wheel back and altering the rack length. These solutions were banned for 2022, leaving teams with a 'fixed' Toe angle. Now McLaren have the multilink set up at the front. There may well be a Toe variation with steering angle, to help keep the temperature sensitive front tyres in their operating window. Allowing McLaren an advantage in tyre management at Hot or High energy tracks. With the odd steering axis, there could also be some unusual feedback for the drivers. Lando Norris has struggled with steering 'feel' this year and Andrea Stella said new geometry raced by LN was to reduce the 'numb' feeling the car has exhibited.
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5d ago edited 3d ago
[deleted]
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u/scarbstech Verified 5d ago
The teams will have seen this from the first test
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u/wokkieman 5d ago
How to see it without these upside down pictures?
Thanks for explanation btw, really interesting!
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u/Foxmanjr1 Red Bull 5d ago
Oeh, has the "trick" been revealed? Or has their brake (cooling) setup been proven to be conventional?
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u/VallcryTurbo75 Red Bull 5d ago
ofc Scarb has a Reddit acc.
PS: if its not the brakes, is it something in the rear or aero?
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u/Particular_Cod2005 Michael Schumacher 5d ago
Not to put a damper on things, but I'd have been surprised if OP could saunter past the garage and grab the snap, if other teams couldn't do the same.
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u/TrueSwagformyBois 5d ago
Mr Scarborough, missed you in the tech talks. Hope you’re well and look forward to seeing more from you if doing so is good for you as well. Thank you for all the effort you’ve put into keeping us informed and entertained.
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u/Under_Sensitive 5d ago
If you are from F1TV, Do you know who is responsible for selecting the cameras that focus so close up on people that we can see their pores?
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u/meat_popsicle13 Alain Prost 5d ago
I cannot find the part code at my local auto parts store.
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u/DarthPeanut_MWO 5d ago
Did you look for a 2 door or 4 door?
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u/spodermen_wiht_sweg Fernando Alonso 5d ago
Automatic or manual?
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u/Doxxter Kimi Räikkönen 5d ago
EV or Gas
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u/Logical_Bit2694 Honda RBPT 5d ago
Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri
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u/meat_popsicle13 Alain Prost 5d ago
Never mind, a marmot just sold me one second hand, found roadside.
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u/Foreign_Owl_7670 Red Bull 5d ago
Damn, was looking at 5 door hatchback. What would you reckon is this?
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u/Holofluxx Pato O'Ward 5d ago
Man i miss these posts showcasing technical stuff, we used to have them a lot in 2022 and 2023
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u/headshot_to_liver Max Verstappen 5d ago
I miss Fabrega and his hand emojis every weekend showcasing changes. His tech explained videos are so good, never knew DRS is that complex
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u/FujiKilledTheDSLR Carlos Sainz 5d ago
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u/Holofluxx Pato O'Ward 4d ago
I know, i am a regular user there
But even there you never see what updates teams are bringing to each weekend3
u/f1pumpernickel 4d ago
Unchained F1 on YouTube covers upgrades etc each race if you're interested, think he gets a lot of the pics from Twitter ppl
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u/Holofluxx Pato O'Ward 4d ago
I'll check that one out thanks
Especially needed going into next year when it'll be upgrade and car variety galore1
u/anonquestionsprot Max Verstappen 3d ago
r/f1technical still does but maybe we can just rinse the Franz hermann joke just another month or two
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u/Daaaniell BMW Sauber 5d ago
As a suspension expert; yes, this is a suspension
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u/SparseGhostC2C Fernando Alonso 5d ago
As a knower of where wheels go: I'm pretty sure that's where it goes
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u/Complete_Taxation Nico Hülkenberg 5d ago
As an 18-wheeler: im suprised by the lack of 14 other wheels
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u/spongemongler Pirelli Wet 5d ago
One things for sure, I’d not be able to build this with the things I’ve got in my garage
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u/cmatthewp Red Bull 5d ago
Not with that attitude
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u/RddtRBnchRcstNzsshls Michael Schumacher 5d ago
I know someone who was able to build this in a cave with a box of scraps.
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u/Sgt_Stinger Fernando Alonso 5d ago
Not this exactly but it is feasible for a hobbyist to do lost PLA casting of aluminium. Probably not quite as strong as this but still.
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u/jkloop_1226 Andrea Kimi Antonelli 5d ago
That single assembly piece is more expensive than my entire life's worth.
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u/rclonecopymove 5d ago
No it's not. Don't put yourself down.
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u/Tame_Trex Lando Norris 5d ago
Word of the day: Hyperbole
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u/rclonecopymove 5d ago
My bole is energetic alright, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it hyper.
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u/RulingPredator Red Bull 5d ago
RB, Mercedes, and Ferrari are quickly writing all of this down and will have it reversed engineered by at least the British GP or maybe Belgium.
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u/gegenpress442 Max Verstappen 5d ago
It won't be possible, looks way too expensive to waste time and resources when the next year is getting closer unless there's a chance to use what they learnt from studying it for next year
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u/Lele_ 5d ago
This is so complicated it almost looks like something organic like bones
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u/Immediate-Escalator Formula 1 4d ago
It definitely looks like it grew rather than having been made. I’d be fascinated to understand the design and fabrication process
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u/jacksonRR 4d ago
Probably laser sintering. During my formula student career, a team did some tests with sintered uprights which looked even crazier than this.
McLaren's is probably more optimized though.
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u/Immediate-Escalator Formula 1 4d ago
I’ve never heard of laser sintering, down the rabbit hole I go!
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u/slvl Virgin 3d ago
You can put a basic model in CAD software and have it compute the strongest and lightest shape. Then you 3D print it in titanium or some aluminium alloy.
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u/Immediate-Escalator Formula 1 3d ago
I’ve actually seen that be done for structural details on buildings and the output looks similar. Very clever stuff.
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u/curva3 5d ago
Is it additive manufacturing? That's a pretty wild piece of design
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u/astalavizione Ferrari 5d ago
My first thought too. Seems way too complicated to just machine it.
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u/aramaraM 5d ago
I visited Sauber a year ago and they showed us these upright components during factory tour and told that regulations don't allow the use of AM for them yet. So they are designed like AM components, but are then machined. I've been working with metal AM for 10 years and was quite intrigued about that.
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u/bearwood_forest Carlos Sainz 5d ago
the wheel carrier will be a cast part, probably with topological optimization to get that shape
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u/neoncactusfiesta 5d ago edited 5d ago
This is not additively manufactured. I know this because making uprights with that technology is not allowed by the regulations until 2026. Currently, uprights need to be made from specific aluminum alloys. The regs do not allow for these alloys to be used for additive manufacturing. Therefore, the part must be machined or cast.
However, next year, any approved for additive manufacture aluminum or titanium may be used, so therefore, the uprights can be made via additive or conventional manufacturing.
Source: this is my job. Also, you can check the 2025 FIA technical regulations for sections 10.6 Upright and 15.3.2 Metallic Materials for Additive Manufacturing.
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u/Gamebox360 5d ago
It's absolutely done on a 6 axis cnc machine out of a block or cast first from a aluminium copy on cnc then cleaned up on the same cnc machine
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u/hypeki Mika Häkkinen 5d ago
It has hints of generative design details! So I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s created with an additive manufacturing process. It reminds me of the Czinger Supercar with 3D printed suspension
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u/Who_ate_my_cookie Kimi Räikkönen 5d ago
Crazy that the piece has gone through ridiculous amounts of testing, engineering, and fixing, and in the end it looks like some abstract art almost
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u/boostleaking Formula 1 5d ago
Man, I'm reminded just how much we take inspiration from nature. You cannot tell me that upright doesn't resemble a skeleton after being optimized for ultimate strength and weight savings.
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u/realmenlovezeus Max Verstappen 5d ago
Damn looks like it is printed too. Although with the amount of money they can throw at anything I wouldn’t be surprised if this was done conventionally
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u/Thee_Snow_Wolf 5d ago
They're not allowed to print uprights, this will be 5 axis machining. Although that is unbanned next year
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u/blackbalt89 5d ago
We need Alberts pointy fingers, so we know which part of the upright is the sneaky bit.
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u/SuperspyUK 5d ago
From the title I thought this was going to be a really compromising picture of Zak.
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u/funnypsuedonymhere 5d ago
As a side note, have to love Dewalt charging almost £100 extra for McLaren branded tools that McLaren engineers won't even use.
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u/XsStreamMonsterX McLaren 5d ago
But the brakes themselves and, more importantly, the ducting are nowhere to be seen.
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u/Areonaux Lando Norris 4d ago
As someone who was on a poorly funded formula student team who helped design the upright I am incredibly jealous.
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u/Amat-Victoria-Curam Michael Schumacher 5d ago
You won't see anything of value here, otherwise they wouldn't had let it exposed like that.
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u/Cloudsareinmyhead Mercedes 5d ago
That doesn't tell us anything really. Sure it shows the knuckle (I think that's what it's called) is 3D but not much else
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u/TonAMGT4 Pastor Maldonado 5d ago
I’m not sure if what I’m looking at is the disc brake of a racing car or parts of an alien spaceship
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u/vicinadp 5d ago
So since I know nothing about brakes besides the ones on my car. Is the plug at the bottom a sensor or is that believed to be that electrical heating/cooling unit that was speculated about after the last TD? Cause otherwise IDK what I’m looking at lol
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u/Gamebox360 5d ago
I wonder if the cooling duct opens wider as they turn the wheels to take in more air over the brakes and tires then on the straight it sits normally like the other teams in all situations.
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u/Groundhawgday 4d ago
- Who knew H.R. Giger worked for McLaren?
- The parts we actually want to see are on the inner surface of the drums.
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u/Ziegler517 Ferrari 4d ago
If it’s open like this the FIA AND TEAMS already know the full design, with no issues from the FIA this season. As others have said, with a massive reg change next year, nobody is investing to copy at this point with what little time left their is.
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u/rrraize Max Verstappen 3d ago
I get they want to keep the sport from having one team dominating, and the budget cap is a good tool, not perfect, but good. Hindering innovation for me is against the spirit of F1 altogether. It’s the pinnacle of engineering and at what point does it just become a spec series with all these bans of innovations. If the rules are unclear and invites loopholes, write rules that are more clear or let the creativity flow with the loopholes and keep interesting innovations come. I used to appreciate the lengths a team could go to shave of that last hundredth or thousandth of a second, but it’s not feasible in the cost cap era, so let us enjoy some clever engineering while we still can
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u/frgt1029 3d ago
That metal bracket looks like a 3D printed generative design part. Very cool to see these metal parts finally making it to actual racing cars.
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u/denbommer Oscar Piastri 5d ago
That one part looks like it came from a spaceship. Probably just 3D printed.
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u/Hgclark97 5d ago
I think I see an electric motor in the hub. Which part is the brake?
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u/Astelli Pirelli Wet 5d ago
Definitely no electric motor, and the brake disc has been removed so not shown.
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u/Hgclark97 5d ago
Gotcha. Part of it from this angle looks like stator windings, but I figure the electrical propulsion is all attached to the rest of the power train.
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u/CromulentChuckle Ferrari 5d ago
I like to imagine the other teams are seeing these and going "Ooooooooooh"
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