LEO PARENTE: Two things
influenced this Shakedown.
Number one, this week's Chris
Harris Drive video showing him
about town and track with the
McLaren MP4-12C and its
hydraulic active suspension.
And number two, one year ago
today, save one day, I started
that Shakedown with the exact
same "two things influenced
this Shakedown" words.
That show was all about the F1
tech transferring into road
cars, just like the active
hydraulic suspension in this
newest McLaren road car.
Commenter Doc Wolf added
inspiration with this snarky
cross-reference to hydraulic
suspensions in the 1960s
Citroen DS NSMs and the 1950s
Packard Caribbean cruisers.
Even in Matt Farah's Monday show
about the 700 horsepower
tuned BMW M3, that factored in,
as there was this whole
discussion about how the power
was or was not over-playing
the E92 chassis.
And M3 is stuffed with active
assist, dynamic stability
control, M Dynamic mode,
electronic dampening, the
variable M dif and
traction control.
So all in, I knew where today's
show had to go,
interesting tidbits about active
suspension in racing to
give the Chris Harris McLaren
video some racing context.
By the way, in the video
Chris also said this.
CHRIS HARRIS: Strange.
Fascinating.
Complex.
Brilliant.
Frustrating.
LEO PARENTE: Wow.
Who asked him what it's
like to work with me?
The McLaren MP4-12C has the most
racing-derived technology
of any road car ever.
Well, that may not be true.
But I've been watching the
Harris and Farah videos very
closely to learn how
they're so good.
And the over-the-top platitudes,
and the "I'm
showing you the most awesome
thing the world you can't see
anywhere else" definitives seem
to be part of the road
map to their success.
Oh, am I giving way too
many Drive secrets?
Point is, true of not as to
having the most F1 tech in the
MP4-12C, this McLaren certainly
does get its
suspension design from racing
heritage, not this MG liquid
suspension Indy car from way
back 1964, '65, and '66.
So it's not a factory effort,
but the epiphany of a West
Coast MG dealer and well-known
race car builder Joe Huffaker.
The intent was to highlight the
performance of the MG 1100
Hydrolastic Suspension and
help sell more MG cars.
It was the first time a
production suspension was
built into an Indy car.
The advantage was supposed to be
balance, to allow the tires
to achieve uniform wear.
The three MG race cars were
going to eliminate tire
changes during the 500.
But like many things in racing,
theory and practice
often conflict.
I've left a link for you to read
if you want to know more.
And it was not this 1981 Brabham
F1 car, the BT49C,
with its hydropneumatic
suspension.
This was built to not only help
the race car be better by
lowering and leveling the car
on track but to sidestep the
rules that banned side skirts
touching the track for
aerodynamic undertray sealing
by raising the car when it
returned to the pits where the
scrutineers check for legality.
Yep.
Looks OK to me.
It's not touching.
See, it was all legal because
downforce lowered the car,
check valves kept it low on
track, and a microfilter let
the hydraulics raise the car
when going real slow, like
back to the pits.
Brabham, by the way, was owned
by Bernie Ecclestone at the
time, so you figure out
the story there.
No, you have to look to the
Lotus F1, the real Lotus, not
this stuff from the
past few years.
And again, 1981.
Lotus, with all its aero
knowledge, knew their
suspensions had to control the
platform, to stabilize it, and
to maximize aerodynamic
performance, just like with
today's F1 designs.
But now teams are doing it with
hydraulic fluid inerters,
a shock-like part that
also offsets
motion and mass transfer.
Inerters are rules-legal.
It's a rules-legal form of
active suspension and mass
motion control, I think, which
is why we're going to do a
Skype which ScarbsF1 blog writer
Craig Scarborough, a
real racing tech guru.
He's agreed to do it.
We're just picking
the right time.
So back to the Lotus in 1981,
when they started researching
active suspension.
By 1983, Lotus had Nigel
Mansell run a
few races with it.
Wasn't competitive, but Nige
proved that the active
suspension could withstand 180
mile an hour racing abuse and
3G laterals.
Development continued and active
re-appeared in 1987
when the Honda-powered 99T Lotus
won three races in the
hands of Ayrton Senna.
Now this 1987 car was pretty
much where the
McLaren MP4-12C is today.
Computer controls, sensors
around the car collecting
data, hydraulic actuators doing
the dynamics control
versus traditional shocks,
springs, and stabilizer bars.
That Lotus read 87 parameters to
create the inputs to manage
ride height and suspension
performance.
God knows how many parameters
this McLaren is reading.
I mean, Chris, do you know?
Here's an interesting bit
of Lotus 99T video.
One of the inputs was air
speed via Pitot tubes.
At high speeds, the hydraulics
need to push back against the
downforce to maintain
ride height.
At low speeds, not so much.
So here's a crew guy blowing
into the Lotus Pitot tube.
Now I do not want to see any
jokes about this in the
comment section.
Rick Santorum would
not approve.
Back to the racing.
By 1991, Williams F1 took the
active suspension mantle.
Second in the F1 World
Constructors' Championship,
but really, with its 1992 driver
and constructor P1, the
Williams FW14, designed by one
Adrian Newey, took active
suspension to its highest
racing levels.
Then in the '90s, active
computer control suspensions
were banned.
And if you've seen the Senna
film, you know all about how
he moved to Williams just
as the rules cost
that team their advantage.
But the point is this.
All that past F1 work got
McLaren and their supplier
Tenneco to go in this direction
with the MP4-12C
suspension to find the ultimate
chassis performance
in any situation, in any
environment, with any driver
of any caliber to create a
massively versatile and
extremely fast driving
experience, as Chris Harris
presented to you.
And that's just the
suspension.
We haven't even touched on the
racing lessons learned and
outlawed in racing but still
apply to the McLaren and other
road cars, such as active
aero, brake
performance, gearboxes.
I read the Matt Farah defense
of paddles for fast driving
versus the floppy paddle
laments from
those Clarks and Coulters.
Low weight and high-strength
materials, turbos, engine
management, and more computers
in dynamic
controls and design itself.
Hey, even Morgan is
embracing the tech
that's available today.
McLaren did it with the MP4-12C
and it's all good.
Check the links for additional
background info.
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I'm not hard to find.
Oh, this weekend, the first
rally for the Intercontinental
Rally Challenge in the
Portuguese Azores, the
Bathurst 12 Hour GT race in
Australia, and something's
going on in the Daytona
Beach, Florida area.
We'll have all the racing
news on Monday.
The racing season's starting,
so send me the schedules of
series or big events that you
think you'd want Shakedown to
know about and mention.
I got the majors covered, but
there may be stuff that I
don't know about, solo
events, time attacks
in the US and outside.
And yes, JF, Targa Newfoundland
is a big deal.
I hear you're making
plans to race it.
But guys, spare me the lemons
and chump car schedules.
Oh, and here's a tease of
something I'll be driving at
the Sears Point Raceway
in early March.
300 horsepower, 900 pounds.
Really?
It's not a McLaren and I'm
not going to drift.
But it will be bloody fast.
Thank you in advance Palatov
and Simraceway
for making it happen.
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