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The McLaren MP4-26 was a Formula One racing car designed by McLaren for the 2011 Formula One season. It was driven by Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, the and World Drivers' Champions, respectively. The car was launched on 4 February at Potsdamer Platz located in Berlin, Germany, shortly after the first test session of the season in Valencia. McLaren test driver Gary Paffett, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button drove an interim version of the car's predecessor, the MP4-25 at the first tests to get experience with the final tyre compounds provided by new tyre supplier Pirelli. Right before the 2011 Singapore Grand Prix, McLaren signed a new sponsor: Lucozade and the logo replaced the Johnnie Walker logo on the sides of the rear wing, thus shifting the Johnnie Walker logo to the back of the rear wing, which changed from red to silver in colour. ==Design== The car was noted for its unique "L-shaped" sidepod arrangement. Technical director Paddy Lowe has exploited to the extreme the idea of higher outer sidepods, last seen on the likes of Benetton's B195 from 1995 and Ferrari's F310 from 1996. The aim is to clean up and better direct the airflow to the beam wing at the rear of the car, an area now even more important thanks to the ban on double diffusers. This solution also gives McLaren the possibility of running Renault-R31-style forward exhaust exits. All high-speed aerodynamic design is a compromise of downforce versus drag (where induced drag is an inevitable result of any lifting body), with air resistance (drag) rising in proportion to the cube of speed. In formula one, lift is reversed to create down force which results in improved traction, less driver steering wheel input, and hence lower tyre wear. In order to stabilize the air flow over the car, in most Formula One car designs the dirty air from the front wheels is guided away from the radiators and the tail section by use of the barge boards and heavily sculpted lower body. However, the design of the MP4-26 is optimised to create down force from the all air flow over the car, including that from the front wheels: *The car was elongated to maximum design length, to make the air flow as stable as possible when it reaches each section: *The nose was high and long to create downward pressure *The novel L-shaped air ducts, designed on the same principle as that used on the 1996 Ferrari F310, extended outwards and forced the dirty air off the front wheel towards the centre line and down over the car *This unstable air was less efficient at cooling the car, so hence the need for a larger "L" sidepod design as defined by McLaren *The rear was tightly packaged to create maximum stable airflow to the rear single diffuser of the car, so tight that there is a secondary air intake to aid cooling of the gearbox and hydraulics on the upper fin〔 *The rear used a pull-rod suspension system to keep everything compact and as far to the rear of the car as possible McLaren admitted at the launch that there are a few extra design novelties which they did not show on the car, which were rumoured to include a Lotus Renault GP forward-airduct exiting exhaust system. Following problematic pre-season testing, McLaren had updated the exhaust system by the opening race of the season, the 2011 Australian Grand Prix. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「McLaren MP4-26」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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