This week's Grapevine brings you information fresh from the paddock on: McLaren Look to 2004 Toyota Struggling

McLaren Look to 2004

Coming away from Magny-Cours, the general attitude at McLaren is one of aggrievement, as Michael Schumacher apparently passed under yellow for the lead. Ron Dennis' call for a rules clarification was based on defining what constitutes a pass under yellow, although the team boss himself was unsure about his claims after seeing that Kimi Raikkonen had ran off the track at the Adeilede hairpin.

The sector times also proved that Schumacher had slowed down before the turn and so the race stewards deemed there was nothing wrong with the German's move.

However, there's more strings to the McLaren bow than the French Grand Prix, and the plans are in place to bring a return to Championship form.

Looking at current pace of Ferrari's F2002, it is easy to see the Maranello outfit evolving the car through the off-season, and maintaining an overall edge in 2003. Ferrari have handed Schumacher three World Championships in a row; giving him a fourth in succession would be something special for the record books, and they'll be flat out to achieve it.

McLaren are all too aware of the challenge they face in returning to winning ways. Not only do they have to close the gap to Ferrari, but Williams are on the same rubber, and know how to put together a pretty useful motor besides. Pulling ahead of both is not going to be easy.

This season has seen McLaren laying foundations for the work to come. Bedding Raikkonen into the team was expected to take at least half of the season, whilst the change to using Michelin rubber required a whole new learning curve in order to leverage the tyres effectively. This season's car is largely based on an evolution of last year's model, in order to offer a relatively well understood baseline for working with the tyres. The developments coming through now in the last few races have addressed some issues which were hung over from 2001, improving downforce, particularly at the rear, and making it easier to establish a good balance.

Throughout the season, McLaren has worked hard to get the most from their Michelins, and have discovered a balance between rear downforce and good traction control that is key to controlling wear on the rear. They can see that Williams traction control system is well tuned for optimum pace, and they should always be extracting the best time from their rubber; however, McLaren also think Williams' system is keeping their tyres too close to the edge of spinning when under acceleration, leading to a high wear rate. Ironically, the harder the Williams tyre, the less natural grip they have, so the more the traction control has to work to keep the tyres from spinning, and hence, the faster they wear relative to McLaren's more tyre friendly approach.

So, now they know where they are with Michelin, the car is moving forward, and the drivers are both on song, the foundations are set. Next season, in order to close up with Ferrari, and consistently stretch Williams, progress needs to be made on all fronts; and even more is needed for the year after.

Plans for the chassis are simple. 2003 is a chance to right the shortcomings of this year's car, so it will be a basic evolution, leaning on the slightly lower engine and a small overall mass reduction. Demonstrating progress is the key. For the following season, however, it is proving impossible to lock down much on the chassis front, as so much depends on the gearbox, and that depends on what they come up with for power and packaging of the engine. These parameters will be known near the start of next season…

The aerodynamic package on this year's car is actually pretty useful; don't be surprised to see it evolve on to next year's model. For the following year, however, there will need to be some changes. Building engines that last longer will require sacrifices to space, changing the shape of the back of the car, and almost certainly require more cooling, hence larger radiators, and a new approach to the sidepods.

On the engine front, Ilmor is working on evolving the engine to improve power and driveability; ideally, they will also take two centimeters off the height and three kilos off the mass; but the design is not locked in yet, so there is room to manoeuvre if the targets are not achievable. In 2004, the engine rules will change, and longevity is going to be an important factor. Accordingly, there is a lot of information flow between Ilmor and Mercedes, with the parent company's own engineers starting to research options for the new engine. At present, it is anticipated that this research will provide the backbone for Ilmor to take over the project this time next year, but it is entirely possible that Mercedes will retain control of the overall design, using Ilmor to extrapolate and tune the concepts from their blueprint.

Either way, whoever controls the development, putting together the 2004 engine is key to McLaren's plans to return to the top of the pile.

Toyota Struggling

The French Grand Prix was supposed to let Toyota show that they are still up to running in the midfield, on a track that suits their car, so it came as something of a disappointment to discover that they only had the beating of Minardi in qualifying.

Approaching the season, Toyota made no promises, suggesting that 'competing' would be sufficient for their first foray. However, after making a solid impression from the outset, qualifying in the top ten and scoring points, particularly with Gustav Brunner heading up the design team, there were hopes that the team could run with the midfield for the season. As it turns out, a lot of effort has been spent learning how to do things 'properly' in Formula One. There have been lessons learned in strategy, how to make the most of testing, and now, how fast the pace of development is during the season.

From the outset, the Toyota have benefited from a solid, powerful and reliable engine. The car has not been the easiest to balance, largely because it started out somewhat pitch sensitive, low on aerodynamic grip and struggling over bumps. The combination made it awkward to balance, and even then, highly susceptible to changing track characteristics. That was recently improved massively by a revision to the suspension. However, whilst the aerodynamics have been improved, they have not kept pace with the other teams: Jaguar's pre-Silverstone update has, critically, now moved the goal post, leaving Toyota struggling to keep pace.

The reason for falling off the pace has been put down to a couple of factors ­ the biggest is the time it takes to get from identifying an issue with the car through to delivering the components to put it right. The other is related to the difficulty of testing components in isolation: for example, since improving the pitch sensitivity issue, a number of aero components now have to be retested on track, as their characteristics have significantly changed.

Lastly, potentially critically, the effort to keep up with the other teams has had a knock-on effect on the effort available to put in to next year's car. It is going to be a real challenge starting next season anything like as competitive as this, unless something is done about it. Accordingly, Toyota are now considering how to expand the design department, particularly with a view to bringing in an established specialist aerodynamicist, as Brunner has not been able to get the car on terms with the others in this arena.