GreenBkk Formula 1 | McLaren guru: Plenty of room for innovation

McLaren guru: Plenty of room for innovation

McLaren's chief engineer Tim Goss says things are "looking very good" in terms of innovative designs for the team's 2011 challenger.

Drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button have already had their seat fittings at the McLaren HQ in Woking this week and both have been extremely impressed with the MP4-26.

"It's looking very good," Goss told Autosport. "We can't say much about it at the moment, but Doug [McKiernan, chief aerodynamicist] and his team have done a great job of creating the aerodynamic platform for the car, and it is looking good."

McLaren were the pioneers of the F-duct this year, but that device will be banned from 2011. However, that doesn't mean there will be no room for new innovations next year.

"It is good, and it is nice that there are still those niches around," Goss added. "There is always room in the regulations for innovation, and making Championship winning cars is about doing that.

"[The F-duct] was a grey area and we had to properly explore the regulations. All credit to Charlie [Whiting] and the FIA that they didn't back away from it. They heard the arguments, believed them and let us get on with it. They were fully up to speed before we raced it."

The F-duct won Goss and McKiernan the Pioneering and Innovation Award at the Autosport Awards.

"It was actually an awful lot of hard work," said Goss. "We had a pretty crazy idea and to turn that into reality then you have to have people who believe in the aerodynamicists.

"Aerodynamicists will often come up with an idea that seems pretty stupid - and when you say 'we are going to use the driver to somehow stall the rear wing' then you will have lots of doubters.

"So you have to put a case together that say it is actually going to be legal, it is going to make the car quicker, we are going to get it to work and it is worth all the time and effort and resource that we sink into it. We had to hive off a whole chunk of aerodynamic development and engineering time to turn what was just an idea and a few sketches into reality."

Credit: PlanetF1.com (www.planetf1.com)