This is the third installment of my McLarenMP4/11 walkaround of the GP4 car originally created by Eugenio Faria and completed by me, painted by Celinho with help from Soulbringer and Quickslick.
After Hakkinen's huge accident at Adelaide in the final Grand Prix weekend of 1995, thankfully the Finn was able to take part in the 1996 season, losing none of his speed. The accident brought Mika and Ron Dennis closer together, with Coulthard claiming that Mika garnered favourable support due to their closer relationship, in part due to the accident in Adelaide.
You can see the bodylines go past some interesting curves around the car, all of which takes time to do and get right. I added the very small fin at the top of the rollover bar, something similar to the shark fins of recent years. Eugenio did some good work on the smooth radiator outlet at the rear of the sidepod, I simply resized it to match the proportions of the real car. The winglets from the rear wing are also nicely done.
You can see how the winglet is attached to the engine cover, whilst the rest of the endplate is attached to the rear wing assembly. The rear suspension and diffuser area was all added by me.
Here is a clearer shot of the rear of the car with the diffuser. The side fences of the diffuser are quite high, ensuring the air from the rear of the coke bottle shape is not disturbed by the opening for the insides of the car.
The car has a relatively simple internals, with the radiators, airbox, engine and cylinders/exhaust and rear suspension elements. The standard texture mapping means the engine is still a Renault albeit mirrored. You can see a non-textured version below:
So that's it, the 1996 McLaren MP4/11 for GP4 done. You can find this car as part of the GP4 1996 mod and converted in other games.
The McLarenMP4/11 was powered by the Mercedes engine, their second season with their new partners that would last through to 2014 and enjoy many competitive seasons. But 1996 was a rebuilding period. New driver, David Coulthard revealed in the recent F1 podcast that he signed for McLaren just before Christmas of 1994, having signed for Williams earlier the same day for 1995.
We must get back to talking about the car as we delve into the details on this GP4 creation.
The front wing is Eugenio's work and on the endplate I added the indent near the bottom. It's quite a simple and basic wing that McLaren ran for the season, there's not even a bend on the front plane. The nose on the 1996 is much more sleek and slimmer than the 1995 car, with a nice single keel solution to mount the front lower suspension wishbones.
You can see from the wireframe how the top of the nose has lots of polygons to make the smooth shape, which towards the front of the car is quite flat. I added the 3D body lines on the nose and the suspension cover. I also added suspension wishbone connection points to the bespoke suspension.
McLaren's side headrest solution was unique to them in that it creates a channel either side of the rollover bar. Getting the body lines around this smooth shape was difficult. The mirrors are asymmetrical, presumably to reduce the turbulent air generated, by having the smooth shape facing the direction of the oncoming airflow.
Moving into the cockpit, and I was able to find some reasonably good photos to re-create the dashboard and some of the buttons along each side.
The first 1996 car ever released in GP4 was Eugenio's McLaren, which included a Monaco GP version with the winglet on the engine cover. Unfortunately I don't have a copy of that car, and I can't find any screenshots of it neither. If I remember correctly, he was working on an updated version years later but was not able to complete it, and so I stepped in and took over. I found this picture lying around, where the white parts of the car were all of Eugenio's work.
If you look carefully and compare the above shot to the end results below, you can see I did quite a lot of modification to it. It's always quicker when there was quite a lot of the car there already. I started by doing quite a bit of work on changing proportions to be more consistent with my other 1996 cars and also with photos as a base. After I was happy with the main shape and proportions, I got to work adding details to it.
This is another car painted by Celinho and this would be the final Marlboro liveried McLaren, having raced in the red and white scheme since the early 1970s.
There was a B spec version of the car that appeared late on in the season, the most notable change from the outside is that the front wing supports are angled rather than straight. This small change is included in the 1996 mod, although the mid-wing was never added. The camera also seems to have gone missing.
Anyway, I'm really pleased with how the shape worked out in the end. My thanks go to the contributors, with Quickslick and Soulbringer having an input too. Eugenio did a great job on the main shape and it was a pleasure to bring this car to completion.
I can't remember exactly, but this was certainly among one of the first 1996 cars that I was involved with completed after the Forti and Minardi. I added suspension (common parts from other 1996 cars) the cockpit, the engine and gearbox, the mirrors and added details such as the hump on the rollover bar and the body lines.
I also did quite a bit of work in smoothing out the normals. If you look at the first shot, there's lots of odd shadows on the flat surfaces and where the light bounces off in an odd way. This is an area I felt I helped improve.
In the next post, we will begin to look at some of the detailed work that's gone into this car.
The MP4/2 had already won the previous two years' championships and with the updated MP4/2C, and ex-champion Keke Rosberg joined Prost at McLaren. Rosberg struggled with the setup and running out of fuel however, whilst the Williams team were now the team to beat. Prost cleverly took big points finishes whilst Piquet and Mansell took points off each other in their own battle. Coming to Australia, Mansell was 7 points ahead of Prost, with Piquet a further 2 behind. Rosberg stormed in front, but a puncture on lap 62 caused him to retire. Mansell dramatically suffered the same fate as Rosberg and Prost went on to win the race and his second Drivers' World Championship.
Like the other MP4/2 cars by Minichamps, this is quite an early edition which is number 42 in the McLaren Collection. For its time, I think this is a lovely model.
Minichamps 436860001
The car was re-released as part of the World Champions Collection and comes with some revised parts. Most of the changes look great, but to me, the rear wing seems to be placed much further back and that doesn't look quite right to me. Though it lacks some of the fine details of some of the newer models, it is still a nice model in its own right.
I'm quite impressed with this Solido car, and it's very reasonably priced too. It's comparable in quality to the Minichamps version and, though it doesn't come with a driver figure, it does have quite nice cockpit details.
As you'd expect with the RBA cars, these are low budget, low detail cars, so it's never really going to get particularly good scores. It's recognisable enough, but it looks more like a toy than a model.
This McLaren is part of the 50th Anniversary collection from Spark from the Japanese Euro Sports store. Like the 1985 version, there are only 200 of these made, so these are pretty rare or very expensive. Spark have done a great job on this car. Again the shape is simple but the details in the cockpit, the brakes and at the rear of the car are all beautifully done. The driver figure is good, and the helmet is OK, but I'm still not a fan of the visor.
The MP4/2 was used to dominate the 1984 season with Lauda winning the Drivers' title by half a point from team-mate Prost. In 1985, in an updated MP4/2B, along with the same engine supplier and the same drivers, it promised to be another great season. It would be Prost who would prevail, but not without competition from Alboreto's Ferrari. Prost, the nearly man for so many years, would earn his first of four titles, with 5 wins, and the team their second straight Constructors' crown.
This is the 22nd edition of the McLaren Collectors edition. To date, this is the only model that Minichamps has released of this car, no World Champions Collector's edition yet. As with the other MP4/2 cars, it was made quite early on, and though basic, it was pretty accurate, just lacking in some of the finer details. Score: 7/10
Solido have made a couple of 1/43 F1 cars. This is of comparable standard to the early Minichamps offering. I like the 3D grills on the top of the sidepod and the brake ducts, but it does lack a driver figure. A nice effort on this model. Score: 7/10
The Formula 1 Car Collection version of the 1985 car is quite a respectable one. It's when you get down to some of the details that you appreciate the higher quality and care taken by Solido to make their model a bit better overall. Score: 6/10
This model was sold only in Japan on “Euro Sports” as part of the “McLaren Team 50th anniversary” set and only 200 of these exist. As you'd expect, this was sold out quickly and resale prices are super high. The model itself is of great quality as you'd expect from Spark, and there's no major errors on it really.
Niki Lauda was joined by Alain Prost, who narrowly missed out on the 1983 Championship, at McLaren for the 1984 season. John Barnard designed the MP4/2, heavily based on the MP4/1E, and used the TAG-Porsche V6 engine. The car featured carbon brakes and excellent fuel consumption, along with two technically minded and tactical drivers, the team dominated the 1984 season, with 12 wins between them, the highest of for a single team at that time. Though Prost took 7 victories to Lauda's 5, it was Lauda who would take his third World Championship by the closest margin in F1 history, only half a point.
The MP4/2 would go on to take another 2 titles (is that a spoiler? it was 33 years ago) and begin a period of domination by McLaren where, besides 1987, they won every championship til 1991.
Originally, Minichamps released the MP4/2 as part of the McLaren collection back in the late 90s. The model itself is pretty basic, but has a nice blend of good proportions and nice decals. Score: 6/10
Minichamps 436840008
A World Champions collection of the model was also released in the mid-noughties, coming with an updated driver and helmet. I'm not a big fan of the mid-noughties Minichamps helmets, but the driver figure is much better. Other than that, I've not noticed any further changes. It is quite a rare collectible model. Score: 6/10
Here's the Atlas version of the MP4/2. I'm not a great fan of Atlas cars, but I've seen them do much worse, but despite its cheap prices, I'm still not really tempted to get this one.
But if you do have cash to spend, this is the one to get and there's only 999 of them. A lovely resin model from TSM which captures the car beautifully for me. My only slight complaint, and it is a tiny complaint, is that more of the rear wing should be white.
This is part 3 of my walkaround of my 1996Jordan196.
Moving onto the 2nd part of the sidepods, you can see the body line nicely. There is a slight undercut at the bottom of the rear of the sidepod, and with the vent there, it was not the easiest to get right.
The rear of the bodywork has this complex circle for the rear suspension mounts. The bottom part completes the coke bottle and is quite wide, but the upper part of the circle is quite narrow. It's always difficult to get this curve looking smooth from every angle.
You can see some of the detail I added to the rear wing endplates with the indent near the trailing edge. In the pre-season testing, the team didn't initially run with rear wheel winglets, so the endplate was much shorter, and you can see from the wireframe how the winglet is an additional extra.
The rear suspension is probably one of the first cars where I managed to get it as accurate as possible. With the wireframe, you can also see the vane that rises from the floor. At the time, there were a few photos of the inside of the 196, but there were better photos of the 197, which I used as inspiration for parts of the insides of my 196.
On the engine cover you can see where all the body lines meet without disrupting the smooth normals of the rest of the shape. There is also a small triangular vent under the Peugeot logo.
As mentioned in my other walkarounds, there were some interesting developments on the diffusers and I think Jordan's was the most complex and interesting. The main central section is curved, with the lower part of it narrower as we see on other cars. But there are many slits on the top edge of the central diffuser, this helps maintain the boundary layer and reduce the likelihood of stalling. The rest of the diffuser is lower in the central parts for the exhaust, which is a squat oval shape. The rest of the diffuser is then angled with a gurney flap on top.
You can see I modelled some of the rear suspension mounting points as well in more detail than I remember.
Whoever mapped the GP4 car and put it back together again has merged a lot of parts together I had initially intended to keep separate. So if you go and crash this car, not much falls off and you can't see much of the detail I put on the inside of the car. Here, you can see the curved rear bodywork and how it exposes the gearbox.
You can see how the sidepods channeled air towards the engine. By this stage, I had made individual cylinders on the engine myself. In terms of internals of a car, this car is probably one of my favourites, so I was a little disappointed that you can't appreciate that on the final car. However, I'm still grateful for all the contributors for making this car and its variants, it could still be sat on my hard drive unfinished.
All in all, this remains one of the best cars I've created and I think the end result is pretty good. If I was really picky, I'd say the rear wing could move rearwards a touch, but that is only minor. Here's some shots of the car in GP4.
You can download this car for GP4 as part of the 1996 mod.
Welcome back for part 2 of my 1996Jordan196 walkaround. There's quite a few screenshots to feature that I'd like to talk apart so there are 3 parts in total, but let's get into the detail now starting at the front of the car.
The nose and monocoque section has a nice flat side and then a smooth rounded top and bottom. So you can see how I tried to be efficient on polygon use on the flat regions compared to the curved ones which has lots more polygons. The front wing endplate has the small lip that comes out at the front bottom, and then it creates a little bit of an outwash, with the rounded bottom at the rear producing a vortices.
The lower front wing, like most of the grid, curves up on the leading edge in the middle of the car, whilst the trailing edge is flat. Like modern day cars, the upper front wing is separated from the central section to the main part. The front wing support is an interesting shape, because it doesn't really follow the contours of the nose (have a look at the front view in my previous blog) where the lower back part extends wider than any other part of the support. It took a few goes for me to get that right from various angles.
Not that you can tell as it's all black, but the suspension has a bit of detail added to the shape when it connects to the monocoque. The small barge-board also has 3D holes for the suspension to go through.
Again, hard to see when it is all black, but for me it's a first in modelling my first wheel hub and brake ducts.
The first sidepod inlet is an interesting shape. Like the 1995 car, the top part is smoothly merged to the car in a lovely rounded shape around the front of the cockpit. The lower part is attached to the tea-tray element of the floor. Because of the stepped floor to house the plank, the sidepod sits a little higher up than the floor. Again it wasn't easy getting the shape right for the top of the first part of the sidepod, it almost has two separate curves. I'm really pleased with the outcome though, and also the inlet for the second rear sidepod was not easy to get right, especially as it is slightly raised.
The hardest part to model of all was the body line that runs along the side of the cockpit. Not only are the lines curved, but the bodyline itself is on a curved part of the car. Though I'm happy with the positioning, I'm not all too happy with how it turned out compared to the other bodylines. Though I'm glad they are there rather than not there too.
Again, thankfully there were some good shots of the cockpit that I could find and try and get as accurate as possible. My only regrets is that none of the textures have put any effort into lighting up the dash, but at least the 3D rev lights are lit up.
Having shown the video of the converted rfactor 2 car, this is a video the car in Assetto Corsa.
Next up in my walkaround series is the 1996Jordan196 Peugeot, which is one of my all time favourite cars. It's a very clean shape and has a bold gold livery (though my screenshots has the more mustard colour from the early season). Does anyone remember the pre-season testing livery with the green and white? I thought it looked good in that too. Anyway, as we get into some of the detail, there are lots of places of interest too.
As usual, you can read my model blog for comparison: Model Review. I wasn't particularly happy with any of the Jordan models, and that's because I spent a long time working on my own version, albeit in 3D.
I'm not sure who mapped the car, but Celinho did the original livery, and Quickslick and Kedy provided season specific updates I believe. There are a few little mapping issues, but overall I think we did the car justice, so thank you to all who contributed on this one.
Again, I post my plan views before going into the 3D views. Before I started creating cars for 1996, I actually did not use pictures as blueprints, preferring to do things by eye. However I had converted to starting shapes with pictures, but you have to be careful with perspective and if the shot is not quite straight, you may have to tweak the photos before you use them as a blueprint. I have, in the past, merged various photos together, so maybe a side shot without the wheel on. Anyway the reason I used them was to give an additional reference that my proportions were good in as many angles as possible.
This Jordan was the first car where I went all out on detail, both on outside the car and inside the car. As I came back to do this blog, I surprised myself with how much detail I went into in parts, so I can't wait to show you some of that.
The car has a William-esque nose and monocoque section, very slim and nicely moulded. The continued with a Ferrari 640/61 style sidepod which they adopted for the 1995 car. They added a second inlet in a more conventional position. How this all smoothly integrates with the rest of the car is very beautifully done. Like Williams, they had a very low side-head protection, a new regulation for the year, and teams that had high ones were stuck with it for the season.
Moving towards the rear of the car and there is the rear sidepod cooling vane, which I think I created a cover for as an alternative at different GPs. Like most teams, the endplates extend past the rear wheels to a winglet just in front of the rear wheels, and again I quite like the curves that make it a bit more beautiful. Underneath that winglet, there is a large black vane emanating from the floor. McLaren had a small one on the MP4/9, but it's a solution that comes and goes, with them being a bit more popular in the mid-2000s. The central diffuser part is fascinating, but we'll get into that later on. They sometimes ran an extra third element on their lower rear wing, it wasn't there for all races.
As usual, the walkarounds are split into parts, parts 2 and 3 coming soon. Here is my car in rfactor 2 in the meantime.
It wasn't the most exciting Chinese Grand Prix, though it could have been worse, but perhaps it wasn't as dramatic as you'd hope for the occasion of the 1000th GP - that is if you include the early Indy 500 races and the 1952 and 1953 seasons ran under F2 rules. Anyway, considering the 900th race was the memorable 'duel in the desert', the 2014 Bahrain GP which saw Rosberg and Hamilton go wheel-to-wheel several times when battling for the lead. The 800th race was the 2008 Singapore GP aka Crashgate. And the 700th race was the 2003 Brazilian GP where Webber's huge crash in his Jaguar in the wet saw Alonso hit his debris and crash out the race and missing the podium proceedings, whilst Kimi's McLaren overtook Fisichella's Jordan for the lead. Kimi stood at the top of the podium, but with the race red flagged, the order from the previous full lap was used, and thus five days later, Fisichella's Jordan (which was awfully uncompetitive that year) was decleared the winner and they swapped trophies at the next race.
Anyway, the Chinese GP had a lot to live up to and it seemed that the warm up lap was the most exciting part of the race where both Max and Kubica spun. Except for Verstappen making one lunge at Vettel and the Ferrari strategy fail, the leading teams ran in order. The midfield was surprisingly quiet after Kvyat took out both McLarens and the Haas cars quietly slipping backwards. The top ten cars in qualifying were made up of rows in team order, so perhaps the signs were there early on that it wasn't going to be a great race. Now, Mercedes are looking to break a record from 1992, having secured their third one-two in as many races. Vettel on the other hand only scored his first podium finish of the year. Ferrari need to turn things around quickly.
Team-by-team (kind of)
At the moment, Mercedes are maximising their potential, whilst Ferrari are not extracting the best from their car and not getting the best out of their strategy. Ferrari do not appear to be able to unlock the full potential of their engine and that seems to be hurting them. The car seemed so stable in Barcelona yet that hasn't been the case at the races. So many times we've seen Kimi Raikkonen left out long on the first stint and, maybe my memory isn't as good as it once was, but I don't ever remember a time that worked out for him having fresher tires at the end of the race, so to leave Charles out was just a nail to the coffin in his race against Max and Seb.
Leclerc is doing little wrong at the moment, he's a match for Vettel and they've had to impose orders 3 times in 3 races to slow him down. So he just needs to continue doing what he's doing, take these knocks on the chin, keep improving, and force Ferrari from his sheer pace to at least have both drivers treated equally.
Alex Albon had a dramatic zero to hero weekend. A massive crash in FP3 lead to him missing qualifying, but when starting from the pitlane, he ended up in the points, making some good passes along the way. In contrast, Kvyat tangled with both McLarens and retired a quick car. Albon thoroughly deserves winning driver of the day for me.
If we forget the last few years at Ferrari, I'd be waxing lyrical about Kimi's season and suggesting him for a top seat. Last year he was close to Seb on more occasions than in previous years and he continues to show the way to his young Ferrari Academy team-mate.
A good weekend from Sergio Perez, extracting the most from the car when Stroll got lost somewhere near the back of the midfield. Good steady progress from the Racing Point team.
Haas seem to have a great car for qualifying, but they seem to slip back in the races. Renault on the other hand seem to be in the ascendancy, albeit with an unreliable car. It was good to see Ricciardo have a solid weekend.
Bottas had a great qualifying, but a pedestrian start meant that was meaningless as he struggled behind Lewis. It's encouraging that his pace was much better than at Bahrain, perhaps that plastic bag caught in his front wing in the desert did have a major effect, but you'd have to wonder if Lewis was behind, he'd have probably hustled Valterri from lights to flag.
Mercedes don't feel as dominant as the results show so far, even though this is the first time in this turbo-hybrid era that they have started out a season with three one-twos. But you can say they are used to making the most out of their package and getting the best result that is available to them. No mistakes, reliable cars, fixed setups for quali and race after troubled practice sessions, successful double-stacked pitstops and two drivers who are hungry for success. It's all falling their way at the moment, and with the huge gap they have to their contenders, it may prove to be a boring season nobody (except Mercedes) wanted.
Red Bull are close, but not close enough, only quick enough to nibble at the heels of the Ferraris. But a good use of strategy for Max to snatch fourth and pitting Gasly to get the fastest lap points are all strong strategy calls. Gasly needs more time to adapt, but this is F1 and this is Red Bull, both notoriously ruthless. We know Gasly can do better, we hope it shows sooner rather than later.
And Williams... umm.... had a car start behind them on the grid... and both cars finished again... yes there are some positives.
1982 was a development year for Brabham with new BMW turbo engines in the BT51, but with rule changes specifying a flat bottom for 1983, Gordan Murray developed the BT52 made specifically with mid-race refuelling which made for a smaller rear end resulting in the distinctive dart shaped car. Piquet started the season well, battling with Prost'sRenault and Arnoux'sFerrari. But a bad run of luck and reliability mid-season put the Championship campaign in jeopardy, however a consistent end of the season saw Piquet 2 points behind Prost at the final race at Kyalami, with Arnoux also in contention. Piquet raced into the lead, but when Prost retired, Piquet coasted home in fourth to clinch his second Drivers' Championship - the first for a turbo charged engine.
This was the final Championship success for the Brabham team, as Ecclestone sold the failing team in 1987, and the name disappearing from the sport in less than 10 years.
The BT52 is one of the most distinctive looking cars in F1 history, with its arrow shaped chassis. Minichamps released a Brazilian GP version of the car. It's a very basic model from Minichamps, its got nice proportions but just lacks a bit of detail.
Minichamps 80429423036
I came across this BMW edition of the BT52 which has the late season colour scheme. It was nice to have both editions of this car, but the blue just makes it look a bit toy like to me. Score: 6/10
Minichamps 436830005
An updated version was released in the World Champion Collections set, and it comes with an updated driver figure and a new rear wing. I really like this update to the original model, so for me this has gone up a grade. Score: 7/10
Ixo have released the above car in the Formula 1 Car Collection magazine series. The Brazilian Eaglemoss version comes with a driver figure.
I've come across this early season version of the car too available from Altaya. Overall, the standard is fairly comparable to the early Minichamps version. Score: 6/10
Spark have shown some early but yet to be released photos of their version of this car, but I'm interested in seeing more. From this angle, it looks like a very promising model. I believe it will be released later this year.
