2022 car comparison thread

[AA_2019]

Red Bull have a suspension system that changes above 250 KPH to control purpoising. The FIA had to inspect it at the Barcelona preseason test

Might have just been a quota article for a journalist. In the vid Juzh posted the RB looks glass smooth through a section where the Ferrari was bouncing. I suspect that it's an aero dominated phenomenon; that we'd see just a hint of it on the RB. Switching out heave dampers seems like much to easy a fix.

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/105344/f ... elona.html

RB have purpoising too, but they control it with their suspension innovation. Ross Brawn would not have taken the time to check it if he didn't see something innovative about it.

You will always have purpoising, you can reduce it by reducing aerodynamic downforce eg cut out the side of the diffuser as Merc have done, yes, but you then lose performance.

Although stronger vortices to seal the floor edge would give an improvement

You need to control purpoising and that points to the suspension, the dampers in particular as you want to dampen the oscillations.

[Andi76]

It's worth pointing out that this car, with all of its problems, is still basically the third fastest car on the grid. Yes, it's way behind the Ferrari and Red Bull cars, but it's not as if it's driving around 3 seconds off the pace at the back of the grid.

Will the W13 win the title this year? No, I don't think it's got a chance. Is it likely to end up with Mercedes being third in the constructor table? Yes, very probably.

At the moment they are struggling to get in Q3...so to be honest - i highly doubt that this car is the third fastest car. What was achieved with this car was more of the drivers doing a great job, and also a lot of luck in Bahrain.

Not on qualy pace, but on race pace clear third. Wouldve finished 5th and 6th in Bahrain if it wasnt for Redbull, and in Jeddah Hamilton's race was shot by a bad strategy and Russell had a lonely race in 5th clear on the midfield and way behind the front runners.

I think it this is too one-dimensional. Bahrain was the first race and McLaren and Haas had a lot of trouble in testing, so this was not really representative. Mercedes being third in Qualifying shows this. In Saudi Arabia Magnussens' and Lando Norris' fastest laps were faster than Hamiltons. Also Ocon was almost as fast as Hamilton. And i think there is no doubt that Hamilton and also Russell are the faster drivers. So i do not think one can say that Mercedes CLEARLY No. 3 on race pace. I think that overall the Haas is a better car and also the Alpine, since their upgrade, is a better car than the Mercedes. So if Mercedes would be Nr. 3 on race pace (what i do not think they really are) - its more the drivers than the car. But anyway - i think after this weekend we can really say if the car is Nr. 3, 4 or even 5.

[AA_2019]

Ordinary and uninteresting floor.

https://f1i.autojournal.fr/wp-content/u ... _w13_5.jpg

Compared to RB…

https://m.imgur.com/NM0WLh3?r

The RB floor has a very difficult curvature, almost like creating a tunnel effect in the inner part (see the two silver lines)

[wogx]

GARY ANDERSON: RED BULL SIDEPODS SHOWS LIKELY MERCEDES FLAW

https://the-race.com/formula-1/gary-and ... zfDBLu_-HE

[vorticism]

Merc with largest front wing yet smallest rear wing. Might suggest they have the most floor downforce.

[elMaestro]

At the moment they are struggling to get in Q3...so to be honest - i highly doubt that this car is the third fastest car. What was achieved with this car was more of the drivers doing a great job, and also a lot of luck in Bahrain.

Not on qualy pace, but on race pace clear third. Wouldve finished 5th and 6th in Bahrain if it wasnt for Redbull, and in Jeddah Hamilton's race was shot by a bad strategy and Russell had a lonely race in 5th clear on the midfield and way behind the front runners.

I think it this is too one-dimensional. Bahrain was the first race and McLaren and Haas had a lot of trouble in testing, so this was not really representative. Mercedes being third in Qualifying shows this. In Saudi Arabia Magnussens' and Lando Norris' fastest laps were faster than Hamiltons. Also Ocon was almost as fast as Hamilton. And i think there is no doubt that Hamilton and also Russell are the faster drivers. So i do not think one can say that Mercedes CLEARLY No. 3 on race pace. I think that overall the Haas is a better car and also the Alpine, since their upgrade, is a better car than the Mercedes. So if Mercedes would be Nr. 3 on race pace (what i do not think they really are) - its more the drivers than the car. But anyway - i think after this weekend we can really say if the car is Nr. 3, 4 or even 5.

Yeah, id scratch that if i were u.Clear 3rd and judging where they came from, some very good race pace from both of the cars today.

[Andi76]

Not on qualy pace, but on race pace clear third. Wouldve finished 5th and 6th in Bahrain if it wasnt for Redbull, and in Jeddah Hamilton's race was shot by a bad strategy and Russell had a lonely race in 5th clear on the midfield and way behind the front runners.

I think it this is too one-dimensional. Bahrain was the first race and McLaren and Haas had a lot of trouble in testing, so this was not really representative. Mercedes being third in Qualifying shows this. In Saudi Arabia Magnussens' and Lando Norris' fastest laps were faster than Hamiltons. Also Ocon was almost as fast as Hamilton. And i think there is no doubt that Hamilton and also Russell are the faster drivers. So i do not think one can say that Mercedes CLEARLY No. 3 on race pace. I think that overall the Haas is a better car and also the Alpine, since their upgrade, is a better car than the Mercedes. So if Mercedes would be Nr. 3 on race pace (what i do not think they really are) - its more the drivers than the car. But anyway - i think after this weekend we can really say if the car is Nr. 3, 4 or even 5.

Yeah, id scratch that if i were u.Clear 3rd and judging where they came from, some very good race pace from both of the cars today.

I do not. Its still my opinion that they are not clear third in relation to the cars race pace. They are making less mistakes than others and are able to get the maximum out of the car. This always was one of Mercedes strong points and it still is. If you put everything into account, drivers, team car - i agree. They are clear 3rd. But the car itself - i stick with my opinion that its not clear 3rd. In Australia Alpines fastest lap again was faster and also Bottas fastest lap was faster than Hamiltons.

But anyway - its an opinion. Maybe i am wrong. So it shouldn't be taken too seriously.

[Vanja #66]

https://storage.googleapis.com/the-race ... 3-rb18.jpg

GARY ANDERSON: RED BULL SIDEPODS SHOWS LIKELY MERCEDES FLAW

https://the-race.com/formula-1/gary-and ... zfDBLu_-HE

Gary A 3 weeks late to the party... Again

***
Well, things aren't working exactly like you mentioned, the airflow is a bit more complex, but the overall conclusion might not be far from the truth. All in all, teams are making better use of venturi-tunnel floors by sealing them with massive outboard vortices on the floor. This is, in a way, the "air curtain" you mention. Prior to Barcelona testing, I was convinced some teams might even be able to include a bit of rake on their cars, seeing how good they were to use it even with previous "simpler" floors. This is not the case yet, but we might see this development in the future... Anyway, these are the vortices I mentioned.



The stronger they are, the better the sealing in general. They are generated by incoming high-pressure air from the front vanes under the floor and lower pressure air on top of it. This might sound counter-intuitive, but this area of the bottom of the floor is a high-pressure zone. Here's a look from the early-W13 micro-pods model CFD results.



Now, if the flow on top of the floor is not favuorable enough (not enough pressure, not enough outwash etc) the resulting vortex might not be good enough. Here is where there might be a difference between race-spec W13 with new sidepods and other cars, as W13 might not produce enough outwash or the pressure is not good enough. If that was the case, a car would probably have to run lower than others and this low ride height would induce the bouncing, I guess much more than vortex sealing could. The new W13 sidepod design is actually better in terms of how wide the flow is going now, the outwash, you can see here.

Here's a top view of the flow-viz on Merc's sidepod undercut, also from AMuS. Seems like the outwash was no weaker due to the inlet itself being a stagnation zone, but Merc was probably trying to avoid having the high-static-pressure undercut flow flipping over the sidepod's outer spline with such a bottom-wide design.

The outwash looks strong enough, but the pressure zone ahead of the Mercedes intake is different from the pressure zone in this area on all other cars, since no other car has an inlet going all the way down to the floor. This may make a difference in the floor sealing on Mercedes, meaning they have to run their car lower to achieve the needed downforce, meaning they are more prone to bouncing than others.

[Stu]

I noticed something in the coverage this weekend (particularly noticeable in Qualifying); under heavy braking some of the cars are rotating the front wheel deflector forwards.
Initially I brushed this off as “of course they do, the cars pitch under braking”, then I got to thinking about it….

When the cars pitch, they rotate forwards around their longitudinal CoG, but they compress the front suspension, so the wheels effectively ‘lift’ in comparison to the reference plane; if the cars have anti-dive geometry the hub should rotate back (against the direction of travel) in opposition to the braking force.

So why do some cars (it was quite noticeable on the Mercedes and another team - cannot recall which one) appear to allow the hub to rotate forwards, while others don’t? Are they not using pro-dive geometry (which would be a bit of a surprise), or is to do with them having multi-link suspension (and how the various links interact at the hub)?

I know that the Enstone Team (when it was Lotus), experimented with a brake-caliper mounting that had one ‘fixed’, but rotating mount with the other end being connected to a hydraulic cylinder as a part of their FRIC system (but it got banned before they could race it), but it would not effect the hub rotation.

It would be interesting to see if others have noticed this and how it might affect car behaviour.

[vorticism]

From the car threads. Red Bull:
https://i.imgur.com/NM0WLh3.jpg

Mercedes:
https://f1i.autojournal.fr/wp-content/u ... _w13_5.jpg

I am surprised how big the differences are. The Mercedes looks rather vanilla, the Red Bull much less overall volume under the floor. Would be thankful if somebody can shed some light on what the philosophies could be behind both.

One different is the step plane shape. Merc's is continuous in curvature. Another, RB chose to only run two long strakes. Also, is that metal that I see on the edge of the Merc floor or am I seeing reflections? Like the RB ice skates.

[SSScoffee]

[vorticism]

Might consider the Merc mid-wings as a similar concept to the RB15/16 mid-wings.

[Stu]

Indeed. There are are some differences, though.
The current Mercedes mid-wing has a very small aspect ratio (bad for form drag)
It also has to have a slot across the full width to be legal (likely to induce some drag).

[Vanja #66]

Might consider the Merc mid-wings as a similar concept to the RB15/16 mid-wings.

https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 5516-9.jpg

https://imgr1.auto-motor-und-sport.de/G ... 880266.jpg

It all started with SF70-H in 2017, with upper and lower mid-wing having different purposes (upper was to straighten the flow). Prior to 2017, teams didn't use geometry this big around sidepods, but there was always a tendency to straighten or downwash the flow between front wing and sidepods.



And something completely unrelated, there is a claim these are bouncing amplitudes of 2022 cars in Australia, no evidence or detailed report, just a diagram.

[henry]

And something completely unrelated, there is a claim these are bouncing amplitudes of 2022 cars in Australia, no evidence or detailed report, just a diagram.

https://preview.redd.it/t74axp3eg4t81.p ... 1c644f4102

The axis is marked as g force amplitude, with units “g”. So not displacement but acceleration.

Assuming similar vibration modes, distorted sinusoidal, one would expect the peak amplitude to be in inverse relationship to the vibration frequency. I’ve measured, crudely on YouTube, the Ferrari frequency at about 6 hz. If the graph is showing peak g then the less bouncy cars might be at around 4hz. I haven’t found a good piece of video to confirm this.