Mercedes W13

[izzy]

What makes you think they are bluffing?

If they're bluffing the sign is in the top speeds, which just looked as though all the Mercedes engines had been turned down because they have to last so long, and last year they showed a big correlation between performance settings and life didn't they.

So tomorrow they could run a mm more ride height, new dampers, change the natural frequency, a lot more power, and look quite different. Maybe. I'm not to hopeful, but I haven't given up either.

Can't recall where I read it, but it was reported that last season the issue was engine knock. I assume this unwanted combustion degraded the cylinder.

The E10 fuel is better for knock isn't it, I was thinking they were getting ready for this season with their development.
But anyway with what Shov is saying it looks like we have to try and wait patiently

[Phil]

My guess is that the porpoising is seriously limiting their pace at high speeds, which then also impacts stability in the braking zone. This is a serious deficit versus other cars that have a handle on it, costing them significant lap time. Once they solve this, they’ll massively increase their pace, though at what cost they can cure it is still to be seen. I have faith in the team and in their ability to work through this, though it will take time. The season is long though.

[PlatinumZealot]

So they have been tuning the rear suspension with little improvment. Interesting. Could it be a suspension issue then? Has the other cars found a special setting? Something crazy like an assymetrical wheelbase on either side of the car? Or some special anti-squat settings?

[Dee]

So they have been tuning the rear suspension with little improvment. Interesting. Could it be a suspension issue then? Has the other cars found a special setting? Something crazy like an assymetrical wheelbase on either side of the car? Or some special anti-squat settings?

Someone was saying that Merc may have a Centre of Mass issue due to their concept, they are the ones that have this very extreme non sidepod body and thus suffer from extreme porpoising. Maybe they cannot spread their mass out enough to be able ro relieve the issue.

[timoth]

My guess is that the porpoising is seriously limiting their pace at high speeds, which then also impacts stability in the braking zone. This is a serious deficit versus other cars that have a handle on it, costing them significant lap time. Once they solve this, they’ll massively increase their pace, though at what cost they can cure it is still to be seen. I have faith in the team and in their ability to work through this, though it will take time. The season is long though.

looking at the telemetry of Verstappen vs Russel fastest laps (link at the end of the post) confirms what you're saying. It doesn't seem that Merc is running lower engine mode than Honda. Just look at all the acceleration zones (corner exit). They're absolutely not down on power. Looking at turn 11, you could even argue they have better acceleration. Russel has 6 kph less top speed before turn 1 because of porpoising, not because of less power and as it's pointed out in the telemetry comparision, Russel loses more than 3 tenths in turn 1 which could well be because of instability in the braking zone due to porpoising.
https://preview.redd.it/2hsrrz52k7o81.j ... 2e99daaee9

[F1Krof]

These are some of reasons why I think they are struggling:

1. Wheelbase length limitation. They mastered this idea of running very little rake with a long car, they relied too much on sealing the floor with surface devices. Last year they weren't able to utilize as good as perhaps Red Bull was on ceiling the floor indirectly with airflow. If you see their floor, its pretty rudimentary looking comparing to almost all other cars around. They are missing a lot on this.
2. Suspension, their expertise of suspension hydraulics setup was always on the forefront. Now one of their biggest weapons is taken away from them.
3. They simply were too focused, lost in the details and could not let go of the ideas that are where very optimal for previous regulations but not for these set of regulations.
4. It's as simple as the fact that every thing has an end! Nothing lasts forever and it is to be expected.

[Just_a_fan]

So they have been tuning the rear suspension with little improvment. Interesting. Could it be a suspension issue then? Has the other cars found a special setting? Something crazy like an assymetrical wheelbase on either side of the car? Or some special anti-squat settings?

Someone was saying that Merc may have a Centre of Mass issue due to their concept, they are the ones that have this very extreme non sidepod body and thus suffer from extreme porpoising. Maybe they cannot spread their mass out enough to be able ro relieve the issue.

Who was saying that?

[Dee]

So they have been tuning the rear suspension with little improvment. Interesting. Could it be a suspension issue then? Has the other cars found a special setting? Something crazy like an assymetrical wheelbase on either side of the car? Or some special anti-squat settings?

Someone was saying that Merc may have a Centre of Mass issue due to their concept, they are the ones that have this very extreme non sidepod body and thus suffer from extreme porpoising. Maybe they cannot spread their mass out enough to be able ro relieve the issue.

Who was saying that?

It wasn't an article, it was someone on this site in one of the active threads. I'll see if I can find it.

[Big Tea]

can you elaborate further on why a team can get on top of that type of issue?

They'll just get to learn about suspension and overall setup with laps on track and massive simulator work. Also, the aero side of their issues will get better as well as they learn about their car. They are 8x WCC, 7x WDC team in the last 8 years, they have huge resources and this nothing they can't eventually handle quickly. My own suspicions are they are bluffing even now and will be up there in the race, but even if it takes them as much as 2-3 races to sort out, they will.

Would there be any discernible difference in pressure above the diffuser between the Ferrari and Mercedes concept?

I'd say on top you could have coeff. of pressure (Cp) peaks of 0.1-0.2 at most. Not including area ahead of the beam wing of course. Bellow, peaks could go as low as -3, maybe even -4. That's a difference of 20-30 times. So I don't think any two cars out there have too big of a Cp difference on top of the floor.

I suppose the more they have to learn about it now will mean deeper knowledge going into the first (and later) upgrades, so will even out or possibly become a benefit later in the year.

They may not have wanted to delve so deep into it before the first race so as not to be misunderstanding things or loose their way, but as they have been forced to, it may even turn out to be a blessing in disguise

[Dee]

Someone was saying that Merc may have a Centre of Mass issue due to their concept, they are the ones that have this very extreme non sidepod body and thus suffer from extreme porpoising. Maybe they cannot spread their mass out enough to be able ro relieve the issue.

Who was saying that?

It wasn't an article, it was someone on this site in one of the active threads. I'll see if I can find it.

I tried but not finding it, search wont allow CoM and that is what it was written as when the person was writing about it

[Starbuckle486]

Someone was saying that Merc may have a Centre of Mass issue due to their concept, they are the ones that have this very extreme non sidepod body and thus suffer from extreme porpoising. Maybe they cannot spread their mass out enough to be able ro relieve the issue.

Who was saying that?

It wasn't an article, it was someone on this site in one of the active threads. I'll see if I can find it.

They have pushed the driver, and I would guess the engine too, further forward than any other team. Red Bull is the other extreme. Mercedes probably did this to fit as much as possible along/close to the centre line. Red Bull on the other hand didn't have to put the driver and engine that far back as they did, they probably did because it made sense to them from a centre of gravity point of view. Having the CoG far forward then means you want the centre of pressure far forward as well - the heavily loaded front wing on the Mercedes is supporting this theory.

Compared to Ferrari the vertical centre of gravity is probably higher in the Mercedes- Ferrari has no central cooling, instead putting everything in the sidepods.

As impressive as the packaging is (and it really is, noone else on the grid would get close to them I think), it has costs too - such as probably a non-optimal centre of gravity both vertically and in the front/back direction of the car.

[PlatinumZealot]

So they have been tuning the rear suspension with little improvment. Interesting. Could it be a suspension issue then? Has the other cars found a special setting? Something crazy like an assymetrical wheelbase on either side of the car? Or some special anti-squat settings?

Someone was saying that Merc may have a Centre of Mass issue due to their concept, they are the ones that have this very extreme non sidepod body and thus suffer from extreme porpoising. Maybe they cannot spread their mass out enough to be able ro relieve the issue.

In theory their centre of mass front to rear is supposed to be the best because the coolers are more central and their wheel base is longer so that rumour sounds a bit off.

[izzy]

Someone was saying that Merc may have a Centre of Mass issue due to their concept, they are the ones that have this very extreme non sidepod body and thus suffer from extreme porpoising. Maybe they cannot spread their mass out enough to be able ro relieve the issue.

The porpoising comes from choking the flow through the floor tunnels doesn't it, as the floor gets pulled too low to the ground, and then as the flow stalls it releases and the floor bounces back up. And this tends to happen at a rate that gives the process a frequency that can coincide with a natural frequency of the car on its suspension. So I don't see how the lateral distribution of mass can make a difference to this.

It's all quite surprising, as Mercedes have been good at suspensions recently, and they even dropped their hydraulic heave spring a couple of years ago to be ready. And they must have a suspension rig at the factory to find its natural frequencies and fix them. And why can't they prevent the floor dropping too low? Can anyone explain?

[InsaneX_Badger]

Someone was saying that Merc may have a Centre of Mass issue due to their concept, they are the ones that have this very extreme non sidepod body and thus suffer from extreme porpoising. Maybe they cannot spread their mass out enough to be able ro relieve the issue.

The porpoising comes from choking the flow through the floor tunnels doesn't it, as the floor gets pulled too low to the ground, and then as the flow stalls it releases and the floor bounces back up. And this tends to happen at a rate that gives the process a frequency that can coincide with a natural frequency of the car on its suspension. So I don't see how the lateral distribution of mass can make a difference to this.

It's all quite surprising, as Mercedes have been good at suspensions recently, and they even dropped their hydraulic heave spring a couple of years ago to be ready. And they must have a suspension rig at the factory to find its natural frequencies and fix them. And why can't they prevent the floor dropping too low? Can anyone explain?

Could be that they can't simulate that well at high speeds?
Tbh, I don't think we can come up with an idea why as I think the team themselves don't know either.

[Starbuckle486]

So they have been tuning the rear suspension with little improvment. Interesting. Could it be a suspension issue then? Has the other cars found a special setting? Something crazy like an assymetrical wheelbase on either side of the car? Or some special anti-squat settings?

Someone was saying that Merc may have a Centre of Mass issue due to their concept, they are the ones that have this very extreme non sidepod body and thus suffer from extreme porpoising. Maybe they cannot spread their mass out enough to be able ro relieve the issue.

In theory their centre of mass front to rear is supposed to be the best because the coolers are more central and their wheel base is longer so that rumour sounds a bit off.

Putting the coolers central only helps with the rotational inertia - if nothing else has to be moved. In reality one probably has to spread weight over the length of the car which again increases the rotational inertia and in Mercedes's case they seem to have had to also move more weight further forward.

The wheel base is limited in the rules. Mercedes can't increase that.

My guess is they did move the centre of gravity forward - not because they could but because they had to.