Mercedes W13

[GrizzleBoy]

What would stop them just putting a piece of slim vertical bodywork between the top (or even bottom of the zero pod and upper crash structure in an outwashing shape like the old barge boards of the last regs?

Probably the limitations on the number of axis you can can have on one plane. (i think its axis you call them)

What if it was just an extreme version of the Williams open back sidepod where the intake was thin and tall with a lot of unused space inside and the upper half of the rear of the bodywork was open?

[chrisc90]

What would stop them just putting a piece of slim vertical bodywork between the top (or even bottom of the zero pod and upper crash structure in an outwashing shape like the old barge boards of the last regs?

Probably the limitations on the number of axis you can can have on one plane. (i think its axis you call them)

What if it was just an extreme version of the Williams open back sidepod where the intake was thin and tall with a lot of unused space inside and the upper half of the rear of the bodywork was open?

Honestly dont know. Sure someone else with more knowledge of the regs/aero will answer your question.
Maybe the Kyle Engineers videos on youtube will explain it better.

[zibby43]

As they’re trying to fix the porpoising (5 weeks hasn’t worked so far), if it takes another 5 weeks, the teams they’re trying to catch will be 5 tenths ahead by then via development.

Such is the learning curve with new regs, which is why a bad start like this is almost disastrous. I’m more inclined to believe this will hurt them for multiple seasons as opposed to a few races.

Hope I’m dead wrong.

Or conversely, solving a fundamental issue like porpoising, which is forcing them to run a quite severely compromised setup, is likely to give then a much bigger boost in performance than any team who have solved it can achieve through 'normal' development.

AM reckon theyre giving away 0.5-0.75 seconds due to running such a compromised setup to avoid porpoising.

That’s plausible and I won’t deny it.

[holeindalip]

As they’re trying to fix the porpoising (5 weeks hasn’t worked so far), if it takes another 5 weeks, the teams they’re trying to catch will be 5 tenths ahead by then via development.

Such is the learning curve with new regs, which is why a bad start like this is almost disastrous. I’m more inclined to believe this will hurt them for multiple seasons as opposed to a few races.

Hope I’m dead wrong.

Or conversely, solving a fundamental issue like porpoising, which is forcing them to run a quite severely compromised setup, is likely to give then a much bigger boost in performance than any team who have solved it can achieve through 'normal' development.

AM reckon theyre giving away 0.5-0.75 seconds due to running such a compromised setup to avoid porpoising.

That’s plausible and I won’t deny it.

It shouldn’t hurt them for years, remember if you finish lower you get more wind tunnel runs and cfd time. In theory it should all even out…..

[zibby43]

Or conversely, solving a fundamental issue like porpoising, which is forcing them to run a quite severely compromised setup, is likely to give then a much bigger boost in performance than any team who have solved it can achieve through 'normal' development.

AM reckon theyre giving away 0.5-0.75 seconds due to running such a compromised setup to avoid porpoising.

That’s plausible and I won’t deny it.

It shouldn’t hurt them for years, remember if you finish lower you get more wind tunnel runs and cfd time. In theory it should all even out…..

For sure. On the chassis side, at least. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword though. Because, until summer break, they’ll have the least resources.

PU improvements are locked, outside of reliability. Ferrari has really knocked it out of the park with their E10 adaptation. Toto doesn’t know yet whether it’s drag, PU deficiencies, or both, that are hurting them on the main straight.

[AR3-GP]

Or conversely, solving a fundamental issue like porpoising, which is forcing them to run a quite severely compromised setup, is likely to give then a much bigger boost in performance than any team who have solved it can achieve through 'normal' development.

AM reckon theyre giving away 0.5-0.75 seconds due to running such a compromised setup to avoid porpoising.

That’s plausible and I won’t deny it.

It shouldn’t hurt them for years, remember if you finish lower you get more wind tunnel runs and cfd time. In theory it should all even out…..

They won't finish low enough for that to make a difference. Merc are P3 or better. The difference between P3 and P1 resource time is basically 1 extra week (~50 hours) and estimated at 1 tenth of a second improvement.
https://www.formu1a.uno/f1-2022-mercede ... the%20last.

That is much smaller than the variation in gains that comes from just throwing a bad concept on the car or throwing a really good one on.

[holeindalip]

That’s plausible and I won’t deny it.

It shouldn’t hurt them for years, remember if you finish lower you get more wind tunnel runs and cfd time. In theory it should all even out…..

They won't finish low enough for that to make a difference. Merc are P3 or better. The difference between P3 and P1 resource time is basically 1 extra week (~50 hours) and estimated at 1 tenth of a second improvement.
https://www.formu1a.uno/f1-2022-mercede ... the%20last.

That is much smaller than the variation in gains that comes from just throwing a bad concept on the car or throwing a really good one on.

If you are a competitor would you want one of the most dominate teams of all time to have 50 more hours? I’m more worried for the other teams once the car issues are sorted…

[Marty_Y]

That’s plausible and I won’t deny it.

It shouldn’t hurt them for years, remember if you finish lower you get more wind tunnel runs and cfd time. In theory it should all even out…..

For sure. On the chassis side, at least. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword though. Because, until summer break, they’ll have the least resources.

PU improvements are locked, outside of reliability. Ferrari has really knocked it out of the park with their E10 adaptation. Toto doesn’t know yet whether it’s drag, PU deficiencies, or both, that are hurting them on the main straight.

There's still a chance to improve The MGU-K, Energy Store and Control Electronics, as the deadline has been set as 1 September.

[Big Tea]

Tinfoil hat theory.

Let the RBR and Ferrari protagonists go out and shape up to each other and get the boundaries established with no naughty boy points for Merc drivers and no direct Ham Ves fight to simmer through the year.


Or they really have decided to take whats on offer by giving up some of what was not working.

[Jozsusz]

So the car has too much drag, bouncing, the setup is compromised and the front suspension needs a complete rework.
And it was 5 tenths off the pace.
Okay

[Andi76]

Lewis also was 2 tenths slower in Q3 than in Q2.
So we can say Merc's deficit is more or less 5 tenths.

I added up the best sectors from the top 10 (taken from shamyakovic screenshot), I know it's not totally representative (don't know how the prep lap for tires was or them falling of during another sector) but lewis' time is ''only'' 0,363 of charles' best combined effort. Should be overcomable if the car is handling properly and if they can tap into the promised locked potential.

Yeah, 4-5 tenths is absolutely managable given the compromises.
I think this car should be a good one once they sort out the problems.
Question if they can do it quickly...

In my opinion this would not change a lot. While Mercedes solves their problems Red Bull and Ferrari will develope their car. After Mercedes solved the problems the gap will be the same because the others already gained performance by developement... thats also the reason why there never was a team in F1 with serious problems when the season started fighting for the championship.

[LM10]

Or conversely, solving a fundamental issue like porpoising, which is forcing them to run a quite severely compromised setup, is likely to give then a much bigger boost in performance than any team who have solved it can achieve through 'normal' development.

AM reckon theyre giving away 0.5-0.75 seconds due to running such a compromised setup to avoid porpoising.

That’s plausible and I won’t deny it.

It shouldn’t hurt them for years, remember if you finish lower you get more wind tunnel runs and cfd time. In theory it should all even out…..

I was thinking that RedBull could have big problems going into this season because they developed the RB16B right to the end of the season and on top of that had the second least amount of wind tunnel and CFD time developing the RB18. Yet, look at what they brought to track.

[lio007]

That’s plausible and I won’t deny it.

It shouldn’t hurt them for years, remember if you finish lower you get more wind tunnel runs and cfd time. In theory it should all even out…..

I was thinking that RedBull could have big problems going into this season because they developed the RB16B right to the end of the season and on top of that had the second least amount of wind tunnel and CFD time developing the RB18. Yet, look at what they brought to track.

From July 1st to December 31st in 2021 RBR even had the least amount, because they were 1st in WCC on 30th June.

[El_KaPpa]

If they get downforce running more wing than the others instead of generating from the floor they will have a problem following others and pass in the race.

[wesley123]

In my opinion this would not change a lot. While Mercedes solves their problems Red Bull and Ferrari will develope their car.

A surprising amount can be learned just from understanding the car. Also people talk about problems, but the qualifying gap here has often been the difference between quali and racepace.

thats also the reason why there never was a team in F1 with serious problems when the season started fighting for the championship.

We don't know how the season will progress, but it is a very long season. If it'll be anything like the previous huge rulechange Mercedes will have approximately half a season to solve their issues.