Mercedes W13

[Marty_Y]

The Mercedes does not have more drag than the ferrari.
They decided to put more drag on the car than they expected to compensate for their issues.

Drag has a direct relationship with frontal area and pressure differential. As we see from the race, the redbull has better speed from the Ferrari, which I figured would be the case. Drag has three classifications of course, but at these speeds the frontal area is more critical.
The crash structure wing on mercedes does not have more drag than usual. It simply doesn't.
The ferrari powered cars clearly have an edge now, as we see Alpha and Haas doing very well, but still the F175 could not catch redbull with the "weaker" engine.

I am encouraged by the improvements of the W13, despite it being 1 second per lap off the pace. The podium at least proves its reliability.

Must have watched a different race… the only way Verstappen got to pass Leclerc was by lunging in the corner compromising T1 exit.

Toto said the W13 is draggier and you come out saying it isn’t? Could it be Toto is right?

He's not saying their concept is inherently draggier, it because they're using more wing to compensate for raising the ride height.

'We had too much drag'
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff speaking on Sky Sports F1: "We were overwinged and had too much drag, mainly because we were lacking parts.

"Hopefully we can remedy that, but we will also leave no stone unturned on improving the power unit as well."

[Magicsenna_41]

It's really strange tbh.
Almost all Mercedes powered Teams at the back. Could be wrong-footed with new fuel regs or could it something to do with their suspension?
Do all of them use Merc rear suspension?

[ScrewCaptain27]

It's really strange tbh.
Almost all Mercedes powered Teams at the back. Could be wrong-footed with new fuel regs or could it something to do with their suspension?
Do all of them use Merc rear suspension?

No, McLaren make the whole rear end in-house, and I think Williams only uses the gearbox internals.

[Vanja #66]

The crash structure wing on mercedes does not have more drag than usual. It simply doesn't.

Did you do the math?

[izzy]

So Lewis is saying there's bouncing everywhere including corners, there's no rear end so it eats tyres, and it has a lot of drag so he couldn't pass Checo even with DRS!

I think it's too late to change the rear suspension geometry? Hopefully anyway it's all something that has a common cause that can solve it all together - stop the porpoising, run lower for more rear end and put a shallower rear wing on. That's all

[De Jokke]

Okay, I take this with pleasure! 27 points on the board in a malfunctioning car which is also a test behind.
Lewis could even follow in the first 10 laps or so. Imagine them getting this thing sorted!
Toto talked about low hanging fruit which could give our boys lots of opportunities to maximize until further progress (maybe from race 4/6 somewhere) can be made.

How much are we down?

0.5 in qwf
1sec in race pace (but this seems unlikely to me considering Lewis could follow at the beginning and in the end a bit.

Also, bahrain might have worsened the bouncing, although I'm not too optimistic for the next one in that regard (hearing it might be worse or a bit better, dunno)

[Mchamilton]

Okay, I take this with pleasure! 27 points on the board in a malfunctioning car which is also a test behind.
Lewis could even follow in the first 10 laps or so. Imagine them getting this thing sorted!
Toto talked about low hanging fruit which could give our boys lots of opportunities to maximize until further progress (maybe from race 4/6 somewhere) can be made.

How much are we down?

0.5 in qwf
1sec in race pace (but this seems unlikely to me considering Lewis could follow at the beginning and in the end a bit.

Also, bahrain might have worsened the bouncing, although I'm not too optimistic for the next one in that regard (hearing it might be worse or a bit better, dunno)

Its more like 0.5 in both trims. They made themselves look worse in the race by fitting the hard tyres.

[Just_a_fan]

Okay, I take this with pleasure! 27 points on the board in a malfunctioning car which is also a test behind.
Lewis could even follow in the first 10 laps or so. Imagine them getting this thing sorted!
Toto talked about low hanging fruit which could give our boys lots of opportunities to maximize until further progress (maybe from race 4/6 somewhere) can be made.

How much are we down?

0.5 in qwf
1sec in race pace (but this seems unlikely to me considering Lewis could follow at the beginning and in the end a bit.

Also, bahrain might have worsened the bouncing, although I'm not too optimistic for the next one in that regard (hearing it might be worse or a bit better, dunno)

Its more like 0.5 in both trims. They made themselves look worse in the race by fitting the hard tyres.

Nope. They were 1s a lap slower than the front four once the initial yee-haw early laps were done.

[De Jokke]

Which is striking to me is that merc is not that far off considering the other 2 have no such issues as merc has
+ the other 2 already have dialed in theirs cars somewhat. You would expect them to be further down the road giving all the issues merc has and time lost to bouncingsolving during testing.

[Just_a_fan]

Which is striking to me is that merc is not that far off considering the other 2 have no such issues as merc has
+ the other 2 already have dialed in theirs cars somewhat. You would expect them to be further down the road giving all the issues merc has and time lots to bouncingsolving during testing.

Exactly. If they an get the car to run happily at the correct ride height, they will up there and annoying the other two front teams. Not so sure about the lack of top speed on the straights, however. Max came from so back against LeClerc it was unfunny. If that had been Max against a Mercedes, he'd have started his overtake last week and still made it through. The Merc is like a GP2 car on the straights.

[Mchamilton]

Okay, I take this with pleasure! 27 points on the board in a malfunctioning car which is also a test behind.
Lewis could even follow in the first 10 laps or so. Imagine them getting this thing sorted!
Toto talked about low hanging fruit which could give our boys lots of opportunities to maximize until further progress (maybe from race 4/6 somewhere) can be made.

How much are we down?

0.5 in qwf
1sec in race pace (but this seems unlikely to me considering Lewis could follow at the beginning and in the end a bit.

Also, bahrain might have worsened the bouncing, although I'm not too optimistic for the next one in that regard (hearing it might be worse or a bit better, dunno)

Its more like 0.5 in both trims. They made themselves look worse in the race by fitting the hard tyres.

Nope. They were 1s a lap slower than the front four once the initial yee-haw early laps were done.

So they were almost on the pace.. Then 1 second off once into their expected positions? Not plausible that lewis has slowed down purposely at that point?
I dont see it being 1 second average the same tyres.

[De Jokke]

isn't this due to the extra wing they had to put on, due to downforce needed at the back because they had to up the rear due to bouncing? Not to concerned atm on the PU side (yet).

[Dee]

Which is striking to me is that merc is not that far off considering the other 2 have no such issues as merc has
+ the other 2 already have dialed in theirs cars somewhat. You would expect them to be further down the road giving all the issues merc has and time lots to bouncingsolving during testing.

Exactly. If they an get the car to run happily at the correct ride height, they will up there and annoying the other two front teams. Not so sure about the lack of top speed on the straights, however. Max came from so back against LeClerc it was unfunny. If that had been Max against a Mercedes, he'd have started his overtake last week and still made it through. The Merc is like a GP2 car on the straights.

You do realise that Merc were about 20/30 seconds back before the safety car came out, would have been 30/40 back otherwise

[Just_a_fan]

Its more like 0.5 in both trims. They made themselves look worse in the race by fitting the hard tyres.

Nope. They were 1s a lap slower than the front four once the initial yee-haw early laps were done.

So they were almost on the pace.. Then 1 second off once into their expected positions? Not plausible that lewis has slowed down purposely at that point?
I dont see it being 1 second average the same tyres.

Bear in mind that Lewis was holding within 1 second for a few laps which meant he had three DRS zones to help his lap time. As soon as Sainz gapped him to a second and thus killing the DRS benefit, Lewis fell away quite quickly.

[chrisc90]

isn't this due to the extra wing they had to put on, due to downforce needed at the back because they had to up the rear due to bouncing? Not to concerned atm on the PU side (yet).

Its interesting the customer teams were in the positions they were in, which the Merc was just in a little spot of its own throughout the race. Hard to compare PU's without having data and knowing what the look for, but I think its highly unlikely all the customer teams have got designs so wrong meaning they are at the lower end of the grid.


It will be interesting to compare average lap times from the W13 to the other cars on the track, given everyone now has done a race so data available will be more meaningful than trying to work out what fuel load the teams had in their car during testing.

I do think they are genuinely struggling though with a area of their car thats causing issues. Whether their pace through the race today was down to playing it safe with porpoising, the PU, or having to run a different setup to normal is another question to ask. Id say they are around 1 second behind on pace compared to redbull and ferrari.