Mercedes W13

[Mchamilton]

It's interesting to note that the car with the most "radical" side-pods, seems to be suffering the most with the porpoising issue, and their engineers appear to be struggling more than the others, to figure it out, and get it sorted.

My monies on, Mercedes has a fundamental issue that's a result of their design concept, and they to properly sort it out, they would have to redesign the car, which with the budget cap, they can't afford to do (Of course, I could be wrong - Always possible)

As it is, as a temporary/desperate fix, they're stripping rear wing off the car to try to get a higher straight line speed. That's fine for the straights, where you want to be able to keep up with your faster rivals, and keep ahead of your rivals with equal speed, but it can cost dearly in the corners, both in lost time, and in increased tyre wear, as the car slides more.

I'm suspecting that despite what Mercedes/Hamilton fans might be thinking/saying ("Mercedes will get this sorted quickly, and then Red Bull and Ferrari will be in real trouble" and such like), it could take Mercedes quite a bit of time to sort it out, and it could be a case that, in reality, in fixing the issues, they create others that compromise the cars performance just as much.

Ferrari and Red Bull already have a big advantage over Mercedes: Their cars have great performance, are well balanced, and neither team are chasing an unidentified aero/design issue, that could eat into their capped budget.

Ferrari and red bull were both porpoising in practice yesterday

[pursue_one's]

According to Motorsport Italy, Mercedes is expecting a new floor that could already arrive for the Australian GP in two weeks, without waiting for the resolution of the complete package(aerodynamic) that is expected for Imola, or more reasonably for Barcelona.

While carrying out the experiments to try to understand why the W13 is so sensitive to porpoising, the team has not found important solutions to reduce the hopping of the car on the Jeddah track while significantly unloading the front and rear wings.

https://it.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-me ... a/9336871/

[Andi76]

It's interesting to note that the car with the most "radical" side-pods, seems to be suffering the most with the porpoising issue, and their engineers appear to be struggling more than the others, to figure it out, and get it sorted.

My monies on, Mercedes has a fundamental issue that's a result of their design concept, and they to properly sort it out, they would have to redesign the car, which with the budget cap, they can't afford to do (Of course, I could be wrong - Always possible)

As it is, as a temporary/desperate fix, they're stripping rear wing off the car to try to get a higher straight line speed. That's fine for the straights, where you want to be able to keep up with your faster rivals, and keep ahead of your rivals with equal speed, but it can cost dearly in the corners, both in lost time, and in increased tyre wear, as the car slides more.

I'm suspecting that despite what Mercedes/Hamilton fans might be thinking/saying ("Mercedes will get this sorted quickly, and then Red Bull and Ferrari will be in real trouble" and such like), it could take Mercedes quite a bit of time to sort it out, and it could be a case that, in reality, in fixing the issues, they create others that compromise the cars performance just as much.

Ferrari and Red Bull already have a big advantage over Mercedes: Their cars have great performance, are well balanced, and neither team are chasing an unidentified aero/design issue, that could eat into their capped budget.

Ferrari and red bull were both porpoising in practice yesterday

It's interesting to note that the car with the most "radical" side-pods, seems to be suffering the most with the porpoising issue, and their engineers appear to be struggling more than the others, to figure it out, and get it sorted.

My monies on, Mercedes has a fundamental issue that's a result of their design concept, and they to properly sort it out, they would have to redesign the car, which with the budget cap, they can't afford to do (Of course, I could be wrong - Always possible)

As it is, as a temporary/desperate fix, they're stripping rear wing off the car to try to get a higher straight line speed. That's fine for the straights, where you want to be able to keep up with your faster rivals, and keep ahead of your rivals with equal speed, but it can cost dearly in the corners, both in lost time, and in increased tyre wear, as the car slides more.

I'm suspecting that despite what Mercedes/Hamilton fans might be thinking/saying ("Mercedes will get this sorted quickly, and then Red Bull and Ferrari will be in real trouble" and such like), it could take Mercedes quite a bit of time to sort it out, and it could be a case that, in reality, in fixing the issues, they create others that compromise the cars performance just as much.

Ferrari and Red Bull already have a big advantage over Mercedes: Their cars have great performance, are well balanced, and neither team are chasing an unidentified aero/design issue, that could eat into their capped budget.

Ferrari and red bull were both porpoising in practice yesterday

But not as much as Mercedes and unlike Mercedes they are always able to fix it quickly and without loosing a lot of downforce. I agree with his comment to be honest. I think Mercedes has a fundamental issue. And it comes from the concept probably, as it seems like all the teams who followed the concept of the micro-sidepods have a problem as they do worse than last year. Maybe its the pressurisation under the sidepod inlet and its benefits for the underfloor and the outwash that all the teams do in that area who have improved. Mercedes is not doing that and can't because of their sidepod philosophy. Maybe its the front-tyre wake that, because of the missing barge-boards, is not managed properly by these sidepods. However there seems to be a fundamental issue with the car. Especially when a team says it will take 5-6 races to fix...then there usually is a fundamental issue. Also, if you hear the comments of Wolf and the drivers - thats also whats usually said when there is a fundamental issue with the car unfortunately. Further Mercedes has to deal with finding their problem, while others are already developing. I also do not remember a team with problems like that becoming a championship contender later in the season. So - at the moment i think things are not looking promising at all.

[Shakeman]

It's interesting to note that the car with the most "radical" side-pods, seems to be suffering the most with the porpoising issue, and their engineers appear to be struggling more than the others, to figure it out, and get it sorted.

My monies on, Mercedes has a fundamental issue that's a result of their design concept, and they to properly sort it out, they would have to redesign the car, which with the budget cap, they can't afford to do (Of course, I could be wrong - Always possible)

As it is, as a temporary/desperate fix, they're stripping rear wing off the car to try to get a higher straight line speed. That's fine for the straights, where you want to be able to keep up with your faster rivals, and keep ahead of your rivals with equal speed, but it can cost dearly in the corners, both in lost time, and in increased tyre wear, as the car slides more.

I'm suspecting that despite what Mercedes/Hamilton fans might be thinking/saying ("Mercedes will get this sorted quickly, and then Red Bull and Ferrari will be in real trouble" and such like), it could take Mercedes quite a bit of time to sort it out, and it could be a case that, in reality, in fixing the issues, they create others that compromise the cars performance just as much.

Ferrari and Red Bull already have a big advantage over Mercedes: Their cars have great performance, are well balanced, and neither team are chasing an unidentified aero/design issue, that could eat into their capped budget.

A useful idiom is that correlation does not mean causation. The radical side pod design does not mean that Merc's issues are caused by them at all.

Just because other teams appear to have a handle on porpoising doesn't necessarily mean they have and perversely Merc's issues may cause them to have a better understanding of the phenomena going forward. Other teams may not have been affected by the issue that Merc is suffering from as not all porpoising is caused by the same issue.

In the Merc Bahrain debrief video JA certainly didn't give the impression that they were dealing with an unidentified issue actually quite the reverse actually.

The cost cap will likely mean teams won't bring a series of expensive smaller updates that chip away at the problem but focus on bigger updates that are more cost effective to fix the issue. They can't thrown unlimited cash at the problem which is a good thing but doesn't indicate them struggling to fix the problem if the fix doesn't appear at the next race.

[Mchamilton]

Mercedes are like 10mph down on RB

[erudite450]

Surely, the Mercedes power unit is severely lacking. All the Merc powered cars are down in the timing chart.

[wogx]

Mercedes are like 10mph down on RB

They can't hide behind excuses like a "barn door RW" now.

[AR3-GP]

More like a jiffy wing.

[Mchamilton]

Mercedes are like 10mph down on RB

https://i.redd.it/y00rrqra4rp81.jpg

They can't hide behind excuses like a "barn door RW" now.

Nope, shockingly slow. Bottom 7 cars in fp3 were all merc cars

[GrizzleBoy]

Toto still refuses to put issues down to power unit yet though....

[djones]

Surely, the Mercedes power unit is severely lacking. All the Merc powered cars are down in the timing chart.

I just can't see it. The Mercedes is still the best all-around PU, it's just all the teams using it are either poor or have built a high drag lemon.

Give it 4 or 5 races for Mercedes to sort their aero and all of a sudden I'd bet there are zero doubts about the PU ability.

[chrisc90]

Surely, the Mercedes power unit is severely lacking. All the Merc powered cars are down in the timing chart.

I just can't see it. The Mercedes is still the best all-around PU, it's just all the teams using it are either poor or have built a high drag lemon.

Give it 4 or 5 races for Mercedes to sort their aero and all of a sudden I'd bet there are zero doubts about the PU ability.

I cant see how all the customer teams have got their designs so wrong.

[wogx]

I cant see how all the customer teams have got their designs so wrong.

+ Mercedes, obviously. Which is more probable - Mercedes HPP designing a weaker engine, or 4 F1 teams going completely wrong with their designs?

[morefirejules08]

I cant see how all the customer teams have got their designs so wrong.

+ Mercedes, obviously. Which is more probable - Mercedes HPP designing a weaker engine, or 4 F1 teams going completely wrong with their designs?

Well McLaren have obvious issues beyond the PU, Williams’s are perpetually at the back of the grid and where were aston last season? Personally I suspect the MB PU is running detuned due to a reliability issue which is fixable under the current engine freeze and is why Toto isn’t concerned. If I’m wrong and the PU really is down on power compared to the others then MB are in trouble for the next few years.

[matteosc]

Surely, the Mercedes power unit is severely lacking. All the Merc powered cars are down in the timing chart.

I just can't see it. The Mercedes is still the best all-around PU, it's just all the teams using it are either poor or have built a high drag lemon.

Give it 4 or 5 races for Mercedes to sort their aero and all of a sudden I'd bet there are zero doubts about the PU ability.

There are no reasons to say that Mercedes PU is significantly behind, but there are even less reasons to say that it is "the best all-around PU". At the moment it looks like Ferrari and Honda are pretty close. Renault and Mercedes we can't really say, but it does not look like they are miles ahead.