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Why did they test two types of sidepod? Just to have something to compare against?
In Barcelona they ran an early revision of the w13 that was most likely finalized last year, maybe even before the season was over. What they ran in Bahrain was a later revision, most likely finished as late as possible.
I wonder if the underlying monocoque is the same or not. The big changes would be potentially be radiator placement, impact structures, fuel cell shape. The nosecone, halo, airbox, all that stuff seemed the same/interchangeable between the two versons. Maybe the Barcelona chassis was already in manufacture during 2020.
Didnt the team say they were the same car, just fake sidepods on the earlier one to make them look normal?
That's not an official MB twitter, it's a Mercedes fan account so don't take any of it seriously.
Yes, I know it is not official, but all other points are perfectly credible and serious.
This from Scarbs to someone that tagged him about that
His suggestion is Merc main thing they need to fix it the suspension first.
So he casts some doubt on it, at least whether it will address the main problem
Yes, Scabs point is that suspension is the main issue, according to an interview to Mercedes personnel.
I still think there is a lot to be done on aerodynamic regardless, so the updates program makes sense to me, suspension issue aside.
Yes, Scabs point is that suspension is the main issue, according to an interview to Mercedes personnel.
I still think there is a lot to be done on aerodynamic regardless, so the updates program makes sense to me, suspension issue aside.
A new floor and rear wing for Australia is pretty much confirmed. I expect sidepod and louver tweaks for Imola and a refined sidepod structure along with new suspensions for Barcelona. It makes sense as the process to validate the package might only be ready by then.
They are already almost 1 second slower in race pace compared to the best. From now on until Barcelona, Red Bull and Ferrari will gain half a second because at Barcelona all the big teams will have big upgrades. So nothing changes. At beat they will level the force with RB and Ferrari. This car has been an epic failure until now with all its problems. It was arrogance and underestimating the competition like they did with no tokens spent last year too. They could not anticipate that the whole concept has to decrease air resistance from the nose to the real whels not just the sidepods. The porpoising was solved by RB with the upgrade before the season started and Mercedes is not even sure how to solve it. It is so painful the fact that they switched earlier than Red Bull (but later than Ferrari) the resources for the 2022 car and still they are slower. What if Red bull switched effort earlier than they did? What would have been the difference???? What I cant understant what they are doing with the simulation and wind tunnel tools if they could not even acurately simulate the porpoising effect??? What did they think? Make the arrangements and interna coolings of the engine and transmission to make very tiny sidepods and that was all? That was the game changer that they could not even think about remotely?? What car is that that is so slim, so skinny and still be the heaviest on the grid??? Totto was talking in June that the 2022 car is not a baby anymore? That the project is mature enough while at the same time Red Bull was taking vans with aero bits in France and Austria? Where are those hours in the wind tunnel and CFD?? Is Newey so good to make this good car so late in development cycle?
Last edited by CMSMJ1 on 31 Mar 2022, 00:14, edited 3 times in total.
Reason:BS removed.
- Why would Mercedes have the heaviest car? The development from 2014 to 2021 decreased the weights of all the cars AFAIK and much of these gains were made in the PU department. ES is a big one. So assuming the Merc PU is an evolution of last year's PU, one would not think it would have gained weight. If the PU is the same, the thermal demands should be the same which would keep the weight the same on cooling components.
From strict appearance, it would seem that the Merc is tightly packaged internally and while that's not necessarily indicative of the weight, it makes me wonder what would be causing them to be heavier than the field this year? Major items I can think of: ES, monocoque, ICE+ERS, cooling equipment, transmission, general electronics/CE. I'm doubtful the ICE, MGU-K, MGU-H got any heavier, that wouldn't make sense. Likewise I don't see what would have changed in the transmission or casing. Same applies to the electronics packages. Cooling might be an area; since Merc has gone small-side-pod perhaps they have had to either increase the weight of cooling components? This again seems dubious as it emerged Merc was using an unspecified heat transfer technology in the intercooler that was derived from aerospace engine research. The implication was that this system was very efficient.
That would leave chassis and bodywork/floor. I'm wondering if that's the issue, particularly the floor since the other bodywork appears smaller than other teams. There is also of course the stiffness issue, both in the monocoque and more importantly the floor. I could see increase in weight in the monocoque with new crash requirements. Did Merc use more weight to meet these than everyone else? The floor is a new item and the ideal way to construct it probably has not been hit on uniformly. We also know the Merc floor is not very stiff. The first thought would be it's not thick enough, again implying that it would be lighter rather than heavier than the others. But certainly layup and ply direction have large impacts on directional stiffness, could Merc really have got this totally wrong?
Where's the weight coming from?
- Have we seen Mercedes try a "Size Zero" like the early turbo-hybrid McLaren-Honda? I'm sort of baffled at the Mercedes concept considering pretty much everyone but Williams took more of a high-and-wide approach to allow deep undercuts and downwash. Given how incredibly important sidepod-generated downforce has been for years now, how could Mercedes have overlooked this? More probably they didn't but deliberately opted for the small pods.
This seems very strange because it suggests that Merc thought the floor and wings could provide all the downforce, therefore the sidepods had been relegated to drag items? It's such an about-face from how the paddock has been designing cars.
Further, while we hear the PU is responsible for "only" 0.1-0.2 of the performance deficit, what would be causing that? It's not logical the Merc PU would have lost much post since last year. Reliability upgrades might have took its output down slightly but even that would surprise me. We saw the McLaren-Honda was way down on hp early and much of that was due to running the engine derated because of cooling issues. Have Mercedes done the same thing? Did they shrink the sidepods so much that they willingly gave up hp (from cooling) to remove drag? Would we expect E10 to hurt Merc more than the others?
- Last year, while Mercedes was not off the pace nearly as much as now, there was talk as early as Monaco that Merc was switching focus to 2022. The rumor continues that after Silverstone (which I believe Merc brought modest updates for), the situation was re-appraised. With 3/4 of the early races going their way mostly on strategy, and then losing the next 5 straight to RBR, Merc/Ham had some points to work with in a challenge but it was clear their car was not the fastest. It continues that two avenues were then embarked upon to develop the 2021 car; a screamer engine and a system to stall the diffuser more effectively. Rain in qualifying makes it difficult to know when these upgrades made it into both cars, but we know sometime around or after Monza Merc was showing more speed and Bottas started needing new engines (assuming he was the test-mule for HAM). Ultimately, the season was highly competitive.
This year the Merc seems to be in a bad place and while step 1 is understanding their problems that are upsetting their current concept from how it performed in the lab, that will only put them at roughly the pace of RBR/Ferrari in race 1, two teams which are not standing still in their own development. The questions become: is the ultimate pace of the package really much higher when it's working as they intend? Or are they behind even at that point? Is this year's Merc concept a lost cause?
All in all there seem to be three major factors right now against Merc:
- floor not working / porpoising, etc.
- engine power is down.
- car is overweight.
The first one can probably be addressed. The second maybe, depending on if additional cooling or different mapping would return the power. The third is very unlikely to change by much this year.
It was the same suspension as 2020, no special system to stall the diffuser, the engine wasnt some 200hp+ monster as everyone suggests. Most of the speed in the last 4 races was from a setup breakthrough in Brazil….
I’m guessing if it’s the new 18-inch rims and tyres that are causing most of of the porpoising problem. The Mercedes engineers might have underestimated the effects of the stiffer side-walls of the new tyres have on the suspensions under braking and over undulations, and will now have to come up with new suspension designs to solve the porpoising problem.
This is BS. They are already almost 1 second slower in race pace compared to the best. From now on until Barcelona, Red Bull and Ferrari will gain half a second because at Barcelona all the big teams will have big upgrades. So nothing changes. At beat they will level the force with RB and Ferrari. This car has been an epic failure until now with all its problems. It was arrogance and underestimating the competition like they did with no tokens spent last year too. They could not anticipate that the whole concept has to decrease air resistance from the nose to the real whels not just the sidepods. The porpoising was solved by RB with the upgrade before the season started and Mercedes is not even sure how to solve it. It is so painful the fact that they switched earlier than Red Bull (but later than Ferrari) the resources for the 2022 car and still they are slower. What if Red bull switched effort earlier than they did? What would have been the difference???? What I cant understant what they are doing with the simulation and wind tunnel tools if they could not even acurately simulate the porpoising effect??? What did they think? Make the arrangements and interna coolings of the engine and transmission to make very tiny sidepods and that was all? That was the game changer that they could not even think about remotely?? What car is that that is so slim, so skinny and still be the heaviest on the grid??? Totto was talking in June that the 2022 car is not a baby anymore? That the project is mature enough while at the same time Red Bull was taking vans with aero bits in France and Austria? Where are those hours in the wind tunnel and CFD?? Is Newey so good to make this good car so late in development cycle?
Agreed. Arrogance, and underestimated for sure. Considering there's no budget cap for PU development, they totally got complacent. Not only did they botch the aero, they botched how much of a change E10 would do to their PU
Hi, I remember at the last few races of last year Horner saying that he was impressed that the merc wasn’t clipping at the end of the straights or something along those lines.
It seems that the merc is now not too far off in acceleration but then the speed stops increasing as much as the others when it gets to a point as the speeds get higher.
Was that related to the battery last year? How could merc have lost that strength?
Last edited by danieldunn10 on 30 Mar 2022, 23:09, edited 1 time in total.
I’m guessing if it’s the new 18-inch rims and tyres that are causing most of of the porpoising problem. The Mercedes engineers might have underestimated the effects of the stiffer side-walls of the new tyres have on the suspensions under braking and over undulations, and will now have to come up with new suspension designs to solve the porpoising problem.
In addition to this it might also be that they’ve been caught out by the banning of “clever” suspension tricks this season, e.g. POU, hydraulic actuators, inerters and various fancy means of ride height control. Mercedes seemed to have made extensive use of these in years past so we might have a similar situation here to Williams in 1994 after active suspension was banned, which rendered their car finicky and unstable.
I think the entrance to the floor is too agressive near the body of the car and too low towards the outer edge.
The redbull has the higher opening on the outside.
It is possible that the floor should best be designed to have its downforce spread out more across the surface. The mercedes floor possibly has lower pressures in more concentrated areas and when these areas stall the loss is greater compares to a floor that has more generous distribution of low pressure.
Also i can see where flow through the vains under the car upset the adjust vane.
The suspension is indeed a solution, but maybe a solution to tolerate their very agressive floor.
It is very evident from the front profile that the floor has a very high pressure ratio in the middle sections.
I think the entrance to the floor is too agressive near the body of the car and too low towards the outer edge.
It is possible that the floor should best be designed to have its downforce spread out more across the surface. The mercedes floor possibly has lower pressures in more concentrated areas and when these areas stall the loss is greater compares to a floor that has more generous distribution of low pressure.
Also i can see where flow through the vains under the car upset the adjust vane.
The suspension is indeed a solution, but maybe a solution to tolerate their very agressive floor.
It is very evident from the front profile that the floor has a very high pressure ratio in the middle sections.
I had been thinking this too (very high downforce floor), but if this were the case the solution to the porpoising issue would be to ‘back off’ on both front and rear wings (to the point that are only used to ‘hit the numbers’ and get balance). The suspension would then get a better time of it (and the porpoising would be reduced).
The fact that they launched the car with monster advertising hoardings front and rear suggests that their simulation work pointed to this being the route to follow (and the rear wing change last weekend - rear flap only, suggests that this is a concept that they are wedded to).
From this I would draw the conclusion that either:
a) the floor is not a big ‘peak numbers’ device, but has to be run very low to be effective (so the big wings are required for downforce at lower speeds)
b) they have decided to try and mimic their super-collapsing rear suspension from last year, but (!!) because it now has to be mechanically linked (rather than the previous hydraulic linking), the pivot locations are slightly off from where they need to be for running the car effectively.
The car only really seems to be bouncing at the rear (whereas aero-porpoising occurs across both axles normally).
This could all be bollocks, though….
Perspective - Understanding that sometimes the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.
I had been thinking this too (very high downforce floor), but if this were the case the solution to the porpoising issue would be to ‘back off’ on both front and rear wings (to the point that are only used to ‘hit the numbers’ and get balance). The suspension would then get a better time of it (and the porpoising would be reduced).
I don't think this is true. The downforce from the wings is stable, the underfloor aero causes the instability. So backing off the wing downforce (without increasing ride height) does not help for the porpoising. Removing the underfloor downforce would.
