Mercedes W13

[scheffers]

The article seems to suggest the opposite, the wing was designed to generate more d/f despite higher drag because they couldn't run the floor low enough to get the expected d/f

The wing was designed before they discovered the porpoising so your answer cannot be correct.

That's what I'm saying! They've had the same rear wing since Barcelona which means they've designed it before discovering their porpoising issues!

Had they discovered porpoising through CFD they would have solved it anyway...

In some years I guess CFD will include non-lineair stress/displacement/strain-analysis with loads straight from the CFD outcome. (realtime)

[Just_a_fan]

The wing was designed before they discovered the porpoising so your answer cannot be correct.

That's what I'm saying! They've had the same rear wing since Barcelona which means they've designed it before discovering their porpoising issues!

Had they discovered porpoising through CFD they would have solved it anyway...

I wonder who their source is inside Mercedes, it looks like a mis-information spread (almost on the scale of a dirty protest!!). They expected the big wings to be effective. That there was a suggestion that “at least one of the customer teams had it wrong” from JA (who else uses the Merc WT…), when Merc themselves are ‘off-target’, shows how creating a car concept in a vacuum can bite you. They were so confident! Maybe once they fix the issues (more than one area??), the big wings will go back on?

Mercedes, of course, don't have "junior" teams, unlike Red Bull and Ferrari. Interesting to see that those teams' "junior" teams use similar (although not identical) concepts. Funny that, eh?

[atanatizante]

[silver]

That's what I'm saying! They've had the same rear wing since Barcelona which means they've designed it before discovering their porpoising issues!

Had they discovered porpoising through CFD they would have solved it anyway...

I wonder who their source is inside Mercedes, it looks like a mis-information spread (almost on the scale of a dirty protest!!). They expected the big wings to be effective. That there was a suggestion that “at least one of the customer teams had it wrong” from JA (who else uses the Merc WT…), when Merc themselves are ‘off-target’, shows how creating a car concept in a vacuum can bite you. They were so confident! Maybe once they fix the issues (more than one area??), the big wings will go back on?

Mercedes, of course, don't have "junior" teams, unlike Red Bull and Ferrari. Interesting to see that those teams' "junior" teams use similar (although not identical) concepts. Funny that, eh?

Ever since Haas VF18 car came in 2018, it was made clear to the world that it's ok for customer cars to have "influenced" design as they buy a lot of parts from the senior team. That's what "Pink Mercedes" was all about. It was already known, with the cost cap, customer teams or junior teams if you will, would be having a greater influence by their senior team. Helmut Marko was quite vocal about it last year with regards to pushing AT to use more of senior team to the extent that they even moved to RB wind tunnel. That's perfectly accepted in F1 world now. I am equally puzzled when JA made that remark, what was the source as they don't operate under senior/junior model!

[Vanja #66]

I wonder if this is predominantly down to the design of the tunnel entrance vanes. The RB doesn't appear to turn airflow outwards as aggressively as others under the forward part of the floor.

No, lowering ride height for downforce gain is what ground effect floors are all about (just like wings), vanes or no vanes...

[OO7]

I wonder if this is predominantly down to the design of the tunnel entrance vanes. The RB doesn't appear to turn airflow outwards as aggressively as others under the forward part of the floor.

No, lowering ride height for downforce gain is what ground effect floors are all about (just like wings), vanes or no vanes...

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jo ... 1-0413.png

I wasn't very clear in my reply Vanja. I understand it's about getting the car as low as possible, but I'm wondering if it's the design of those vanes which is allowing RBR to do so, without the associated problems low ride heights with strong ground effects creates.

[_cerber1]

[atanatizante]

I wonder if this is predominantly down to the design of the tunnel entrance vanes. The RB doesn't appear to turn airflow outwards as aggressively as others under the forward part of the floor.

No, lowering ride height for downforce gain is what ground effect floors are all about (just like wings), vanes or no vanes...

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jo ... 1-0413.png

Could you please explain to us how is porpoising influenced by the car`s mass distribution or maybe perhaps by the centre of pressure moving, had I'm not misunderstanding something ... Thanks in advance!

[mkay]

This was reported by AMuS either Monday or yesterday.

Merc also brought a slightly revised front wing as well.

[Vanja #66]

I wasn't very clear in my reply Vanja. I understand it's about getting the car as low as possible, but I'm wondering if it's the design of those vanes which is allowing RBR to do so, without the associated problems low ride heights with strong ground effects creates.

Well, vanes usually build up on already existing performance with vortex generation. Since these vanes also have a task to set up and energize floor sealing vortices, we can assume they have an influence with aero bouncing - with better sealing, a car can be driven a bit higher with less aero losses vs a car with poor floor sealing. How big of an influence vanes have on RB, difficult to say, but their geometry is very curious and definitely aimed at improving performance.

Could you please explain to us how is porpoising influenced by the car`s mass distribution or maybe perhaps by the centre of pressure moving, had I'm not misunderstanding something ... Thanks in advance!

I think you'll find a lot of information in these two threads

viewtopic.php?t=30265

viewtopic.php?t=30336

[PlatinumZealot]

New front wing has slimmer flaps.

[AA_2019]

Peter Wright, designer of the old Lotus ground effect cars was clear, you need a very firm suspension and then you have the issue with the flexing in the sidewalls of the tyres which might be why Mercedes have been favouring the harder tyres.

[dialtone]

Peter Wright, designer of the old Lotus ground effect cars was clear, you need a very firm suspension and then you have the issue with the flexing in the sidewalls of the tyres which might be why Mercedes have been favouring the harder tyres.

Despite that being Peter Wright, I'm sure the issue isn't as easy as "get a harder suspension and use harder tyres" because Mercedes would have taken 20 minutes to try that and see it fixed.

[AA_2019]

Peter Wright, designer of the old Lotus ground effect cars was clear, you need a very firm suspension and then you have the issue with the flexing in the sidewalls of the tyres which might be why Mercedes have been favouring the harder tyres.

Despite that being Peter Wright, I'm sure the issue isn't as easy as "get a harder suspension and use harder tyres" because Mercedes would have taken 20 minutes to try that and see it fixed.

Err… they did try a harder suspension in pre season tests but it made it undrivable, pretty sure they needed more than 20 mins to test and figure that out or else they would not have wasted valuable testing time

The lower downforce rear wing will help to reduce purposing, then they can run the car lower to make up the loss of downforce and then they go back to the same level of purposing tolerance but with less drag. That should have taken them 20 mins to figure out during the pre season test, but clearly didn’t

[dialtone]

Peter Wright, designer of the old Lotus ground effect cars was clear, you need a very firm suspension and then you have the issue with the flexing in the sidewalls of the tyres which might be why Mercedes have been favouring the harder tyres.

Despite that being Peter Wright, I'm sure the issue isn't as easy as "get a harder suspension and use harder tyres" because Mercedes would have taken 20 minutes to try that and see it fixed.

Err… they did try a harder suspension in pre season tests but it made it undrivable, pretty sure they needed more than 20 mins to test and figure that out or else they would not have wasted valuable testing time

The lower downforce rear wing will help to reduce purposing, then they can run the car lower to make up the loss of downforce and then they go back to the same level of purposing tolerance but with less drag. That should have taken them 20 mins to figure out during the pre season test, but clearly didn’t

As I said it already in this thread in the past, in my opinion any commentary that assumes Merc isn't smart, or hasn't thought of something obvious, is likely wrong or simplifying the problem too much. It should be obvious to assume that a team that won 8 WCCs in a row is stacked, so starting with this assumption, if it's taking them this long to figure it out, they are either solving a different problem than what people here are thinking or the problem isn't so trivial to solve for them.

And making the car undrivable by using a harder suspension is not a solution, maybe the compromises they chose don't allow for that, unlike other cars which instead have been able to deal with it that way, with slightly higher ride height.