the merc floor only seems to be appear to be flat along its chord for the distance between the 2 bulges on the inner 'keel' wall. if you use that surface as a reference for the shape of the tunnel it looks just as wing shaped as the RB.ing. wrote: ↑15 Apr 2022, 23:19Seems to me the roof of the RBR tunnels are very much arched in section whereas the Merc has a lower, wide and flat roof (in section) and also flat along a good portion of its chord.e30ernest wrote: ↑11 Apr 2022, 11:12
Here you go:
https://i.imgur.com/pwYc0BH.jpg
Merc on the left, Red Bull on the right.
Edit: Right click and open in new tab to see full image resolution. The Merc image was rather low res compared to the Red Bull's photo, but I did enlarge the Merc's to the Bull's resolution.
The low, flat roof of the Merc would appear to make the flow more sensitive to ride height variations. At full bump, for example, the area will be reduced quite a bit more—assuming the width of the tunnels on both cars is similar. The Merc is turquoise and the RBR is purple:
https://i.imgur.com/MDt0t1K.jpg
With the Merc floor seeming to be flat along most of its chord ahead of the rear axle—as opposed to a more cambered wing-like profile—this would tend to make it more pitch and heave sensitive. As explained already by Migeot in the Autosport article, due to the cars having more suspension travel at the rear, heave displacement at full bump resembles a nose-down pitch attitude. With a flat floor, the throat moves aft and any blockage due to boundary layer build up would get exacerbated and so would affect total DF and CoP location. Front is —>
https://i.imgur.com/P8z35JL.jpg
This may explain why Merc have good numbers in the wind tunnel that don’t translate to results on track. Kind of like the extreme GE cars of the late ‘70s like the Lotus 80 and the Arrows A2.
seems they missed a trick with not using an arched roof through the throat though.
