Mercedes W13

[Andi76]

but i also think one good performance on a well known track does not mean a lot. And i still think the concept is inferior to Red Bulls and Ferraris.

Please can you give a technical reason for that?

It's well reasoned that if your car performs well at Barca it will do well at the majority of tracks on the calendar.
I see more reasons to be optimistic if the car performs well here.

Also, Given the W13 is different from both RB and Ferrari concepts, you give absolutely no reason to back up what you are saying. The Ferrari and RB concepts are different between themselves.
The porpoising of the W13 has been addressed and was no worse than Ferrari.

The Mercedes also is pretty much in raw spec right now. The floor has been stiffened, and the rest of the car has not gone the usual refinements we have seen from RB and Ferrari.
It is also carrying far more weight. The team have now got a stable base to throw developments at it, and I cant help but think throwing opinions around without even giving a reason why.

My reasons why the W13 could eventually challenge RB, as I feel at this stage it's already quick enough to challenge Ferrari in Sainz hands at least.

Weightloss. More weight to lose relative RB and Ferrari.

Further floor developments. Having suffered the most, they have the most to gain.

Staged development upgrade path. Ferrari had a big upgrade package and Merc closed a large portion of the gap with less of performance upgrade and more of a problem solving exercise.

Sorry that i did not give reasons to back up what i was saying in relation to the concept, but i already did give them several times on this thread so i did not want to repeat it again, but i will as you asked for it.

But first of all i want to make clear that it is possible that Mercedes indeed made a step forward and they may have even solved their porpoising problem with the new floor. You are definetely right that usually a car that performs well in Barcelona does well at the majority of tracks.

But - no car had porpoising in Barcelona. So either everyone has solved the porpoising issue, or there was another reason. One reason could be that the teams know Barcelona and had so much data from preseason testing that every team knew exactly what to do to avoid it. So there are two possibilities - all teams have solved it, or if we go to another track - porpoising will be back. And other than Ferrari - Mercedes lose laptime because of porpoising.

And like i already said - Mercedes was still 6-8 tenths slower than Leclerc. So i do not think they really closed the gap to Ferrari. You say Mercedes is in a pretty rough spec still. But its a fact that Ferrari brought their first upgrades to Barcelona, but Mercedes brought upgrades to other tracks as well. So if one car still is in a more rough spec than the other, its the Ferrari. Also Ferraris upgrade package at Barcelona was not as big as Mercedes. I do not want to get into an argumentation if its true that if one suffers the most, he can gain the most, because i do not think this is true. If it would be that easy Williams could make the biggest steps of all teams, and thats definetely not the case. As i do not know the real numbers in terms of weight, no one does, i also do not want to take this as an argument for one team will having an advantage.

At the end of the day i still think Mercedes concept is inferior. They lack the pressurisation zone under the sidepod inlet that protrudes forward and "feeds" the floor. Thats a disadvantage in my opinion. Also the drive the floor by getting as much air as possible over the top of the diffusor. Thats why they have their "zero-pods". But because of these pods, they sacrificed rear-and beamwing performance, because they need to package their cooling system higher. So they have a higher CoG, a huge airbox and a really big engine-cover. So they get less air to the rear-and beamwing. But these devices create more upwash than any other device. And Ferrari and Red Bull use this upwash to drive their floors. Next to the pressurisation zone, thats another thing where Ferrari and Red Bull has an advantage, because to drive your floor with the two strongest upwash devices, is superior to drive your floor with air over the diffusor. So - technically, thats the reasons why i think Mercedes concept is inferior to Ferrari and Red Bull.

But, one more but : this does not mean i am right! Maybe Mercedes has found a way or a trick how their concept works better than Ferraris and Red Bulls concepts, even if i could not imagine how this would be possible, but their engineers are among the best on the planet!

But anyway - they next two races will prove if Mercedes really has made a big step forward. Untill this has happened, all i say is - do not get overenthusiastic because of one single performance. The gap to Lerclerc was still 6-8 tenths. So - not really much less than before. No cars had porpoising in Barcelona. So either everyone has solved it, or this was only because the teams knew what to do because of all the data in preseason-testing. And Barcelona is a well known track where especially Mercedes always performed extraordinally. And this year the Set-Up can make a huge difference and only the next one or two races will if there really was a big step performance-wise, or if this was track-dependant.

[cplchanb]

but i also think one good performance on a well known track does not mean a lot. And i still think the concept is inferior to Red Bulls and Ferraris.

Please can you give a technical reason for that?

It's well reasoned that if your car performs well at Barca it will do well at the majority of tracks on the calendar.
I see more reasons to be optimistic if the car performs well here.

Also, Given the W13 is different from both RB and Ferrari concepts, you give absolutely no reason to back up what you are saying. The Ferrari and RB concepts are different between themselves.
The porpoising of the W13 has been addressed and was no worse than Ferrari.

The Mercedes also is pretty much in raw spec right now. The floor has been stiffened, and the rest of the car has not gone the usual refinements we have seen from RB and Ferrari.
It is also carrying far more weight. The team have now got a stable base to throw developments at it, and I cant help but think throwing opinions around without even giving a reason why.

My reasons why the W13 could eventually challenge RB, as I feel at this stage it's already quick enough to challenge Ferrari in Sainz hands at least.

Weightloss. More weight to lose relative RB and Ferrari.

Further floor developments. Having suffered the most, they have the most to gain.

Staged development upgrade path. Ferrari had a big upgrade package and Merc closed a large portion of the gap with less of performance upgrade and more of a problem solving exercise.

Sorry that i did not give reasons to back up what i was saying in relation to the concept, but i already did give them several times on this thread so i did not want to repeat it again, but i will as you asked for it.

But first of all i want to make clear that it is possible that Mercedes indeed made a step forward and they may have even solved their porpoising problem with the new floor. You are definetely right that usually a car that performs well in Barcelona does well at the majority of tracks.

But - no car had porpoising in Barcelona. So either everyone has solved the porpoising issue, or there was another reason. One reason could be that the teams know Barcelona and had so much data from preseason testing that every team knew exactly what to do to avoid it. So there are two possibilities - all teams have solved it, or if we go to another track - porpoising will be back. And other than Ferrari - Mercedes lose laptime because of porpoising.

And like i already said - Mercedes was still 6-8 tenths slower than Leclerc. So i do not think they really closed the gap to Ferrari. You say Mercedes is in a pretty rough spec still. But its a fact that Ferrari brought their first upgrades to Barcelona, but Mercedes brought upgrades to other tracks as well. So if one car still is in a more rough spec than the other, its the Ferrari. Also Ferraris upgrade package at Barcelona was not as big as Mercedes. I do not want to get into an argumentation if its true that if one suffers the most, he can gain the most, because i do not think this is true. If it would be that easy Williams could make the biggest steps of all teams, and thats definetely not the case. As i do not know the real numbers in terms of weight, no one does, i also do not want to take this as an argument for one team will having an advantage.

At the end of the day i still think Mercedes concept is inferior. They lack the pressurisation zone under the sidepod inlet that protrudes forward and "feeds" the floor. Thats a disadvantage in my opinion. Also the drive the floor by getting as much air as possible over the top of the diffusor. Thats why they have their "zero-pods". But because of these pods, they sacrificed rear-and beamwing performance, because they need to package their cooling system higher. So they have a higher CoG, a huge airbox and a really big engine-cover. So they get less air to the rear-and beamwing. But these devices create more upwash than any other device. And Ferrari and Red Bull use this upwash to drive their floors. Next to the pressurisation zone, thats another thing where Ferrari and Red Bull has an advantage, because to drive your floor with the two strongest upwash devices, is superior to drive your floor with air over the diffusor. So - technically, thats the reasons why i think Mercedes concept is inferior to Ferrari and Red Bull.

But, one more but : this does not mean i am right! Maybe Mercedes has found a way or a trick how their concept works better than Ferraris and Red Bulls concepts, even if i could not imagine how this would be possible, but their engineers are among the best on the planet!

But anyway - they next two races will prove if Mercedes really has made a big step forward. Untill this has happened, all i say is - do not get overenthusiastic because of one single performance. The gap to Lerclerc was still 6-8 tenths. So - not really much less than before. No cars had porpoising in Barcelona. So either everyone has solved it, or this was only because the teams knew what to do because of all the data in preseason-testing. And Barcelona is a well known track where especially Mercedes always performed extraordinally. And this year the Set-Up can make a huge difference and only the next one or two races will if there really was a big step performance-wise, or if this was track-dependant.

I'd give them a race or 2 before casting jusdgement like that. They still need to find the optimal setups with what is essentially a reset of their season by how things are going. But if one metric shows something look at the speed traps. Ham was much faster than anyone else and on lap time he was faster in S1 and S3. If anything that shows that their concept could be very slippery vs the draggy Ferrari.

[mantikos]

Car looks gorgeous when it's planted on the ground..if it was black even more aesthetically pleasing

If the fix was to keep the floor off the ground it doesn't look like its working in that picture!

It wasn't - the fix was to prevent the floor oscillating, which is why I don't buy Ted's hypothesis entirely I mean the Merc is one of if the the lowest running cars out there now and in that picture alone it shows you that it's wasn't sealing the edges that was the issue, it was perhaps more so uncontrolled oscillations of the floor.

Also agree with CPLChanB - yesterday proved that the Merc's concept is indeed low drag.

[mzivtins]

Hiya all,

Any indication on where RB, Ferrari and Merc sit in terms of weight relative to the minimum?

The only information i could find was back in march where 15kg on the ferrari and merc was thrown around as a number

[HungarianRacer]

"... But because of these pods, they sacrificed rear-and beamwing performance, because they need to package their cooling system higher. So they have a higher CoG, a huge airbox and a really big engine-cover. So they get less air to the rear-and beamwing..."

This is so astonishingly silly. The RB18 has even more center line cooling even higher up with a bulkier airbox and a considerably larger center-rear heat outlet... Comparatively speaking, both the Red Bull's and Ferrari's rear is stuffed with bodywork, you need to view them from a very obtuse angle to observe the diffuser kick, let alone the beam wings...

Yes, the Silver Arrow has a bit more of a "shoulder line" behind the halo mounting points (especially since the "zero pod" upgrade), and Maranello's car obviously went back to a minimized airbox volume concept, but to argue - relying purely on "eyeball CFD" (and possibly something else, but I'd rather not open that toxic can of worms for now) - that blockage to the mentioned aero devices is definitely the problem for the car that is in fact SIGNIFICANTLY smaller in overal volume compared to it's rivals... Silly is probably the least provocative word I could use to describe it...

[holeindalip]

"... But because of these pods, they sacrificed rear-and beamwing performance, because they need to package their cooling system higher. So they have a higher CoG, a huge airbox and a really big engine-cover. So they get less air to the rear-and beamwing..."

This is so astonishingly silly. The RB18 has even more center line cooling even higher up with a bulkier airbox and a considerably larger center-rear heat outlet... Comparatively speaking, both the Red Bull's and Ferrari's rear is stuffed with bodywork, you need to view them from a very obtuse angle to observe the diffuser kick, let alone the beam wings...

Yes, the Silver Arrow has a bit more of a "shoulder line" behind the halo mounting points (especially since the "zero pod" upgrade), and Maranello's car obviously went back to a minimized airbox volume concept, but to argue - relying purely on "eyeball CFD" (and possibly something else, but I'd rather not open that toxic can of worms for now) - that blockage to the mentioned aero devices is definitely the problem for the car that is in fact SIGNIFICANTLY smaller in overal volume compared to it's rivals... Silly is probably the least provocative word I could use to describe it...

I don’t understand why people think they moved cooling up to make these zero pods. It’s exactly the same I internals as the Barcelona preseason testing. Like you said the engine cover got slightly larger for the hot air exit/cannons but nothing got moved….

[PlatinumZealot]

The new setup for the tweaked floor made the car slower in slow speed corners. Understandable since the car runs lower and stiffer.

[Andi76]

"... But because of these pods, they sacrificed rear-and beamwing performance, because they need to package their cooling system higher. So they have a higher CoG, a huge airbox and a really big engine-cover. So they get less air to the rear-and beamwing..."

This is so astonishingly silly. The RB18 has even more center line cooling even higher up with a bulkier airbox and a considerably larger center-rear heat outlet... Comparatively speaking, both the Red Bull's and Ferrari's rear is stuffed with bodywork, you need to view them from a very obtuse angle to observe the diffuser kick, let alone the beam wings...

Yes, the Silver Arrow has a bit more of a "shoulder line" behind the halo mounting points (especially since the "zero pod" upgrade), and Maranello's car obviously went back to a minimized airbox volume concept, but to argue - relying purely on "eyeball CFD" (and possibly something else, but I'd rather not open that toxic can of worms for now) - that blockage to the mentioned aero devices is definitely the problem for the car that is in fact SIGNIFICANTLY smaller in overal volume compared to it's rivals... Silly is probably the least provocative word I could use to describe it...

I do not want to comment on someone who calls other people in this forum silly. You by doing this, you call many people in this forum silly, who made the same observations and conclusions. I can just comment on that - if someone does not see the huge difference in the frontal area of the airbox(even to the RB) and the engine cover between the Ferrari and the Merc - he is obviously blind as the difference is massive. And you need no Cfd to know that much less air is getting to the rearwing and beamwing. And you also need no CFD to know that rear and beamwing significantly influence each other. And by the way - neither Ferrari nor Red Bull is packaged with bodywork at the height of the rear-and beamwing. Only the Merc is. So thats just obviously non-sense and i throw the ball back - silly and blind are probably the least provocative words i can use to describe it.

[HungarianRacer]

"... But because of these pods, they sacrificed rear-and beamwing performance, because they need to package their cooling system higher. So they have a higher CoG, a huge airbox and a really big engine-cover. So they get less air to the rear-and beamwing..."

This is so astonishingly silly. The RB18 has even more center line cooling even higher up with a bulkier airbox and a considerably larger center-rear heat outlet... Comparatively speaking, both the Red Bull's and Ferrari's rear is stuffed with bodywork, you need to view them from a very obtuse angle to observe the diffuser kick, let alone the beam wings...

Yes, the Silver Arrow has a bit more of a "shoulder line" behind the halo mounting points (especially since the "zero pod" upgrade), and Maranello's car obviously went back to a minimized airbox volume concept, but to argue - relying purely on "eyeball CFD" (and possibly something else, but I'd rather not open that toxic can of worms for now) - that blockage to the mentioned aero devices is definitely the problem for the car that is in fact SIGNIFICANTLY smaller in overal volume compared to it's rivals... Silly is probably the least provocative word I could use to describe it...

I do not want to comment on someone who calls other people in this forum silly. You by doing this, you call many people in this forum silly, who made the same observations and conclusions. I can just comment on that - if someone does not see the huge difference in the frontal area of the airbox and the engine cover between the Ferrari and the Merc - he is obviously blind as the difference is massive. And you need no Cfd to know that much less air is getting to the rearwing and beamwing. And you also need no CFD to know that they significantly influence each other. So i throw the ball back - silly and blind are probably the least provocative words i can use to describe it.

I like how you just capitalized on the opportunity presented by the fact that I only quoted a little snippet from your comment... In your small essay you discuss the W13's deficiencies/conceptual flaws compared to the F1-75 and RB18, including the application of center line cooling and a bulky airbox... Conveniently ignoringfact that the RB18 sports even more center cooling and an even bulkier airbox...

EDIT: since you added that opinion about the RB's airbox, this might not be the best image comparison, but still:



Everyone is free to judge for themselves...

[PhillipM]

The beam wing is so low the short W13 pods probably drive it harder if anything, they'll have a lot of airflow getting there.

[ringo]

I dont like to make calls on the air inlet and engine cover regarding air to the rear wing.
It's very dependent on the distance away from that front area in question to the wing.
If there is sufficient time the flow will stabilize and energized air from the surrounding environment will merge inward before thebair hits the wing.
If for instance the bulge in the engine cover is just 2 feet away from the wing, yes there will be a problem compared to a car that doesnt have such a big obstruction.
The Mercedes has less frontal area than the others. It may be bulkier at the shoulder, but what's important is that the cover is shaped such that the environmental streams have enough time to merge inward before hitting the rear wing. Ferrari uses the air intake horns to promote this happening.
But overall the mercedes is not really suffering from poor rear wing flow.
The others are more liable to suffer flow to the beam wing and diffuser and brake ducts with their bigger sidepods and possivle more drag As overall..they still have more frontal area.

It seems to me the intercoolers/charge air pipes of the mercedes are under the white bulges above the radiators. They may not be able to slim the upper part of the car without reverting back to a conventional design.

[PlatinumZealot]

That is extra bulk around the Halo is an inconsequential detail.

It's not worth commenting on.

Remember the 2021 Alpine?

[F1Krof]

So the theory is that W13 was performing very good on slow speed corners (at least what I heard) before the upgrade. Question is: will they rollback the current developments for Monaco, since Monaco has no high speed corners? There is still concern for bouncing coming out of the tunnel, is it worth the try? I would risk at least with one car on Thursday to see what's what.

What do you think?

[wogx]

I would risk at least with one car on T̶h̶u̶r̶s̶d̶a̶y̶ ̶to see what's what.

Friday* from this year.

[Andi76]

The beam wing is so low the short W13 pods probably drive it harder if anything, they'll have a lot of airflow getting there.

These pods have a downwashing effect. They do not drive the beamwing. Also Mercedes has a downwashing element in the area of the mirrors what further reduces flow towards the beamwing. Then you have the massive shoulders...Mercedes definetely has not a lot of air that goes to the beamwing. Red Bull maximises the flow to the beamwing being much smaller in that area. But anyway - even if some people do not want to believe it - we have CFD in this forum done by aerodynamicists that clearly shows the differences in concept, proving that Mercedes concept is to drive the floor with getting more air over the diffusor. While Red Bull and Ferrari drive their floor with the rear- and beamwing. The picture also clearly shows this for the trained eye. As did analysis by aerodynamicists on youtube. Everyone can check by himself.