Mercedes W13

[Vanja #66]

https://i.imgur.com/l1HMlxG.jpg

Not the best comparison, Ferrari had slightly taller RW frontal projection. In any case, not what I meant also, forgot to write "RW angle" regarding the inverted scoop on Merc RW. Just a quick CFD to demonstrate what this scoop means for front-view pressure-plots.





Numbers are useless, since they depend on specific aero foils, but I believe everyone can understand the difference the scoop makes. Both for lower drag and lower downforce. The same goes for airbox drag/surface area, which is clear as day...

[AeroDynamic]

[PlatinumZealot]

https://i.imgur.com/6LinfjR.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/l1HMlxG.jpg

Nice. Evidence! This is the way!

It looks like those photos are all under breaking or in a curve. I'm not saying the point won't stand, but we need photos highlighted like these from when the cars were at speed to account for the ridiculous amount of wing flex (as established on here) these front wings have.

What I'm amazed with is that Mercedes has bigger wings than the others and top speed was good (once you account for the lift and coast).

[PlatinumZealot]

https://i.imgur.com/l1HMlxG.jpg

Not the best comparison, Ferrari had slightly taller RW frontal projection. In any case, not what I meant also, forgot to write "RW angle" regarding the inverted scoop on Merc RW. Just a quick CFD to demonstrate what this scoop means for front-view pressure-plots.

https://i.ibb.co/MNbR43x/rw-1.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/4p5qNMF/rw-2.jpg

Numbers are useless, since they depend on specific aero foils, but I believe everyone can understand the difference the scoop makes. Both for lower drag and lower downforce. The same goes for airbox drag/surface area, which is clear as day...

No we can't. We have untrained eyes.

Bigger camber on the main element? So more DF?

The Mercedes wings look taller to me. Need a side view to see the angle of the flap, but I would say they ran more wing than the others.

[AR3-GP]

https://i.imgur.com/l1HMlxG.jpg

Not the best comparison, Ferrari had slightly taller RW frontal projection. In any case, not what I meant also, forgot to write "RW angle" regarding the inverted scoop on Merc RW. Just a quick CFD to demonstrate what this scoop means for front-view pressure-plots.

https://i.ibb.co/MNbR43x/rw-1.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/4p5qNMF/rw-2.jpg

Numbers are useless, since they depend on specific aero foils, but I believe everyone can understand the difference the scoop makes. Both for lower drag and lower downforce. The same goes for airbox drag/surface area, which is clear as day...

No we can't. We have untrained eyes.

Bigger camber on the main element? So more DF?

The Mercedes wings look taller to me. Need a side view to see the angle of the flap, but I would say they ran more wing than the others.

It's quite difficult to just look at wings and understand how they are contributing to drag from one car to another. There are some obvious cases like a Monza style wing vs a monaco style wing, but beyond that we don't know the effective angle of attack due to different amounts of downwash ahead of the wing, and furthermore, different amounts of blockage ahead of the RW due to completely different car shapes. Since blockage robs a wing of performance, you would need a higher angle of attack to achieve the same downforce level.

I don't know. I think the only thing we can do is look at speed traps and say that terminal velocity is similar/different and that correlates to the total body drag levels, not just a front or rear wing.

[HungarianRacer]

https://i.imgur.com/l1HMlxG.jpg

Not the best comparison, Ferrari had slightly taller RW frontal projection. In any case, not what I meant also, forgot to write "RW angle" regarding the inverted scoop on Merc RW. Just a quick CFD to demonstrate what this scoop means for front-view pressure-plots.

https://i.ibb.co/MNbR43x/rw-1.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/4p5qNMF/rw-2.jpg

Numbers are useless, since they depend on specific aero foils, but I believe everyone can understand the difference the scoop makes. Both for lower drag and lower downforce. The same goes for airbox drag/surface area, which is clear as day...

Full disclosure: rather annoyingly, the view-down angle and focal length (and possibly even the offset from centerline) are slightly different on these two rear-facing cameras, had to scale the narrower-appearing wing (Mercedes), still couldn't get the end plates to match on both sides, so it's by no means a perfect comparison...

... As for your renders, wouldn't you at least agree that the Mercedes wing clearly appears to be more cranked at the sides? You just seem to have made the model representing it altogether smaller with an upturned leading edge... Anyhow, I obviously disagree with your assessment (that it's a "significantly" shallower/lower drag wing option).

Finally, an image that I think does the Merc wing more justice showing just how deep it is in the middle actually (it's pretty much filling the whole available wing box, c'mon now...):

[PlatinumZealot]

Agreed that the Mercedes had more wing. The outer parts have more meat, and the centre part has more camber.

[Vanja #66]

No we can't. We have untrained eyes.

Bigger camber on the main element? So more DF?

Slightly more camber, but much less angle, so my guess is less downforce in total. The front part of the bottom surface (the part of inverted scoop on Merc) is lower pressure than ambient, so it's "pulling" the wing forward, whereas orange and red top surface is high pressure and pushing it back. The entire rear projection is low pressure, which is pulling the wing backwards. These last two distributions is where all the RW drag comes from, but also downforce.

All in all, for me there is no doubt Merc this wing is lower drag than RB and Ferrari equivalents, seen in Barca. Not dramatically lower, but lower for sure.

https://i.imgur.com/NeFoyJM.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/4xoPJh8.jpg

https://s8.gifyu.com/images/ezgif-5-3353f76010.gif

These are the best two photos I could find to compare.



Fair enough, I was wrong about overall size and stand corrected, it really looked slightly less tall at first. As for drag, I've mentioned it in reply to PZ.

[HungarianRacer]

No we can't. We have untrained eyes.

Bigger camber on the main element? So more DF?

Slightly more camber, but much less angle, so my guess is less downforce in total. The front part of the bottom surface (the part of inverted scoop on Merc) is lower pressure than ambient, so it's "pulling" the wing forward, whereas orange and red top surface is high pressure and pushing it back. The entire rear projection is low pressure, which is pulling the wing backwards. These last two distributions is where all the RW drag comes from, but also downforce.

All in all, for me there is no doubt Merc this wing is lower drag than RB and Ferrari equivalents, seen in Barca. Not dramatically lower, but lower for sure.

https://i.imgur.com/NeFoyJM.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/4xoPJh8.jpg

https://s8.gifyu.com/images/ezgif-5-3353f76010.gif

These are the best two photos I could find to compare.

https://i.ibb.co/kGNrXF9/comparison.jpg

Fair enough, I was wrong about overall size and stand corrected, it really looked slightly less tall at first. As for drag, I've mentioned it in reply to PZ.

The only way for the Mercedes wing to simultaneously be more cambered, same in height and much less angled is if it had significantly longer chord length, which is obviously not the case here... And we haven't even begin talking about front wings, but I'm not going to press that issue because this debate has gotten a bit silly at this point... I would say you have a bit too much faith in your eyeball measurements, but I think you are just slightly biased on this topic of conversation, no offense...

[CMSMJ1]

Some great content in this of late.

Can I please remind, however, that when talking tyres and race pace etc - anything that is not the car specific features and focussed on the W13 - then that information is better served in the team thread.

Car thread - distilled technical discussion about the car.

[Vanja #66]

The only way for the Mercedes wing to simultaneously be more cambered, same in height and much less angled is if it had significantly longer chord length, which is obviously not the case here...

That is entirely incorrect, no offense... Let me show you what is actually going on there.



These are the "quick-n-dirty" wing models used to demonstrate the effect of the inverted scoop. Blue lines are angles and orange is camber. As can be seen, camber is not that different (while angle is very different), since both the bottom and the top surface affect the camber and Merc clearly has a really big curve on the bottom. With flatter top, this can only be done with greater relative thickness of the foil, which is the case here. I'm not saying these are the exact foils on Merc and Ferrari/RB, but these are general geometric concepts.

I would say you have a bit too much faith in your eyeball measurements, but I think you are just slightly biased on this topic of conversation, no offense...

If you like calling eight years of race/sports-car aero development "faith in your eyeball measurements" I really have no problem with that.

[HungarianRacer]

The only way for the Mercedes wing to simultaneously be more cambered, same in height and much less angled is if it had significantly longer chord length, which is obviously not the case here...

That is entirely incorrect, no offense... Let me show you what is actually going on there.

https://i.ibb.co/LvKv2QN/comparison-1.jpg

These are the "quick-n-dirty" wing models used to demonstrate the effect of the inverted scoop. Blue lines are angles and orange is camber. As can be seen, camber is not that different (while angle is very different), since both the bottom and the top surface affect the camber and Merc clearly has a really big curve on the bottom. With flatter top, this can only be done with greater relative thickness of the foil, which is the case here. I'm not saying these are the exact foils on Merc and Ferrari/RB, but these are general geometric concepts.

I would say you have a bit too much faith in your eyeball measurements, but I think you are just slightly biased on this topic of conversation, no offense...

If you like calling eight years of race/sports-car aero development "faith in your eyeball measurements" I really have no problem with that.

Example A still dips considerably lower in the wing box, while the Mercedes-style "inverted scoop's" leading edge top lip is way higher up, which is not the case in the comparison pictures... I'd argue that you'd need to make that foil's thickness cartoonishly large to fulfill all the above mentioned criteria, however, I'm willing to concede that the Mercedes' main plane does indeed look thicker, although, the upturned lip has an effect of making it appear chunkier than it is in reality in my opinion.

Just for the record, it wasn't my intention to sound condescending and/or antagonizing (reading it back it kind of sounds that way), if that's how it came through, I apologize.

[AeroDynamic]

[Stu]

https://imgr1.auto-motor-und-sport.de/M ... 902923.jpg

https://imgr1.auto-motor-und-sport.de/M ... 902922.jpg

https://imgr1.auto-motor-und-sport.de/M ... 902880.jpg

https://imgr1.auto-motor-und-sport.de/M ... 902879.jpg

What are you showing us here that we have not seen previously?

[pursue_one's]