2022 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Sieper]

If the lobby is succesfull they will have a no compromise car that reaches the highest downforce level while other teams have actually designed for compromise.

If the ruleset gets altered Mercedes will likely be dominant again. For years to come as others must totally redesign their cars. These new rules were introduced with an aim to stop any potential for cheating as these overly complex wings and suspensions could not be policed accurately by them. That was the whole point of making this rule set.

[chrisc90]

It’s 8 out of 10 teams for a change isn’t it? RB and alpha tauri would definitely not vote in favour. Even the likes of Ferrari who are at the front with one of the fastest cars currently.

I seriously can’t see any suspension changes being introduced this year, especially ones where teams have to redesign whole suspension on cars to fall in line with the rule change.

Whether it happens next year, is another question. But I hope not as 8 races in teams still need to get to grips with the rules, and converge on designs.

Remember the cost cap is being discussed this year too with increasing costs and budgets being tight. That’s another solid argument for mid season change not happening

Personally, I think Mercedes just looking for excuses and blaming daft things because they haven’t had a advantage at the start of a new set of regulations

[e30ernest]

So there are 3 things here:

1. Porpoising
2. Bouncing
3. Bottoming.

Porpoising is their issue before, and they said they've solved that. Now that they've mostly solved that, it uncovered the second issue which is bouncing and then subsequently bottoming out.

[PlatinumZealot]

The misleading statements about the masked performance that is sitting in the car which is being held back by porpoising should now rest.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/what ... /10322102/

"Montreal isn't a smooth circuit, but maybe places like Ricard and Silverstone, this car would work better. But even if we get onto a smooth track, we're well aware that the base performance isn't there either at the moment. We've got to ramp that up."

The following statement confirms the problem in the design of the car than in the regulations. While others have managed to build cars that produce performance at higher ride heights, W13 is designed to produce peak performance when it runs far closer to the ground than others. This is the primary reason for the problems that Mercedes drivers are facing, far more than others.

"If you have a car that's generating downforce, closer to the road, so its peak is lower, then you've got less room to play with. And you have to inherently run it stiffer.

The lobbying by Russell for active suspension is for the following reason, more than any safety reasons.

"The ride issues are unlikely to be due to the shape of the bodywork of the car, as some of it is definitely mechanical.

I think you are mixing up "ride issues" and the cause of porpoising. Shovlin said the ride is not affected by the shape of the car, which is obvious but I think he says this to kill any ideas of "throwing the design in the trash."

Don't Aston use the same rear suspension amd their ride seemed comfy.

This low ride height issue of Mercedes i would say it starts a bit further back.

Mercedes over the last 8 years specialized in low floor skimming ride heights at the rear. I think this development path made them weaker in the area of under-floor vortex management when compared to teams like RedBull, who ran high rake for years where mastery votrices is absolutely necessary to maintain floor suction under different conditions.

Mercedes want to run low because this is all they know. It has become clear that the current suspension doesn't allow them to do this without poor ride quality for the drivers. A new suspension won't fix their aerodynamic deficiencies but it would save them development time from having to learn how tobdesign a floor those vortex management tricks.

[chrisc90]

So there are 3 things here:

1. Porpoising
2. Bouncing
3. Bottoming.

Porpoising is their issue before, and they said they've solved that. Now that they've mostly solved that, it uncovered the second issue which is bouncing and then subsequently bottoming out.

Different to what Toto was saying on Race weekend about it being a regulation issue rather than the team pushing it too low to the floor/ground causing the issues.

[Wouter]

Interesting what Shovlin says at 2.21 min.

Shovlin: "We simple pushed the package and the drivers to far. We simple can't do that again!"

[Ryar]

It’s 8 out of 10 teams for a change isn’t it? RB and alpha tauri would definitely not vote in favour. Even the likes of Ferrari who are at the front with one of the fastest cars currently.

That’s why they are marketing it as driver safety issue as that wouldn't require FIA to seek team votes.

[F1doc]

https://www.fia.com/news/fia-takes-step ... sts-safety

Mercedes lobbying has been heard...

[wogx]

Mercedes will fall deeper into midfield?

[organic]

Mercedes will fall deeper into midfield?

Perhaps at some tracks. At Barcelona it had no problems with bouncing at all so on regular tracks they could be fine

[Ryar]

https://www.fia.com/news/fia-takes-step ... sts-safety

Mercedes lobbying has been heard...

It would be ideal on FIA's part to provide parameters of acceptable vertical oscillation range, instead of giving into demands of reviving now banned complex suspension trickery. It would be upto each team to ensure the car oscillates within the given range and if that means they have to stiffen the suspension travel, so be it or increase the ride height and then allow larger distance for smoother suspension travel.

[Hammerfist]

Mercedes will fall deeper into midfield?

Mercedes might be fighting Williams, and Ferrari will no longer be able to compete with Redbull, possibly making them a top midfield car.
It really depends on how much performance will be lost. Noone knows because noone talks about it. But ground effect cars are meant to be run low to the ground. If they have to raise it it defeats the purpose of the aero regulations completely. I do not believe that they have come up with the right solution here.

[SuperCNJ]

What I'm struggling to understand is the team saying it is not porpoising but bouncing. Surely if it is only bouncing, then the car is reacting to "bumps" in the ground which causes it to bounce. If that's the case, why would the frequency of the bouncing be similar to porpoising unless the bumps in the ground are regularly spaced and continuous which I suspect is not the case.

[Ryar]

Mercedes will fall deeper into midfield?

Mercedes might be fighting Williams, and Ferrari will no longer be able to compete with Redbull, possibly making them a top midfield car.
It really depends on how much performance will be lost. Noone knows because noone talks about it. But ground effect cars are meant to be run low to the ground. If they have to raise it it defeats the purpose of the aero regulations completely. I do not believe that they have come up with the right solution here.

I don't think it's anywhere mentioned in rules that the cars have to be run lower to satisfy the definition of ground effect. It's an aerodynamic principle to generate downforce that replaces the draggy aero surfaces from the cars to yield closer racing. The result so far is inline with that objective and cars are following close through turns without as much downforce as they used to in the previous era. If some teams have a side effect of bouncing as they haven't nailed the car concept right, then it's not the problem of ground effect principle.

[Hammerfist]

Mercedes will fall deeper into midfield?

Mercedes might be fighting Williams, and Ferrari will no longer be able to compete with Redbull, possibly making them a top midfield car.
It really depends on how much performance will be lost. Noone knows because noone talks about it. But ground effect cars are meant to be run low to the ground. If they have to raise it it defeats the purpose of the aero regulations completely. I do not believe that they have come up with the right solution here.

I don't think it's anywhere mentioned in rules that the cars have to be run lower to satisfy the definition of ground effect. It's an aerodynamic principle to generate downforce that replaces the draggy aero surfaces from the cars to yield closer racing. The result so far is inline with that objective and cars are following close through turns without as much downforce as they used to in the previous era. If some teams have a side effect of bouncing as they haven't nailed the car concept right, then it's not the problem of ground effect principle.

First of all bacially all the teams have the problem, even Redbull does have it, it is just less than others.
Secondly if you understand how the basic ground effect works it requires the floor to have extremely low ground clearance. The less clearance the more suction is created and hence the more downforce. I think if they have to run 10mm higher they might lose quite a few points of downforce. But we shall see exactly how much. Again, I don't think it's a sensible decision.