Mercedes W14

[mkay]

toto wolff says car is still bouncing but no big impact

Everyone is bouncing there to some extent, it's a very bumpy track.

[Venturiation]

floor sealed

[RZS10]

So their own images show the unchanged position
actual visual analysis (not some 'comparison' which is very obviously very wrong) indicates that it hasn't changed
but sky germany supposedly claims it has changed by 20 cm (!) which would be instantly visible to the naked eye from almost any angle ...

Just to illustrate how ridiculous this is, here's the W13 with the cockpit roughly 20cm further forward:
https://i.imgur.com/9GUErDh.gif
https://i.imgur.com/FT7OCYE.gif

I can't find an image of the W14 from a similar angle, would be fun to compare that modified W13 to it, will add a comparison should i find sth

This was deleted but to my surprise it got restored, i expanded upon this idea in this later post viewtopic.php?p=1114621#p1114621

[Vanja #66]

in the end they were same zeropods volume just not the same distribution
the inlet is even smaller

https://i.imgur.com/zVCteie.jpeg

Why are we talking about the front end of the sides, we all have eyes here and we know it's tighter there. The rear is much wider and far bigger in volume. I'm more than happy to be proven wrong about the width and volume a few days ago, but I don't see it. An illustration would be helpful, far easier now that we have supposedly same renders.

[mantikos]

in the end they were same zeropods volume just not the same distribution
the inlet is even smaller

https://i.imgur.com/zVCteie.jpeg

Why are we talking about the front end of the sides, we all have eyes here and we know it's tighter there. The rear is much wider and far bigger in volume. I'm more than happy to be proven wrong about the width and volume a few days ago, but I don't see it. An illustration would be helpful, far easier now that we have supposedly same renders.

You mean in the coke bottle area, not the pod, right?

[GrizzleBoy]

Merc is slow in speed traps again.

Their front wing angle of attack is clearly lower than last year, but the rear wing is the same one they raced almost constantly last year.

Wonder if the prospective rear wing design is based on how much useable downforce the new floor can produce and how much drag the new engine cover /sidepods can reduce, meaning we might not see the finished design they have in mind till Practice 1.

[El_KaPpa]

They got a lot of data today to correlate and try different things. Toto said they have a very solid base to work from and optimise the car.. today was only about padding out.

[De Jokke]

Merc is slow in speed traps again.

Their front wing angle of attack is clearly lower than last year, but the rear wing is the same one they raced almost constantly last year.

Wonder if the prospective rear wing design is based on how much useable downforce the new floor can produce and how much drag the new engine cover /sidepods can reduce, meaning we might not see the finished design they have in mind till Practice 1.

Rearwing: maybe they want to compare as much as possible with last year.

Slow in speed traps: maybe that's why the pods are on the way of being changed in a couple of races

Time will tell

[Goblin42]

Merc is slow in speed traps again.

Their front wing angle of attack is clearly lower than last year, but the rear wing is the same one they raced almost constantly last year.

Wonder if the prospective rear wing design is based on how much useable downforce the new floor can produce and how much drag the new engine cover /sidepods can reduce, meaning we might not see the finished design they have in mind till Practice 1.

Keep in mind that RB & Ferrari are running medium downforce rear wings while the mercedes is running the old parachute high downforce RW with a gurney flap

for the most part of Lewis's run today they were doing constant speed testing at the end of straights

so it seems today was just a validation of their wind tunnel data and updates, tomorrow we might start seeing push laps and experimenting with different wing setups

[mkay]

Merc is slow in speed traps again.

Their front wing angle of attack is clearly lower than last year, but the rear wing is the same one they raced almost constantly last year.

Wonder if the prospective rear wing design is based on how much useable downforce the new floor can produce and how much drag the new engine cover /sidepods can reduce, meaning we might not see the finished design they have in mind till Practice 1.

Might be an element of engine modes at play here, plus using a beefier wing than some of the other teams, particularly Ferrari/RB.

They have definitely cut down the deficit in top speed though (~5kph at best).

If that's the wing they plan on using, then it seems to me they still haven't found a way to work their floor as hard as RB or Ferrari.

[shady]

On Sky Germany it was just confirmed - the cockpit was moved towards the front axle, by almost 20cm.

Thats what the picture I posted said, while others mentioned that it was further back. This guess was 230mm..

[organic]

Seems they are satisfied with how the W14 is looking. So they will continue developing it in this concept I guess, even if the spec B is theoretically available

[Andi76]

On Sky Germany it was just confirmed - the cockpit was moved towards the front axle, by almost 20cm.

Thats what the picture I posted said, while others mentioned that it was further back. This guess was 230mm..

https://i.imgur.com/kDhgm4a.jpg

Yes, I also said that it has moved forward, about 15cm. In the end it is "about 20cm".

[NickD]

Great stuff! Did you maybe make something similar for other cars?

Thanks Vanja, I wish I had. Of course the lines for the Red Bull only appeared today. And who wants to spend that much time looking at a Ferrari!

Nick

[NickD]

On Sky Germany it was just confirmed - the cockpit was moved towards the front axle, by almost 20cm.

Thats what the picture I posted said, while others mentioned that it was further back. This guess was 230mm..

I'm afraid you and Sky appear to be wrong. The gif below, apparently provided by Mercedes shows, the W13 and W14 overlaid on each other. It clearly shows where the changes are. The cockpits are in identical positions. I know these are renders but a detailed comparison using camera corrected photogrammetry suggests the same. The problem lies in trying to compare two photographs. It is really, really hard to compare two pictures by overlaying one on the other. The cameras have to be identical and in an identical position. Otherwise minor changes in orientation and differences in focal length, mean any conclusions are wrong.

The process only works properly in two cases. Either use an identical camera/orientation and object position/orientation for both objects. This is what Mercedes effectively did in the picture below. Or estimate the camera position and orientation with respect to the object as I did in the posts on page 36. Unlike the Mercedes photos, my calibration is not perfect, there is always a small residual error. I my case about 10-20mm usually between one end of the object and the other. Also while this second process is really effective and available to anyone with tools like Blender, it is very time consuming to characterise and calibrate the multiple images necessary generate a 3-D object from a set of 2-D pictures.



Hope this explanation is useful.

Nick