General aero discussions

[organic]

Where does the airflow go on the whole that passes up the nose on a typical F1 car? Does that mostly get pulled to the sides of the cockpit? Or is it air largely that becomes cockpit losses? A bit of the two?

Or is it not possible to generalize this

[ringo]

But how many laps do you need to do in order to ensure that you have enough data to compare with your simulations though?

I mean I really cant see it taking ~400 laps on average to get enough information to compare to your runs from over the winter.

Surely it would be better to test the different setups/aero configurations your bringing then go back and compare them to your Sim work. That way you have multiple configurations to compare and a more accurate set of data of all your runs.

I have no clue. But more data is better. I suspect that you want to compare various setups and that you may need at least 10 laps or so for statistical relevance?
So image comparing 4 different ride heights, that may be 40 laps. I truly don't know but 1 day is not enough to check a multitude of things against their various models. Then you can imagine how long it will take to make sense of that data by the different departments then to merge those findings into an overall cause and effect study.

[taperoo2k]

I guess but switching to a RB philosophy at the end of year 1 also doesn't have much promise. You will be a year behind RB's development and have to tackle problems that they already have. All Merc and Ferrari can do is hope that their concepts will develop well and offer more performance down the line, unless they really hit a wall and have to abandon it (like the w13's original floor concept but luckily they could ditch that early)

RB won't have stood still, if you copy RB you will always be behind them unless you figure out how to do something better or find a loophole in the rules Newey and co haven't spotted. I think for Mercedes and Ferrari, they are better of sticking with their concepts and evolving them.

I think winning 1-2 titles in a 4 year regulation set starting off with losing 6 months development time like Merc did would be positive and show success of choosing to stick with their own concept

As I said if they can get the sidepods to work as intended, then Mercedes will be justified in not giving up. The regulation changes in 2026 are massive from the aero to the synthetic fuels. You can worry about the future or try and win under the current set of regulations. All Mercedes have to do is learn from this and not be caught out when the regulations change again.

It's why RB stuck with the high rake, despite Merc having a lot of success with their ideas.

Different teams have different philosophies, there is an element of copying ideas if F1. But rarely does it work out too well when teams attempt to copy a car wholesale.

As for the data side of things? This article has useful information about how they use CFD, timescales etc and why the team decided to use AMD EPYC processors over other options. https://www.amd.com/en/case-studies/f1- ... g-petronas

[AR3-GP]

As for the data side of things? This article has useful information about how they use CFD, timescales etc and why the team decided to use AMD EPYC processors over other options. https://www.amd.com/en/case-studies/f1- ... g-petronas

The AMD stuff is marketing. I'm actually surprised they are using CPUs rather than GPUs. GPUs are much faster.

[PlatinumZealot]

Zero pods are serving there purpose. It's clear that they have benefits over other pods and Mercedes will evolve them again.

What do you think is their purpose, as is? What would be the benefits over other designs?

Said it in a previous post. It's a half-way house between Ferrari and Redbull.

Ferrari - Side pod creates upwash, and clean inwash - Strength strong rear wing and diffuser performance
RedBull - Side pod pulls air down and keeps side air out - down-wash - Strong floor edge and diffuser "corner"
Mercedes - Side pods wing pulls air down, but slim body brings in clean in-wash The large side pod wing, also makes a large vortex that is not possible with other designs. Result - Strong performance in yaw and lower speed turns.

It's only a hypothesis of course.

[KimiRai]

It's why RB stuck with the high rake, despite Merc having a lot of success with their ideas.

Regarding that, there's a statement made recently by Dan Fallows on his mentor Adrian Newey which I found interesting:

"But I think one of the things that I’ve really enjoyed with him is that he lacks any kind of technical arrogance about him.

He’s very open to being told about things that he’s stipulated or things that he’s suggested that then haven't worked or there are better ideas out there. And that’s almost irrespective of where those comments come from.

I think that’s something I definitely try to bring into my own work," he said. "What I very much encourage a lot of the technical team to do is to be open-minded, even if you have very clear visions about how you want to develop things or very clear ideas about the car.

Make sure you’re not technically arrogant about it. If somebody does suggest something better, be open-minded, irrespective of who they are. I think that’s one of his [Newey’s] great strengths, and hopefully I’ve sort of carried that on."

Was he hinting something at Mercedes here with the "technical arrogance" of your own concept no matter the evidence to the contrary or am I just seeing things? Because I could just be seeing things.

[organic]

I don't think it was. I could see it being something that's pervasive and not uncommon so no reason to think it's a pointed comment at one team that afaik he never worked for

[KimiRai]

I don't think it was. I could see it being something that's pervasive and not uncommon so no reason to think it's a pointed comment at one team that afaik he never worked for

Yeah I agree. But I think it could apply to the Mercedes of today, to be honest.

[carisi2k]

Mercedes - Side pods wing pulls air down, but slim body brings in clean in-wash The large side pod wing, also makes a large vortex that is not possible with other designs. Result - Strong performance in yaw and lower speed turns.

It's only a hypothesis of course.

Except isn't happening in reality. The front tyre wake is disturbing all the airflow in this area negating these supposed advantages. Without barge boards the design is not capable of working.

[dans79]

But how many laps do you need to do in order to ensure that you have enough data to compare with your simulations though?

I mean I really cant see it taking ~400 laps on average to get enough information to compare to your runs from over the winter.

Surely it would be better to test the different setups/aero configurations your bringing then go back and compare them to your Sim work. That way you have multiple configurations to compare and a more accurate set of data of all your runs.

It depends how many factors/variables you are gathering data for.

You are basically trying to build a multi dimensional matrix, so the amount of data you need to gather grows almost exponentially, for each new variable you care about.

[PlatinumZealot]

Mercedes - Side pods wing pulls air down, but slim body brings in clean in-wash The large side pod wing, also makes a large vortex that is not possible with other designs. Result - Strong performance in yaw and lower speed turns.

It's only a hypothesis of course.

Except isn't happening in reality. The front tyre wake is disturbing all the airflow in this area negating these supposed advantages. Without barge boards the design is not capable of working.

Can i borrow your CFD eyes?!

[carisi2k]

Mercedes - Side pods wing pulls air down, but slim body brings in clean in-wash The large side pod wing, also makes a large vortex that is not possible with other designs. Result - Strong performance in yaw and lower speed turns.

It's only a hypothesis of course.

Except isn't happening in reality. The front tyre wake is disturbing all the airflow in this area negating these supposed advantages. Without barge boards the design is not capable of working.

Can i borrow your CFD eyes?!

Nope. There mine and they work really well. They have been working well since the 80's.

[mechanoit]

This is incredibly contradictory. If the sidepod is used to prevent the front tire wake from entering the diffuser, then it is rather important. Furthermore, one again the proof is in the pudding. How do you explain how all teams have evolved these "unimportant" sidepods .

I'm seeing an incredible amount of sensitivity (as Andi76 pointed out) to the discussion of the Mercedes sidepods. It has become a point of pride seemingly to say nothing is wrong. People are eager to dismiss discussion of it because Mike Elliot told them so.

At the moment, it is not apparent that anyone should be taking design advice from MGP based on their success under these new regulations...one must take a step back and look at the pudding to realize this.

Mercedes had great success under the previous regulations and I would absolutely follow them off the train tracks were the regulations as they were a decade ago. But now? I'm not so sure.

Perhaps I over simplified and overstated it. Not to say that it is not important, just that the n’th degree management to maximise every last ounce from the diffuser is not as important as it was in pre-2022 regulations where the diffuser was everything regarding downforce from the floor.

Clearly front tyre wake management is important but do we really think the Mercedes doesn’t have the aerodynamic tools to model this to a high level? The most successful F1 team of all time hasn’t got its results by not having the tools to carry out basic aerodynamics. It seems to me that the floor is a different prospect altogether. New, difficult to understand, difficult to model, difficult to tune.

Mercedes understanding of side pod flow and management seems to be ok. I assume they will refine and improve in that area as they have already said so but I don’t expect very big changes. I may be of course very wrong.

I recommend Willem Toets (Ex-Benetton, Ex-Ferrari, Ex-BAR, Ex-Sauber Head of Aerodynamics) latest lecture at the University of Bolton(available at youtube) where he puts forward a theory why Mercedes might actually struggle in the wind tunnel to notice certain effects that happen in reality. It's a theory, but a very plausible one, put forward a few weeks ago by one of F1's most experienced aerodynamicists.

I’ve watched that lecture, excellent.
In the entire duration of that almost 2 hour lecture, Willem did not mention side pods at all except for one point where he was talking about a Ferrari experience in 1980s where the side pods were separated and collected dirty air from the tyres. Then during the considerable question time, not one person asked about the Mercedes side pods. All during a lecture which specifically discussed Mercedes troubles and the porpoising.

The side pods are of course important but the challenges in solving the flow around them is much overstated in my humble opinion. The floor is the 99 percent’er in this era of venturi floor regulations.

If you watch the lecture again, you will note that Willem also explains about how the downforce increasing with reduction in ride height results in the flow choking and the porpoising occurs because the flow only reattaches back at a higher ride height than when the flow stalled. Willem also explains that the Red Bull has managed a way to introduce some air under the floor at higher speeds which effectively bleeds out this increasing downforce, keeping it all stable.

[PlatinumZealot]

Mercedes - Side pods wing pulls air down, but slim body brings in clean in-wash The large side pod wing, also makes a large vortex that is not possible with other designs. Result - Strong performance in yaw and lower speed turns.

It's only a hypothesis of course.

What would be the interaction in yaw between mid wing vortex and rear tyre squirt? What would happen if it has bad behaviour in yaw? I heard this weekend Mercedes has a certain limit of yaw angles in their wind tunnel, 33% less than Red Bull, could this behaviour in yaw angles above their limit produce correlation issues?

This car concept is cool because it does make one wonder how the heck does it work in Yaw?!! But really and truly F1 cars are driven so fast that the yaw angles are actually quite small. A quick google reveals yaw is 2 to 5 degrees. Yaw rate about 50 degrees per second.

Now... Going into a turn is the most important bit.. Highest yaw rate.. Most yaw too..

Mercedes would have designed the mid-wing to work at this 5 degrees of Yaw and 50 degrees per second yaw rate... What happens on the far side of the car? What happens to the nearside? During a turn... Does the vortex shift and no longers works as intended? Maybe not by much actually.. We can observe the rear wing vortices as an F1 car navigates a turn in the rain... The car is moving so fast that the vortex still seems roughly parallel to the cars motion.

[AR3-GP]

Mercedes - Side pods wing pulls air down, but slim body brings in clean in-wash The large side pod wing, also makes a large vortex that is not possible with other designs. Result - Strong performance in yaw and lower speed turns.

It's only a hypothesis of course.

What would be the interaction in yaw between mid wing vortex and rear tyre squirt? What would happen if it has bad behaviour in yaw? I heard this weekend Mercedes has a certain limit of yaw angles in their wind tunnel, 33% less than Red Bull, could this behaviour in yaw angles above their limit produce correlation issues?

This car concept is cool because it does make one wonder how the heck does it work in Yaw?!! But really and truly F1 cars are driven so fast that the yaw angles are actually quite small. A quick google reveals yaw is 2 to 5 degrees. Yaw rate about 50 degrees per second.

I didn't want to interrupt the conversations previously where people mentioned insane yaw angles of 10,15, 20 degrees

That is not the problem with the Mercedes windtunnel. No one is actually testing more than ~6 degrees in their windtunnel.