2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[AR3-GP]

according to Amus the spec b has been running more than 2 weeks ago now

Yes it's also a direct quote from toto so it's fairly reliable. Although there are caveats to that

This raises the question of why Mercedes hasn't made a change to the concept. The answer must be found last year. The upward curve in the last races of 2022, including the victory in Brazil, has the engineers continuing to pursue their own concept.

Could this "spec b" be the "late design change" rumor?

[Venturiation]

here is the interview

[Redragon]

All the teams went the opposite direction with their designs, Mercedes went size zero pods. Can't be wrong 95% of all the technical staff on f1. They should have started to work on plan B last year on May. Now they are 1 year and half behind with budget cap. Ego sometimes is a bitch

[organic]

according to Amus the spec b has been running more than 2 weeks ago now

Yes it's also a direct quote from toto so it's fairly reliable. Although there are caveats to that

This raises the question of why Mercedes hasn't made a change to the concept. The answer must be found last year. The upward curve in the last races of 2022, including the victory in Brazil, has the engineers continuing to pursue their own concept.

Could this "spec b" be the "late design change" rumor?

Feels like it yes, but why all the smoke and mirrors from eg Mike Elliott saying it's not a departure from their concept but evolution

[Venturiation]

All the teams went the opposite direction with their designs, Mercedes went size zero pods. Can't be wrong 95% of all the technical staff on f1. They should have started to work on plan B last year on May. Now they are 1 year and half behind with budget cap. Ego sometimes is a bitch

at least they fixed bouncing unlike ferrari

would that mean that ferrari will be further back if mercedes switched to normal sidepods?

[Redragon]

All the teams went the opposite direction with their designs, Mercedes went size zero pods. Can't be wrong 95% of all the technical staff on f1. They should have started to work on plan B last year on May. Now they are 1 year and half behind with budget cap. Ego sometimes is a bitch

at least they fixed bouncing unlike ferrari

would that mean that ferrari will be further back if mercedes switched to normal sidepods?

I don't think so, the AM as RB front suspensions would be hard to copy or understand. Even if Mercedes copy AM, they don't know what's going on at front.

[Venturiation]

Yes it's also a direct quote from toto so it's fairly reliable. Although there are caveats to that

This raises the question of why Mercedes hasn't made a change to the concept. The answer must be found last year. The upward curve in the last races of 2022, including the victory in Brazil, has the engineers continuing to pursue their own concept.

Could this "spec b" be the "late design change" rumor?

Feels like it yes, but why all the smoke and mirrors from eg Mike Elliott saying it's not a departure from their concept but evolution

but mike doesn't control everything
in a team of 100 there has to be someone to oppose him and james alisson is there too

[Venturiation]

All the teams went the opposite direction with their designs, Mercedes went size zero pods. Can't be wrong 95% of all the technical staff on f1. They should have started to work on plan B last year on May. Now they are 1 year and half behind with budget cap. Ego sometimes is a bitch

at least they fixed bouncing unlike ferrari

would that mean that ferrari will be further back if mercedes switched to normal sidepods?

I don't think so, the AM as RB front suspensions would be hard to copy or understand. Even if Mercedes copy AM, they don't know what's going on at front.

then that means merc can just keep the zeropds qnd try to copy the front suspension
engineers talk between them

[AR3-GP]

Could this "spec b" be the "late design change" rumor?

Feels like it yes, but why all the smoke and mirrors from eg Mike Elliott saying it's not a departure from their concept but evolution

but mike doesn't control everything
in a team of 100 there has to be someone to oppose him and james alisson is there too

Mike is the technical director. He controls everything. Nothing goes on the car without his approval.

[Redragon]

at least they fixed bouncing unlike ferrari

would that mean that ferrari will be further back if mercedes switched to normal sidepods?

I don't think so, the AM as RB front suspensions would be hard to copy or understand. Even if Mercedes copy AM, they don't know what's going on at front.

then that means merc can just keep the zeropds qnd try to copy the front suspension
engineers talk between them

if it was that easy would have done already. when 95% of your opposition are going on opposite direction, with big sidepods, it should have ring a bell that probably they were wrong, by May of last year they should have decided to start with a new concept for this year but they didn't because after 8 years winning they couldn't accept they were wrong. Now they have 1 year and half of development behind.

[Venturiation]

mike elliott history with mercedes:

Technical Director
Jul 2021 - Present1 year 9 months

Technology Director
Jul 2017 - Jul 20214 years 1 month

Head of aerodynamics
Jul 2012 - Jul 2017 5 years 1 month

he has been head of aero since 2012 i don't understand he seems to be very knowledgable and i think if there was a problem he would have seen it

[pursue_one's]

After the Bahrain failure, Mercedes is therefore on the verge of burying its concept with the small sidepods. "We gave this concept a year's chance. It's not working. We didn't get any closer. The gap to Red Bull has doubled or even tripled," curses team boss Toto Wolff. Mercedes is already testing is already testing a different concept in the wind tunnel with a wide side box. "And that hasn't just been going on for two weeks."

This raises the question of why the team from Brackley didn't already make a radical cut with the basic version. The answer is to be sought in the past year. The upward curve of form in the final races of 2022, including victory in Brazil, tempted the engineers to pursue their own concept. They believed that success would follow. Especially since copying is useless. You first have to understand what the competition is doing. A decision on which direction to actually be taken, has to be made quickly. "We'll tackle that as soon as we return to the factory," Wolff promises. Somehow, though, Mercedes seems lost. Somehow, you get the feeling that the engineers are puzzling over where exactly the Red Bull is so much better. At least the engineers narrowed it down to aerodynamics. It's not down to the mechanics.

Translated with www.DeepL.com

https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... se-rennen/

[CHT]

mike elliott history with mercedes:

Technical Director
Jul 2021 - Present1 year 9 months

Technology Director
Jul 2017 - Jul 20214 years 1 month

Head of aerodynamics
Jul 2012 - Jul 2017 5 years 1 month

he has been head of aero since 2012 i don't understand he seems to be very knowledgable and i think if there was a problem he would have seen it

There may be many reason why Merc is struggling.

a) Merc team may have underestimated Ferrari and Honda's ability to produce a better and more powerful engine under the new regulation. The same reason how Merc dominated F1 in the past.

b) Merc zero sidepod concept may only work well if Merc has superior engine power compared to their rival

c) Merc engineers may be too proud to copy their rival

Ultimately I think Merc is too late in the game to change the course and RBR is likely to dominate for some time. I reckon Adrian Newey is already starting to think about 2026 concept. Perhaps that is why he was seen inspecting W14

[ringo]

mike elliott history with mercedes:

Technical Director
Jul 2021 - Present1 year 9 months

Technology Director
Jul 2017 - Jul 20214 years 1 month

Head of aerodynamics
Jul 2012 - Jul 2017 5 years 1 month

he has been head of aero since 2012 i don't understand he seems to be very knowledgable and i think if there was a problem he would have seen it

Their tools are behind. I don't know what they have, but Ted needs to ask them about transient simulation.
CFD is all nice and dandy under steady state. But how well do they do transients?

They can still salvage the year, but it will take a bold move to get the sidepod undercut, the shielded sidepods and front wing and floor changes to complement those. Also the mid wing's function will be affected. So they will need to figure out how they are going to cover that side impact structure when its no longer a mid wing.

[Big Tea]

A theoretical question, if anyone fancies a go at it.
What would happen if Merc said 'sod it, lets sort it' and ignored the cost cap?
Throw resources at it irrespective of limits, just get it sorted. It looks unlikely to be anywhere close to a title this year, so blow the budget and aim for the best car next year.

Huge fine? its just cash, they can absorb that no problem.
Exclusion from the season? I don't think anything other than winning means much to them, so no loss.

Next year they would then have a car not only competitive but probably in contention and have computers full of data that has been tested for following years.
Is it only this year they would be excluded form or could they face consecutive years exclusion? To me, anything else is not really a deterrent.

They may even be able to pass a lot of the cost off by spending what they saved on engineers on accountants