2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[ringo]

Why would Charles drop to a lesser team though? Doesn’t make sense.

I really can’t see any driver adjustments happening to be fair, especially in the top flight. Excluding a retirement of Lewis - potentially.

Then his seat probably filled with lando who is clearly a talent that’s not having the smoothest of times at mclaren.

Ferrari will never have Mercedes reliability and solid strategy. They need more than a fast car to challenge redbull.
I say Hamilton stays. Keep signing 1 year deals.

[ringo]

Merc wind tunnel correlation affected by out-of-tolerance parts. Very disappointing if true, and relevant individuals have reportedly been dismissed.

https://www.formu1a.uno/en/mercedes-win ... ntil-2024/

More information has surfaced surrounding problems during the development of the W14 in the wind tunnel over winter.

Mercedes has worked to better understand this issue, carrying out a complete investigation in the factory through scans both in the scale models used in the tunnel and in the real ones.

It has emerged that some parts used in the wind tunnel (the scale models) were inaccurate and went beyond the necessary parameters.

These problems have not only affected the development of the W14, such as the delays we reported during the winter, but also in terms of correlation. Subsequently, some of those who worked in this area have been dismissed.

Kindly posted by Mkay in the W14 thread.

If this has any substance, it points to negligence or even misconduct. Would be very interesting to see if Mercedes corroborates the story, and the circumstances surrounding the discovery.
The positive to come out of this is that at least there are systems in place to do thorough checks for inconsistencies.

Wow. Hmm.. could be imcompetence as well.
It needs incestigating. It can be the part manufacturer, the 3d modeller, and the quality/sporting regulation inspector if that post even exists. But clearly the parts did not meet the regulations. Or.. someone wanted to Cover their azz (cya) and wanted the models to perform better to save the concept.
Also we can consider sabotage from redbull with their ex merc engineers as a crazy but possible theory. Espionage!

[chrisc90]

Merc wind tunnel correlation affected by out-of-tolerance parts. Very disappointing if true, and relevant individuals have reportedly been dismissed.

https://www.formu1a.uno/en/mercedes-win ... ntil-2024/

Kindly posted by Mkay in the W14 thread.

If this has any substance, it points to negligence or even misconduct. Would be very interesting to see if Mercedes corroborates the story, and the circumstances surrounding the discovery.
The positive to come out of this is that at least there are systems in place to do thorough checks for inconsistencies.

Wow. Hmm.. could be imcompetence as well.
It needs incestigating. It can be the part manufacturer, the 3d modeller, and the quality/sporting regulation inspector if that post even exists. But clearly the parts did not meet the regulations. Or.. someone wanted to Cover their azz (cya) and wanted the models to perform better to save the concept.
Also we can consider sabotage from redbull with their ex merc engineers as a crazy but possible theory. Espionage!

What engineers left RB to go to Mercedes in order to compromise the W14?

[ValeVida46]

Wow. Hmm.. could be imcompetence as well.
It needs incestigating. It can be the part manufacturer, the 3d modeller, and the quality/sporting regulation inspector if that post even exists. But clearly the parts did not meet the regulations. Or.. someone wanted to Cover their azz (cya) and wanted the models to perform better to save the concept.
Also we can consider sabotage from redbull with their ex merc engineers as a crazy but possible theory. Espionage!

It's a possibility. I'd wait until we hear more and merc can substantiate what's happened. For someone to get fired, there needs to be some pretty good reason, including as you say, sabotage.

What engineers left RB to go to Mercedes in order to compromise the W14?

Nobody has to leave anywhere, and it doesn't have to be sabotage or Red Bull. Also, I imagine you aren't compromising a car, but a process in the hypothetical situation.

[El_KaPpa]

Despite rigorous quality control processes, errors and issues can occur, especially when pushing the boundaries of engineering and design.

[PlatinumZealot]

Good news if true. Should be a straight forward and cheap fix if the errors occure after 3D model goes to wind tunnel model. Problem is they will have to design new parts after the newly expected iterations in the tunnel.

[Wil992]

Taking it on face value that this story about incorrectly scaled wind tunnel parts has some merit, and obviously I’ve no idea whether it has or not. But assuming it has, my understanding is that parts have been scaled incorrectly for the wind tunnel models and therefore they are not representative of the full size car?
Presumably no such scaling occurs in the cfd models they use? Does that mean that the results of the wind tunnel tests are fed as inputs into the cfd models so even though the model is “full size” it’s using some incorrect source data and therefore will produce inaccurate results? Effectively masking the wind tunnel error?

[SiLo]

Taking it on face value that this story about incorrectly scaled wind tunnel parts has some merit, and obviously I’ve no idea whether it has or not. But assuming it has, my understanding is that parts have been scaled incorrectly for the wind tunnel models and therefore they are not representative of the full size car?
Presumably no such scaling occurs in the cfd models they use? Does that mean that the results of the wind tunnel tests are fed as inputs into the cfd models so even though the model is “full size” it’s using some incorrect source data and therefore will produce inaccurate results? Effectively masking the wind tunnel error?

It means their correlation will be off, and if they had previously adjusted their numbers to get "correct" correlation then everything after would be slightly off.

[LM10]

Let’s assume this is true - how can the same thing happen two years in a row without a single person figuring it out?

[Wil992]

It means their correlation will be off, and if they had previously adjusted their numbers to get "correct" correlation then everything after would be slightly off.

So this, if true, is a good news story then? They have identified a significant correlation issue that they can fairly easily fix?
It obviously doesn’t speed the car up on its own, but it does reduce the chances of developing down blind alleys?

[SiLo]

It means their correlation will be off, and if they had previously adjusted their numbers to get "correct" correlation then everything after would be slightly off.

So this, if true, is a good news story then? They have identified a significant correlation issue that they can fairly easily fix?
It obviously doesn’t speed the car up on its own, but it does reduce the chances of developing down blind alleys?

If that's actually what happened, then yes it would be positive for the team. They can fix the 60% model, check correlation and adjust accordingly and then hopefully progress with new updates that actually do what they thought they would do.

[Wil992]

If that's actually what happened, then yes it would be positive for the team. They can fix the 60% model, check correlation and adjust accordingly and then hopefully progress with new updates that actually do what they thought they would do.

I get that the “if” here is quite a big one, let’s see if there’s any truth in this.

[ringo]

It can also be bad. If they waste time fixing and the concept still ends up with low potential to develop.
It makes the decision to switch concepts even more cloudy, because the resources will be put to really seeing if the concept was not as bad.

[chrisc90]

It could also be that the correlation pointed the car to being faster than it actually is. Which was evident when there was big big updates coming that never materialised.

[El_KaPpa]

It could also be that the correlation pointed the car to being faster than it actually is. Which was evident when there was big big updates coming that never materialised.

Definitely they believed that the car is faster than actually is thus developed updates that were more aggressive than necessary. A big c**k.