2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[AR3-GP]

But the car was definitively faster with the smaller wing. This was demonstrated in bahrain when george ran the heavier wing in multiple practice sessions and was considerably slower. Which is why they ultimately opted for the lighter wing for the race and qualifying.

Forget about what hamilton said but the car is definitely lacking downforce overall. Not sure if balance is a real issue though.

Low downforce wing might be faster over 1 lap, but Mercedes had degradation issues in Bahrain and practically had no traction whatsoever which is a result of a lack of load on the rear. Hamilton cooked his tires in the first 4 laps of the race.

They had the deg issues during the pre season test as well and they only ran the high df wing then.

Right but going to a lower downforce rear wing was NEVER going to make the tire deg issue better. If anything, it made the little traction they had, vanish completely.

[Sevach]

Low downforce wing might be faster over 1 lap, but Mercedes had degradation issues in Bahrain and practically had no traction whatsoever which is a result of a lack of load on the rear. Hamilton cooked his tires in the first 4 laps of the race.

It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.
They put the fat wing they are even slower when the tires are fresh/brand new, become even more "Overtakeable" during races... and who knows what which point the tires crossover in the race, bad traction seems inherent to other characteristics of the car, ever present during testing.

Something to keep in mind that Hamilton talked about, in the race the instability is "ok", you are driving below 90% anyway, administrating... with the barn door they would need to go faster through the corners to set the same lap times, the tire advantage might never come.

[mkay]

At 6:05, the table shows the Merc is slowest with DRS open. Any thoughts?

Not sure where The Race got their speed trap data but pretty sure Merc achieved 326-328kph in qualifying. I was following the telemetry during qualifying.

[AR3-GP]

At 6:05, the table shows the Merc is slowest with DRS open. Any thoughts?

Not sure where The Race got their speed trap data but pretty sure Merc achieved 326-328kph in qualifying. I was following the telemetry during qualifying.

The data is from the race. As in the grand prix. Not qualifying. It's skewed a bit for Mercedes since Russell never really had DRS and Hamilton only had it briefly after the SC restart around lap 25 which is still quite a bit of fuel suppressing the speed.

So it would have been better to use qualifying, as you suggested. I don't know why the race presented the data like this.

[organic]

Top speed data from the race is rarely if ever useful tbh. Deployment, tyres, drs and slipstreams play too much of a role

[Juzh]

The data is from the race. As in the grand prix. Not qualifying. It's skewed a bit for Mercedes since Russell never really had DRS and Hamilton only had it briefly after the SC restart around lap 25 which is still quite a bit of fuel suppressing the speed.

So it would have been better to use qualifying, as you suggested. I don't know why the race presented the data like this.

Fuel isn't very important in terms of top speed in race conditions, deployment strategy dominates in this space. Verstappen achieved 343 on lap 3 and then no more than 337 for the rest of the race.

[mendis]

At 6:05, the table shows the Merc is slowest with DRS open. Any thoughts?

Not sure where The Race got their speed trap data but pretty sure Merc achieved 326-328kph in qualifying. I was following the telemetry during qualifying.

The point that the-race was trying to alleviate in that video is that Lewis said, he has never seen a car come by so fast when Max overtook him in Saudi. There were some who were saying, there is some trick on the RB19 that is giving such a top speed despite their downforce advantage. Hence, they have shown race top speeds. The video is trying to highlight the effectiveness with which RB19 stalls rear wing, beam wing and diffuser in unison that makes the car become slippery through the straight more than anyone else and comparing it with DRS vs non DRS top speeds of other cars.

[pursue_one's]

In general, Hamilton calls the W14 a better race car than its predecessor because it no longer has bounce and has become more predictable. "It's easier to drive." And yet there is one circumstance that robs it of some of its natural driving feel. "Already last year the car was very strong on the front axle and weak in the rear for it. We've made the rear a little better, but not in the way we'd hoped."

-Ten centimeters of clearance

Hamilton puts it down to the seating position. In the Mercedes, the cockpit is five centimeters closer to the front axle than in any other car. That has to do with the idiosyncratic concept. To make the position of the side crash structure and sidepods legal, the cockpit has to move forward relative to the front axle.

The leeway is limited, however, because on the one hand the distance from the cockpit rear wall to the front bulkhead of the chassis must be a minimum distance, and on the other hand you must not conflict with the maximum wheelbase of 3,600 millimeters. "You have ten centimeters of space in which to move the cockpit back and forth," explains engineering director Mike Elliott.

Hamilton firmly believes that a cockpit in the normal position as it is on all pre-2022 Mercedes would give him a better feel for the rear end. "I have no problem with oversteering cars," the 38-year-old Englishman elaborates. "But with the cockpit position moved forward and the aerodynamic balance pushed forward, my perception of how the rear reacts has changed."

-No quick fix possible

Hamilton is now calling for Mercedes to return to the old architecture. Russell doesn't care. Tests have already been run in the simulator. In terms of lap times, the cockpit location had no effect, but Hamilton insists he feels better with the old size ratios.

However, he will have to wait until 2024 for that. Mercedes can't homologate a new chassis because of budget caps, and it would need one for such a fundamental change.


Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

source:https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... weit-vorn/

[AR3-GP]

“I think if I had the setup George had, I would have been in a better position,” he said. “There was like a 50/50 choice. - Hamilton

“I chose one way, he chose another. More often than not, where he went was the wrong one, but it just happened to work.” - Hamilton

Russell has rubbished that.

“I don’t think there’s any luck in it at all,” he said in Thursday’s driver press conference for the Australian Grand Prix weekend. “I think it’s down to the preparation you put in before the event.

“The changes we made overnight, I knew that was going to be the right direction with the work we did with the team. And I believed it was going to be better than the setup that Lewis opted for.

“I think everybody’s got different preferences, I was happy with the direction I took and the work I’m doing with the engineers.”

https://www.planetf1.com/news/george-ru ... uck-claim/

[chrisc90]

Oofffttt - cat amongst the pigeons there.

[Hammerfist]

It's not the first time nor the last time Lewis would have chosen the wrong setup. He has a habit of painting it as it's not his own fault. Twitter gate anyone?

[continuum16]

I don't think there is that much of a needle between the two drivers but I do agree with George in the sense that, at the end of the day, the driver is the only one who can communicate qualitative changes to the setup. If the driver's feedback leads the team in a certain direction then so be it. To say "I knew it would be right" is probably not 100% correct but you can have a good degree of confidence.

Hamilton has noted the cockpit position being to far forward is contributing to his lack of feeling in the car, which probably doesn't help with setup direction. Of course, George is in the same car as well so that wouldn't explain the difference between the two, just relative to other teams.

[AR3-GP]

I don't think there is that much of a needle between the two drivers but I do agree with George in the sense that, at the end of the day, the driver is the only one who can communicate qualitative changes to the setup. If the driver's feedback leads the team in a certain direction then so be it. To say "I knew it would be right" is probably not 100% correct but you can have a good degree of confidence.

Hamilton has noted the cockpit position being to far forward is contributing to his lack of feeling in the car, which probably doesn't help with setup direction. Of course, George is in the same car as well so that wouldn't explain the difference between the two, just relative to other teams.

The race did a rough analysis of this and it turns out that AMR and Ferrari seating position is very similar to Mercedes. Only RB is the outlier of the top 4 teams.


https://the-race.com/formula-1/mercedes ... struggles/

[continuum16]

I don't think there is that much of a needle between the two drivers but I do agree with George in the sense that, at the end of the day, the driver is the only one who can communicate qualitative changes to the setup. If the driver's feedback leads the team in a certain direction then so be it. To say "I knew it would be right" is probably not 100% correct but you can have a good degree of confidence.

Hamilton has noted the cockpit position being to far forward is contributing to his lack of feeling in the car, which probably doesn't help with setup direction. Of course, George is in the same car as well so that wouldn't explain the difference between the two, just relative to other teams.

The race did a rough analysis of this and it turns out that AMR and Ferrari seating position is very similar to Mercedes. Only RB is the outlier of the top 4 teams.

https://storage.googleapis.com/the-race ... ison-2.jpg
https://the-race.com/formula-1/mercedes ... struggles/

I also saw this. I'm just relaying what Lewis said even though realistically it's not that different to most other cars on the grid. If Lewis just wants them to build a Red Bull, then he should just flat out say "build me a Red Bull" at this point rather than saying "people didn't listen" and "the cockpit is too far forward" etc.

I suspect, sort of how the article alludes to, that a big reason for the lack of feel is the relationship between the cockpit and the center of pressure more than the position of the cockpit itself.

I would also add that I wonder what the differences in feedback and car balance preference through a corner is between the two drivers. I remember there was an article about the differences between Albon and Russell's demands at Williams and I wonder if something similar exists at Merc between Lewis and George.

[AR3-GP]

I don't think there is that much of a needle between the two drivers but I do agree with George in the sense that, at the end of the day, the driver is the only one who can communicate qualitative changes to the setup. If the driver's feedback leads the team in a certain direction then so be it. To say "I knew it would be right" is probably not 100% correct but you can have a good degree of confidence.

Hamilton has noted the cockpit position being to far forward is contributing to his lack of feeling in the car, which probably doesn't help with setup direction. Of course, George is in the same car as well so that wouldn't explain the difference between the two, just relative to other teams.

The race did a rough analysis of this and it turns out that AMR and Ferrari seating position is very similar to Mercedes. Only RB is the outlier of the top 4 teams.

https://storage.googleapis.com/the-race ... ison-2.jpg
https://the-race.com/formula-1/mercedes ... struggles/

I also saw this. I'm just relaying what Lewis said even though realistically it's not that different to most other cars on the grid. If Lewis just wants them to build a Red Bull, then he should just flat out say "build me a Red Bull" at this point rather than saying "people didn't listen" and "the cockpit is too far forward" etc.

I suspect, sort of how the article alludes to, that a big reason for the lack of feel is the relationship between the cockpit and the center of pressure more than the position of the cockpit itself.

I would also add that I wonder what the differences in feedback and car balance preference through a corner is between the two drivers. I remember there was an article about the differences between Albon and Russell's demands at Williams and I wonder if something similar exists at Merc between Lewis and George.

I wonder if the issue isn't about seating positions and is more so about having no rear grip (or lack of). The latter has been something Hamilton complained about even last year. The former is only a recent discovery but is probably being triggered by the latter. All last year Mercedes were compensating by running a heavily loaded rear wing. This season they trimmed the rear wing considerably and quelle surprise, the driver says the rear has no grip or feeling.