Mercedes W14

[Andi76]

This.

Aero pitch sensitivity, especially at braking has been known for 45 years now and is a big reason why active suspension (with Lotus) was even tried.

There is even a good story about by Willem Toet how Michael Schumacher was less sensitive to aero pitch induced instabilities at the braking point where Eddie Irvine was. Fixing it, Eddie Irvine found tenths where Michael just found it to take less thought.

Everyone acting like this is new when I can open a Carroll Smith book up and read about anti-dive suspensions from the 1970s.

It’s like the phrase of the week (until someone in the media learns another old term they didn’t know existed).

I actually talked to Willem a while ago about that exactly. The F310 and its reactions and the drivers were actually in the context of which he wrote that, if memory serves. The designer John Barnard was the only F1 designer who started with a clean sheet of paper for almost every new car. Barnard also did with that car.  JB (or Tony- JBs aero guy) had this idea that they would eliminate the boundary layer that puts low energy air into the side pods by separating them from the car.  Problem is that the front wheel wake went straight in instead.  Really daft idea. That though was not the main problem the car had if you consider it a problem.The car also had a vertical separation to the side pod and a (relatively) sharp leading edge to the flat floor (step plane) of the car.  It would behave differently in braking and acceleration especially on a bumpy track in the braking zones.  If the front of the floor vibrated due to bumpy track, the air going under would stall in waves.  For Michael it wasn't a drama - he drove so precisely, he could predict what the car's behaviour would be.  For Eddy Irvine though, it was a very hard car to drive because of that. Why?  In heavy braking the floor was likely to have the waves of stalling under it.  So in heavy braking towards turn in the car was likely to snap into oversteer - a disaster for a driver because he has to react or the car would be spinning. Irvine drove with flair and was very fast - as fast as Michael and sometimes faster - but his style was less precise.  He would not drive each corner the same each lap and the changes were sometimes "dramatic" (although to engineers, the car's behaviour was predictable).  If he hit the brakes early and then rolled off the brakes before turning in the car would understeer, if he hit the brakes a bit late and was still hard on them during the turn in phase, then it would sometimes snap with oversteer.  
Willem fixed the problem with some careful reading of the radius rules and using some manufacturing tolerance.  Michael said something like "Very nice Willem, it's easier to drive like that.  But.  It isn't faster, I'd like more downforce".  He drove with extreme precision and his experiments lap on lap were very small steps in his behavior.  Eddie loved the change and was more consistent and much faster in races as a result. 

But anyway - you are absolutely right - pitch sensitivity has been known for ages. So simply adding an anti-dive suspension to the car is hardly the big trick or something new. And if you don't consider and adjust a lot of other things here, you can also have a negative effect very quickly.

[Hoffman900]

This.

Aero pitch sensitivity, especially at braking has been known for 45 years now and is a big reason why active suspension (with Lotus) was even tried.

There is even a good story about by Willem Toet how Michael Schumacher was less sensitive to aero pitch induced instabilities at the braking point where Eddie Irvine was. Fixing it, Eddie Irvine found tenths where Michael just found it to take less thought.

Everyone acting like this is new when I can open a Carroll Smith book up and read about anti-dive suspensions from the 1970s.

It’s like the phrase of the week (until someone in the media learns another old term they didn’t know existed).

I actually talked to Willem a while ago about that. We talked about the F310, Michael and Eddie. Willem said that John Barnard was the only F1 designer he knew who started with a clean sheet of paper for almost every new car. I also only know JB who did that. He did with that car.  He (or Tony-JBs aero guy) had this idea that they would eliminate the boundary layer that puts low energy air into the side pods by separating them from the car.  Problem is that the front wheel wake went straight in instead.  Really daft idea. That though was not the main problem the car had if you consider it a problem.The car also had a vertical separation to the side pod and a (relatively) sharp leading edge to the flat floor (step plane) of the car.  It would behave differently in braking and acceleration especially on a bumpy track in the braking zones.  If the front of the floor vibrated due to bumpy track, the air going under would stall in waves.  For Michael it wasn't a drama - he drove so precisely, he could predict what the car's behaviour would be.  For Eddy Irvine though, it was a very hard car to drive because of that. Why?  In heavy braking the floor was likely to have the waves of stalling under it.  So in heavy braking towards turn in the car was likely to snap into oversteer - a disaster for a driver because he has to react or the car would be spinning. Irvine drove with flair and was very fast - as fast as Michael and sometimes faster - but his style was less precise.  He would not drive each corner the same each lap and the changes were sometimes "dramatic" (although to engineers, the car's behaviour was predictable).  If he hit the brakes early and then rolled off the brakes before turning in the car would understeer, if he hit the brakes a bit late and was still hard on them during the turn in phase, then it would sometimes snap with oversteer.  
Willem fixed the problem with some careful reading of the radius rules and using some manufacturing tolerance.  Michael said something like "Very nice Willem, it's easier to drive like that.  But.  It isn't faster, I'd like more downforce".  He drove with extreme precision and his experiments lap on lap were very small steps in his behavior.  Eddie loved the change and was more consistent and much faster in races as a result. 

But anyway - you are absolutely right - pitch sensitivity has been known for ages. So simply adding an anti-dive suspension to the car is hardly the big trick or something new. And if you don't consider and adjust a lot of other things here, you can also have a negative effect very quickly.

You’d think those guys would have been clever enough to use a bluff leading edge and not a knife edge. Oof.

Again, probably worked great in a perfectly smooth wind tunnel, but not in the real world.

[wjpbill]

Looks like some kind of tunnel that accelerates the air travelling down the side pod.

The front end looks open and then there’s a shaped slot. Might achieve the same effect as a vacuum cleaner car cleaner pointy nozzle tool but in reverse.

No sorry this isn't possible

This.

After zooming in there looks like a round tunnel behind the horizontal slot that I guess that allows air flow behind the tire sensor.

[AR3-GP]

There is an opening near the floor stay
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fw_iHLcXgAU ... name=large

I know discussing "looks" in a technical thread is somewhat forbidden, but something seems very off with the way the side of the car looks. This tall "Sidewall" next the engine seems too strange and unlike any other car.

[TNTHead]

[Hoffman900]

There is an opening near the floor stay
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fw_iHLcXgAU ... name=large

I know discussing "looks" in a technical thread is somewhat forbidden, but something seems very off with the way the side of the car looks. This tall "Sidewall" next the engine seems too strange and unlike any other car.

Ultimately this is why CFD and wind tunnels exist, because aero is impossible and often wrong just by looking at it, hell CFD and wind tunnels are often wrong too. The proof will be in the pudding for sure. I wouldn’t read into anything this weekend but Spain will be a good indicator.

[AR3-GP]

There is an opening near the floor stay
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fw_iHLcXgAU ... name=large

I know discussing "looks" in a technical thread is somewhat forbidden, but something seems very off with the way the side of the car looks. This tall "Sidewall" next the engine seems too strange and unlike any other car.

Ultimately this is why CFD and wind tunnels exist, because aero is impossible and often wrong just by looking at it, hell CFD and wind tunnels are often wrong too. The proof will be in the pudding for sure. I wouldn’t read into anything this weekend but Spain will be a good indicator.

Of course I'm not saying anybody can see air, but the dominant Mercedes of old looked the part and in many ways the current RB looks to caress the air all along the bodywork. The current engine cover shoulder on the Merc looks like it's forcing air to do something it doesn't want to do. This is just an amateur observation, however.

[Just_a_fan]

There is an opening near the floor stay
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fw_iHLcXgAU ... name=large

I know discussing "looks" in a technical thread is somewhat forbidden, but something seems very off with the way the side of the car looks. This tall "Sidewall" next the engine seems too strange and unlike any other car.

It does jar a little, doesn't it? It appears to be a combination of higher spine cannon vent location and lower rear sidepod creating a larger bit of bodywork. The AM is a little bit the same but the cannon vents are lower and the sidepod sides are higher so hiding the extent of the cliff. When you look down the water slide canyons, the spine cliff is massive like on the Merc.

[carisi2k]

The upgrades look good. Certainly it makes the car more visually appealing then the slim and zeropods ever did. It's about what I expected although maintaining the mid wings separate to the new sidepod is interesting.

[NoDivergence]

I know discussing "looks" in a technical thread is somewhat forbidden, but something seems very off with the way the side of the car looks. This tall "Sidewall" next the engine seems too strange and unlike any other car.

Ultimately this is why CFD and wind tunnels exist, because aero is impossible and often wrong just by looking at it, hell CFD and wind tunnels are often wrong too. The proof will be in the pudding for sure. I wouldn’t read into anything this weekend but Spain will be a good indicator.

Of course I'm not saying anybody can see air, but the dominant Mercedes of old looked the part and in many ways the current RB looks to caress the air all along the bodywork. The current engine cover shoulder on the Merc looks like it's forcing air to do something it doesn't want to do. This is just an amateur observation, however.

Air doesn't want to go into a halo, either. The shoulder is just a way to manage that wake

[organic]

Thread on winglet legality of the W14B

[PlatinumZealot]

The front facing part of the Mercedes undercut is actually quite aggressive, just as much as the likes of RedBull and Alpine. It's just because of the mid-wing and the pug-nosed air intakes why the undercut appears brief and clunky. If you actually measure from the front of the floor to it, it's actually a sizeable undercut.

The diffuser is way more voluminous than the old one, and the front entrance of the floor is crazy aggressive. Not to mention the side outlets. Definitely a huge change for the floor. This is where the peak performance will be coming from.

The other thing I'm noticing is that these side pods are not much wider than the old ones. They are still within the span of the mid-wings when looking from the front. They are very much indeed an evolution of the size-zero concept. The question for me is will Mercedes every slim back down these side pods or retain the shoulders.... only time will tell.

The Mercedes anti-dive is not a lowering of the rear arm... it's a raising of the front arm when you look at the relative mounting points.

[SiLo]

While all the focus is on the sidepods and front suspension, it appears they have also reprofiled the shape of the rear of the venturi tunnels heading into the diffuser. They appear narrower and taller. Although the usual caveats that the angle of the photos isn't the same so could be distorted by perspective.

https://i.postimg.cc/gk77cx3f/MB-floor.png

Just a benefit of moving internal airflow to directly behind the radiator. They can restrict the area further along the centre line of the car.

[christian.falavena]

https://twitter.com/cfalavena/status/1 ... zVVSVKhLg

[SiLo]

https://twitter.com/cfalavena/status/1 ... zVVSVKhLg

I feel like the Ferrari duct is as much about helping extract air from the radiators as it is about cleaning up flow under the sidepod inlet. They are injecting faster stream air just next to the radiator outlet slots to help pull air through, potentially a requirement of their very skinny top half and rear of the car.