Mercedes W15

[mkay]

The more concerning things is how Lewis was so much faster than Russell. Easy to say that the upgrades 'worked' looking at Lewis' pace, but a small deviation in set-up between Lewis and George yielded disastrous results for the latter.

Either that, or Lewis' side of the garage simply lucked into the 'right' setup for the W15.

[zeroday]

The more concerning things is how Lewis was so much faster than Russell. Easy to say that the upgrades 'worked' looking at Lewis' pace, but a small deviation in set-up between Lewis and George yielded disastrous results for the latter.

Either that, or Lewis' side of the garage simply lucked into the 'right' setup for the W15.

When the car is stable and predictable, Lewis has always just been the better driver. So, its just possible the W15 happened to get in that very narrow window for long enough to be stable. Not surprising.

[mkay]

The more concerning things is how Lewis was so much faster than Russell. Easy to say that the upgrades 'worked' looking at Lewis' pace, but a small deviation in set-up between Lewis and George yielded disastrous results for the latter.

Either that, or Lewis' side of the garage simply lucked into the 'right' setup for the W15.

When the car is stable and predictable, Lewis has always just been the better driver. So, its just possible the W15 happened to get in that very narrow window for long enough to be stable. Not surprising.

Lewis was something like 6 tenths a lap quicker than Russell after the safety car. As quick as Lewis is, this gap cannot only be explained by talent. Just shows how narrow the car's window remains post-upgrades.

[atanatizante]

The metal stay still there and it seems to me that the bib tray is lower than the floor due to TD40 presumably ...
On the other side, those rear brake ducts are new? they seem to be larger than usual ... maybe there are circuit-specific updates.

[Luscion]

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

Part 2 of the upgrade in Imola

Mercedes is now trying to impose a larger working window on its car with upgrades. Because time is pressing, the major Imola package has been split and partly brought forward. A new underbody, modified front wing flaps, newly clad front track rods and a cooling configuration adapted to the high temperatures made their debut in Miami.

The Miami package will be completed in Imola with a new rear wing and beam wing. The main aim of the modifications was to achieve more stable downforce at the rear. This should help to better control the temperatures of the rear tires. They still tend to overheat. The front tires take too long to get into operating mode.

Chief engineer Andrew Shovlin explains the dilemma: "With the ground effect cars, the suspension travel has shortened over the entire speed range. Although the car is moving less, it has a big influence on how the front wing and diffuser work. And this changes the characteristics of the car from corner type to corner type."

[PlatinumZealot]

With this spec there is practically no inboard vortex to form. Japan spec 2 saw this reduced already. Car was basically better than expected in the race, Hamilton was less than 4 tenths per lap away from Max after SC and kept up convincingly with Perez. Is this trully the problem they introduced themselves again, trying to be clever with rule interpretation?

That could lead to two conclusions...

The design was not made to add any extra significant vorticity and hence cutting down the flap does not detrimentally affect vorticity need to create sidewash and work the floor.

The floor is still works well with the lost vorticity from cutting the flap and it doesnt affect car balance.


Choose one of the above.

[Ozan]

with w14-b spec(after monaco) Mercedes pioneered the so called overbite sidepod design and curved engine cover like this season's redbull car uses. I can't understand how they went backwards from this design philosophy,especially the upper teams like ferrari and mclaren are switching to this sidepod solution.

[ringo]

I think they philosophy is just the cherry on top.
The underlying performance differentiator is the foor.
Mercedes were right to remove the special sidepods to be able to evaluate the floor in isolation.
When the floor is evaluated and suspension then they can add back the various designs of sudepods and so forth to put on performance.

The sidepods were merely lipstick on a pig. When the car turns to a pretty lady then the lipstick will be more effective.

[PlatinumZealot]

The more concerning things is how Lewis was so much faster than Russell. Easy to say that the upgrades 'worked' looking at Lewis' pace, but a small deviation in set-up between Lewis and George yielded disastrous results for the latter.

Either that, or Lewis' side of the garage simply lucked into the 'right' setup for the W15.

When the car is stable and predictable, Lewis has always just been the better driver. So, its just possible the W15 happened to get in that very narrow window for long enough to be stable. Not surprising.

I think we have to be very careful how the word stable is used. Stable is to simple and broad-brush a word to say the car has good characteristics. And equally an unstable car doesn't mean it has the characteristic of quick car that so happens to be very pointy - like Verstappen's RedBull. The problem with Mercedes W15 is that it is stable at times, but it has inconsistent behavior from corner to corner and session to session. We could go into the intricate details of it but we will need actual evidence/data of the car misbehaving to see what it's characteristics are. For what it is worth it seems George is willing to push on with the car when it's driving like crap, while Lewis rather plays around trying to make the beast into a beauty.

[selvam_e2002]

In AMR topics, there are lots of issue with Mercedes Rear suspension. is it affecting Mercedes as well? or only AMR.

[r85]

In AMR topics, there are lots of issue with Mercedes Rear suspension. is it affecting Mercedes as well? or only AMR.

The rear tyres overheat on the Mercedes, but they also lack downforce towards the rear of the car. Gotta wait for a few aero updates to judge whether it's a suspension issue or aero issue.

[Luscion]

https://www.funoanalisitecnica.com/2024 ... imola.html

TLDR of the upgrades for Imola - Mercedes identified problems with the W15's rear suspension before it was even driven. They noticed inconsistencies during testing on the dyno and during the first track test in Bahrain.

To resolve this, Mercedes plans to modify some internal components of the push-rod and introduce a new beam-wing specification and rear wing to improve stability and temperature control.

Based on the information gathered, the additional improvements should largely solve the tire heating headache

[PlatinumZealot]

The aero of the Aston Martin probably aggravates the problem much less.

[Formula 1 fan]

Will Mercedes bring new sidepods to Imola race?

[maygun]

Will Mercedes bring new sidepods to Imola race?

I've surprised when they didn't in Miami, whenever RB bring some floor edge update they always changed their sidepod as well, which hint that those two need to be in good harmony for performance gains.