Mercedes GP - Inauguration and 1st season

[andrew]

What is Rapid Prototyping?

Try this evil one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Prototyping

[xpensive]

This is a very strong indication that MGP has already given up on next years car, now focussing on the W03 for 2012,
when any "Senior" aerodynamicist from a competing team will come with a 6-month "gardening-leave" before he can begin!

[marcush.]

very fishy that..JET should think about the suit size already...

seriously why not looking for people that have the desire to change?If you can improve you should do so.
Merc was not the leading team in terms of aero this year.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Yea thanks marcush

"fetching Alonso ferrari outfit" will only be worn should MGP fail to win a race next year.
And seriously, should Loic Bigois design a half decent aero concept, Mercedes should be in with a shout as the slate gets wiped clean for 2011.
No F duct
No Double duiffuser
No Bridgestones
Compulsory weight distribution.
Resource restriction.

Almost all these things are a big bonus to Mercedes.

My prediction for 2011 is the W02 will bear no resemblance AT ALL to the W01. If it does, I will wear the "fetching alonso suit" for every GP of the year!

[marcush.]

I ´m not so sure...I think they will retain their trademark fin rollover structure...
interestingly enough i read somewhere they base their design concept on the tyre construction data of this year...hmm and try to improve in chassis stiffness as well as CoG height ...ross gave away at SportAuto mag..all aspects we have discussed at length
over the year now...

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

So they are going on this years bridgestone data for next years car that will be Pirelli shod?
I suppose the W02 will retain the roll over "blade".

[marcush.]

So they are going on this years bridgestone data for next years car that will be Pirelli shod?
I suppose the W02 will retain the roll over "blade".

It is something Pirelli got written in the book ...it seems . to adhere closely to the construction characteristic of this years tyres..compound wise its different .


will the W02 be a COPY of the RB6 ? I ´d think that is not Bigois style at all ..even if he took some leave out of neweys book with the v-shaped tub front .

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Well he didnt do a great job of aero this year, And I think people are wising up to the tricks red bull pulled this year with flexi wings, EBD and rumoured flexi floor.
They need to do a Force India and go back to basics. Create an effiecient shape that can be a good base for further development, somthing the caurrent car is not.

I would assume the person who got the tyres figures wrong to no longer be gainfully employed by MGP. Its cost them dearly this year...

[aral]

Yea thanks marcush

"fetching Alonso ferrari outfit" will only be worn should MGP fail to win a race next year.
And seriously, should Loic Bigois design a half decent aero concept, Mercedes should be in with a shout as the slate gets wiped clean for 2011.
No F duct
No Double duiffuser
No Bridgestones
Compulsory weight distribution.
Resource restriction.

Almost all these things are a big bonus to Mercedes.

My prediction for 2011 is the W02 will bear no resemblance AT ALL to the W01. If it does, I will wear the "fetching alonso suit" for every GP of the year!

The tech regs for next year have still not been finalised. I believe that ACTIVE wing stallers may not be allowed, but PASSIVE ones would be permissible. I also posted a month ago, that there was an FIA technical document relating to the blade roll-over bar on the Mercs. The call was for a standardised roll-bar structure. So again, the rules have not been finalised, but will affect every team equally, just as the rules did for this year.

[segedunum]

And seriously, should Loic Bigois design a half decent aero concept

Given his history at Prost and Williams, where Williams went backwards after they fired Terzi, how likely is that?

Mercedes should be in with a shout as the slate gets wiped clean for 2011.

The slate does not get wiped clean. Next year's car will still be an evolution of this one with the same set of basic technical regulations and others to be resolved, as Red Bull and other teams will do. Only if you've fouled up totally will you need a completely new car.

No F duct

Their straight line speed is useless anyway, as evidenced by Schumacher not seeing Sutil as he went past. I fail to see how they'll get ahead of everyone else next year.

No Double duiffuser

Red Bull was the best car without it in 2009.

No Bridgestones

Same for everyone.

Compulsory weight distribution.

If indeed that happens, but it's the same for everyone and there loopholes you can drive a truck through. That was as desperate a move as I've seen from Brawn and I simply can't see it being workable.

Resource restriction.

No matter how many times you repeat this JET the resource restriction is bollocks, and has been shown to be bollocks. Mercedes has no advantage there. There are loopholes you can drive motorhomes through.

Almost all these things are a big bonus to Mercedes.

Why?

My prediction for 2011 is the W02 will bear no resemblance AT ALL to the W01. If it does, I will wear the "fetching alonso suit" for every GP of the year!

Of course it won't because they're having to design another basic 2010 car again because they totally fouled it up.

I'd start getting accurate measurements for that suit JET.

[segedunum]

They need to do a Force India and go back to basics.

It would be easier to buy FI's technical team, but Lotus seem to be doing that anyway. If my car had been passed so easily through a corner like Sutil did to Schumacher with the same powerplant I would consider whether I should be designing buses as Terzi did.

I would assume the person who got the tyres figures wrong to no longer be gainfully employed by MGP. Its cost them dearly this year...

The buck stops with Bigois.....so that would be a no. If Brawn has any nouse whatsoever he will know the aerodynamics are shite and this is not a tyre or a weight distribution problem. When you see excuses like that you see a gaping hole in the side of the hull.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Bigois has nought to do with engineering as far as Im aware. So the weight distribution isnt to do with him.
I would go as far as to say the forward heavy nature of the car owes much to the error of the tyre calculations.
Not defending Bigois per se, but Mercedes are the only team without a proper sharkfin(okay Hispania havent either, but c'mon) and this would owe to their forward biased philosophy.

Its easy for us to say this is more than just a weight distribution mess up, and you'd be half right. But the knock on effect of this problem will literally influence the look shape and ethos of the whole car as it has with the W01.

So Bigois may have had to make do. There are some nice innovations on the W01 aerodynamically speaking, but the car looks like it was designed to use its tyres with forward weight bias, of that Im convinced.
I will say though that Im severely dissapointd that no new front or rear wing has been implemented thus far. But Brawn shed light on that last week by saying it doesnt matter how much aero points they add to the front, the tyres just will not bite past a certain point regardless of aero....
Hence why no new front wing as it would all be a waste of resource until they sort out the front end mechanically.
This in a nutshell tells you all you need to know.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

I would say that Bigois did quite well in 2009.

I would also say that Fducts are helping other teams achieve a higher top speed than Mercedes do. Somthing that wont happen next year.

Red Bull were the fastest of the non DD teams yes, but that are now also the finest with it.

Resource restriction rubbish?
I wouldnt say that, that was the premise of all new teams entering and also Mercedes deciding to re enter the sport officially. So I cannot see how that is the case.
Furthermore F1 is trying to attract new Manufacturers, somthing that will not happen unless a fixed Resource restriction is in place. VWAG have come out and said as much.

And the mandatory weight distribution is somthing that will help Mercedes because if they havent sacked the guy who messed up, then naturally he cant screw up somthing as simple as following rules, well one hopes so anyway.

Just my view of it

[segedunum]

As for Mercedes GP being a mistake, I think that is far too early to conclude. They occupy 4th position in their first year, Ferrari had that position last year and how long and prestigious have they been in F1. Not forgetting their budget and manpower.

As we've discussed before JET, it's how far Mercedes are away from the front. They will soon concede fourth to Renault anyway on current form. BMW made exactly the same mistake of focusing on the next season when they should have paid attention to results in the season they were in that the suits were basing their decisions on. You can't ignore now.

Ferrari won a race and got podiums last year. They even scored points when they stopped development of the car. How far away are Mercedes from that this season? The situation is a diaster, with the best engine in the field no less.

How many times are you going to repeat this as if it's the first time you've said it?

The Daimler/Reanult tie up was all about Mercedes finding a partner to reduce costs on their samller vehicles, in Return Renault/nissan got their hands on Mercedes engines. F1 was never discussed in the tie up, and bringing Nissan to the table in F1 would take alot more than a Parts sharing venture and a team bemoaning(wrongly IMO) their Renault powerplant.

You're trying to poo, poo this but it is eminently sensible. We've been told confidently that the financial disaster in the car industry is over, but it isn't. There is still an oversupply of volume car production and manufacturers are going to share models, chassis and engines ever more. That's why you see Lada being displayed on the Renault cars as well as rebranding of engines as others have said. You're only going to see this happen more. I don't know why you're trying to ignore how this has happened in the past and is going on now.

As for Formula One, it is merely marketing and it will follow all of the cost cutting and consolidation that the brands are undergoing themselves with Formula One teams they can ill afford. This will happen regardless of whether Formula One was discussed or not. Mercedes seemed confident that they were going to run a winning own-brand team on the cheap. They were wrong. They need other partners and input from elsewhere to make it viable to the company - which is how Mercedes have said they will view that team.

[segedunum]

[....]