Mercedes GP W02

[Ferraripilot]

Ahhhh, I see the venerable Scarbs has made the same observation as well:

http://scarbsf1.wordpress.com/2011/03/1 ... -analysis/

Have they still got some bodywork scorching as well?

The Scarbs article is of course always brilliant in pointing out details, but the point of the article is in advising the differences of this wing compared to the others, of which there are several. So in other words, they are evolved from the same unit but definitely not the same.

MB made a interesting move in not making the entire wing 3 elements in creating the downforce of a 3 element wing only where downforce is good to be made, ie. not in front of the tire. The leading edge of the wing to the outward wheel direction curves up so to not create downforce in this area as in front of the tire is sub-optimal but rather direct the air around the tire. Neat stuff.

[The FOZ]

It is a pity, they cannot be running a 3 years old front wing on his car during the season!
Hopefully, they will come up with another one.

Any engineer worth anything doesn't get antsy in the pantsies just because a design is long lived. Change for the sake of change alone is a waste of resources.

That doesn't mean you don't continually revisit the design, to see if it's still doing an acceptable job, however.

The process might look something like this:

How well is the current wing design working?

Does something else depend on that wing in it's current configuration?

At that point, the question becomes:

Can we come up with a better alternative?

Along with,

Could the resources this endeavor requires be better spent elsewhere?

There's many answers to those questions that would compel the team to stick with what they had, making only minor alterations along the way.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Fantastic post FOZ, Couldnt have said it better myself.

Seems some teams with 3 elements will want to revert back to 2 elements if Mercedes times are anything to go by.

[Ferraripilot]

Fantastic post FOZ, Couldnt have said it better myself.

Seems some teams with 3 elements will want to revert back to 2 elements if Mercedes times are anything to go by.

What they are possibly setting to prove is the benefit from 3 complete wing elements is not optimal if the 3rd element is providing downforce at an area you don't want it to be. It's seemingly brilliant how they aimed to compartmentalise the 3rd element downforce area in the main wingspan just before the tires. Scarbs write-up really gave me a more clear picture about why they were doing this, and it making perfect sense.

[siskue2005]

=D>
"It's difficult to judge," Vettel insisted. "Today I think we were surprised a bit by Mercedes, but I think it's quite close. It should be okay, we'll see in Australia."

The German said Michael Schumacher's time-topping lap for Mercedes today was impressive regardless of what specification the car was in when he sent it.

"Even if it was very low on fuel, you have to do the lap time first," Vettel said.

He agreed with team-mate Mark Webber's assessment earlier this week that Ferrari should be regarded as the benchmark.

"They've done a lot of kilometres and I think they were quite quick," said Vettel. "The closer we are to them, the better we are in Australia."




http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/89880

[The FOZ]

Fantastic post FOZ, Couldnt have said it better myself.

Seems some teams with 3 elements will want to revert back to 2 elements if Mercedes times are anything to go by.

Thank you.

When you think about the proving of a front wing design, it's immediately obvious that teams aren't just throwing random elements together in a CFD environment, yup, looks good, bang a couple out, and then we see 'em in FP that weekend.

Seemed teams used to show up with different wings at every other race a few seasons ago! In the Pre-2009 aero monstrosity era, how didn't this need MORE proving than the wings we have now?

I think the "let's do a 3 element wing, 3 is more than two, so it must be better!" mentality may have been a bit of early adopterism amongst some teams.

Looking at the crashes Seb and Mark had in 2010, I can think of 3 instances where the front of the car became catastrophically unmanageable when the wing moved into dirty air. An overly sensitive front wing would go a long way to explain why...

[ringo]

That mercedes wing is 3 elements technically. Depending on where you take a cross section it's 3 elements.
It just has a one piece flap.

We probably haven't seen the last of the evolution of this wing.
They are probably taking baby steps to improve the wing. They may not want to go all out and get lost.

[tjaeger]

Think technically it is much easier to deal with a simpler profile wing. Creating too many elements, flaps, deflectors will just be a mess. Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS).
If it works well, delivers the downforce needs, as well as matches the overall aero requirements/concept of the car, perfect.
If you overcomplicate things you get lost and start with flow vis.
Think the wing matches the overall concept of cars basic simplicity, but efficiency and hopefully speed.

[manchild]

You all know my opinion about MSC, but regardless on that, as I've previously pointed out in my option about Mercedes GP W02, that car has the most advanced designed nose and chassis.

RBR styled nose/chassis copied by everyone but Mercedes will become history in 2012. Mercedes had set a new standard with this design. It's pure perfection.

No one matched them , so MSC's reslult isn't a surprise. Their main lack compared with rivals is the rear end of the car, which is too bulky and pointlessly short. Again just my opinion.

[marekk]

As usual very nice drawings and lots of information from scarbs.
But to be honest i don't understand why downforce generation in front of the wheel is not good, and an explanation that it's because area in front of the wheel is in front of the wheel just makes no sense to me.
One can argue, that this section of wing, generating more downforce, would change direction of flow more upwards (that's where downforce comes from).
Flow would later hit this wheel a little bit higher, shifting high dynamic pressure area on the tyre up, creating some downforce.

[marcush.]

I have to say even with those times MS and Nico posted I´m pretty disappointed with the finish of the car.
But sometimes something crude proves that getting the basics straight is the most important thing in any design .honing the rough edges will be easy and give a tiny bit of reward as well.

[PlatinumZealot]

The Brawn wing was pretty good actually. We have to remember it was honed to near perfection over millions of iterations of Honda's computers. There is little one can do to make it better.

[zgred]

[Ferraripilot]

anyone have good pics of the new brake ducts?

[marcush.]

maybe the radiator inlets are a bit big -but where are the exits? they got 4 little sharkgills each side +those at the cockpit sides...+ a little bit at the trailing edge of the engine cover....