Mercedes GP W02

[bot6]

Watching Schumi in the race today, he tried to use the DRS once to overtake Kobayashi and he missed the corner by a mile. I think they're really struggling with that rear wing flap which is really strange considering that it was working wonders in testing. Merc were among the top at the speed trap in Barcelona testing, and now in the race they are miles off.

And they have a fairly similar flap design to Sauber's (very short, very curved flap), which works wonders apparently.

As mentioned before, the notch would help make the performance of the wing more consistent but that will come at a cost in performance. At this point, though, do they have a choice? Unless it's not the flap but the main plane of the wing that stalls, as they have a very thick profile there.

I don't think the car itself is really slow. It shows rare signs of competitiveness when everything does actually work (like in Q1 yesterday) but it's just not reliable enough. The breakdowns don't stop the car but seem to slow it down quite a bit.

They seem to have their KERS issue sorted at least, now it's the turn of the rear wing. We still haven't seen the real pace of the car. But the question is, will we see it before the season is over or will the car be plagued with reliability issues all year?

[TURU]

They seem to have their KERS issue sorted at least, now it's the turn of the rear wing. We still haven't seen the real pace of the car. But the question is, will we see it before the season is over or will the car be plagued with reliability issues all year?

Yes, I agree we haven't.... because there isn't any. They are not so bad in qualifying (probably 5th best), but race pace is virtually nonexistent.

[TURU]

Is it only me thinking this front wing is crap?

No, it's absolutely perfect, therefore it cannot be improved ... how can you improve pure excellence.

[i70q7m7ghw]

Ferrari have a good race pace, Alonso and Massa was as fast as Button and Hamilton.

Not really – the only time Alonso was faster than either McLaren was while Hamilton was on his last set of tyres, and he dropped a full 20 seconds on button during that time.

In the first stint both Ferrari was blocked by Button..

Your right, clearly Ferrari is the fastest team at the moment, shame they don't have the results to show it huh?

[marcush.]

strange strange that well seasoned teams like Mercedes and Ferrari have trouble to get basic stuff working for a complete race distance...
From the outside the W01 was just looking dull and uncompetitive last year ,but this one shows weakness in consistency on a very base level with systems not operating consistantly.But wait they had the same issue with F-duct last year.
They lack the strength in depth methinks.Or the whole group of people responsible for systems around f-duct ,moveable wings etc is crap.
You just cannot allow to look like idiots again and again.

Has the car speed ? who cares ? Newey faced the axe at Leyton House when producing shitboxes there....I guess we will see change of leadership very soon.
Norbert the first to face the axe?

Don´t you think they have evaluated other possibilities already? There is lots of inspiration around in the paddock ....but they retained their concept even with the car a lot different since the BGP001 days.... €I don´t see why they couid not try a RBR style wing if they thought it was better.I´d think the RedBull solution is useless without the bendy bit,maybe and before mastering it(passing the static test that is)they cannot implement it?

[PlatinumZealot]

This car is in a worse position than the W01! The Sauber, Ranualt and the STR look faster to me at least. It's going to be tough battle for Ross Brawn and his crew.

[mep]

In the Ecclestone biography is written that he sacked the complete Brabham team with the only exception of Gordon Murray after he bought it. Very strong move but it paid off in the end.

[Morteza]

W02 is a worse successor to W01! Somethings/some people in this team totally suck! If I were Mercedes, I would tell them to walk away! This is not what Mercedes expected. A worse 2011 struggling to keep up with Sauber/Force India/STR in middle field?! They ceased the development of W01 early last year to focus on this year's car, and they've got a car which is so inconsistent with variable characteristics in days of a racing weekend. Will Mercedes board tolerate this any longer? I really doubt it except they want to pull out the plug of the team. I read the post race quotes made by them, and they had mentioned that KERS and DRS were working properly. So they are badly off the pace with this car.

BTW, was BGP 001 a really bad concept to be sacked? I mean could they not develop that concept for its successors any more? I mean Red Bull design started with RB5 and developed into RB6 and RB7. Could Mercedes not do that?

[Ferraripilot]

W02 is a worse successor to W01! Somethings/some people in this team totally suck! If I were Mercedes, I would tell them to walk away! This is not what Mercedes expected. A worse 2011 struggling to keep up with Sauber/Force India/STR in middlefield?! They ceased the development of W01 early last year to focus on this year's car, and they've got a car which is so inconsistent with variable characteristics in days of a racing weekend. Will Mercedes board tolerate this any longer? I really doubt it except they want to pull out the plug of the team. I read the post race quotes made by them, and they had mentioned that KERS and DRS were working properly. So they are badly off the pace with this car.

Sounds about right. The car clearly has fantastic top speed but not nearly enough aero to compete. Their exhaust needs to utilize all its energy which means swapping to a RB style exhaust. The current MB exhaust loses too much energy in its current position which can't be helping things.

Should they fix that, they might be able to add that Mark III wing they had at testing which had the additional cascade. My .02 says Schumacher did not like the Mark III wing as it created too much downforce than the rear end was willing to handle. Perhaps the better exhaust would change that. I would not count out them working on a bendy front wing as well.

What a mess really. I feel terrible for them as they really are doing something different but it's just not working as planned.

[Morteza]

RB7 and W02 side by side. Not a very nice picture, but I guess it gives an idea for a comparison let's say :

[mep]

What makes me wonder is that this team actually was able to win 2009. In todays context this seems to be a miracle. Is it coincident that this was the only year when it was not run by a big car manufacturer?

[raymondu999]

The tyres look very different to what we had last year. Even the tyres on Button's McLaren after Melbourne 2009 didn't look half as bad.

[Ganxxta]

The tyres look very different to what we had last year. Even the tyres on Button's McLaren after Melbourne 2009 didn't look half as bad.

If you are referring to the picture: Thats just pick-up rubber, not the wear level.

[wesley123]

What makes me wonder is that this team actually was able to win 2009. In todays context this seems to be a miracle. Is it coincident that this was the only year when it was not run by a big car manufacturer?

It was the year when they got a car where Honda put in a zillion million dollars and 2-3 years of development in it. They got the great loophole back then and a genius front wing, without those they would have been nowhere either.

These guys are incredible though, over the last 12 years these guys only made one good car and 2 decent other cars. A bucnh of monkeys would do a better job I am certain of. These guys have got almost unlimited resources pre-2009 and couldnt achieve anything with it, now they still cannot achieve anything with it. The best part is, they dont even got any excuse on why it doesnt work apart from to blame themselves. Last year it was the weight distribution and tires, now those excuses arent here anymore, they did it all wrong by them selves, again.

[bot6]

Guys, remind me how Red Bull were doing two years after taking over Jag?

Right now, there is an immense time gap between the two top teams and the others, but as far as pecking order goes Mercedes is not quite as far as you might think. RBR and McLaren are obviously faster and Renault is definitely slightly faster and - more importantly - much more consistent. Ferrari are pretty much at the same level as Mercedes right now: sometimes fast, sometimes not, and having lots of issues they did not have in testing. That puts them around 4th/5th fastest which is by no means catastrophic. It's not the RA107.

Mercedes is a work in progress and it's only their second year. The car has shown sporadically it can be fast - at least Renault fast, maybe not RBR fast, it's all relative. But it can only do that when everything is working on it. In the past two races, that hasn't happened yet.

The other problem here is also the stupidly high expectations people have for a team that is only in its second year. Again, it took much longer than that for Red Bull to become "successful". They are still building a structure and I'm sure that Bell's arrival will bring about a few changes in the team. I wouldn't be surprised to see some more of the Renault staff transfer to Mercedes at the end of this season. Two years ago, Brawn had to fire over half the team. Now, they are still trying to rebuild and that takes time. Again, for the Red Bull fans: it took your favorite team that can do no wrong much longer than two years to get to where they are.

Chill guys.

Back on topic, it seems that they have kept the monkey seat from Melbourne, switched back to the Mark 1 wing and fitted the little Sauber like deflectors above the sidepod intake. Anybody seen any other changes this weekend?

What I find odd is that the rear wing seems to be the exact same as in Oz where they already had trouble with it...