Mercedes GP W02

[roadwarrior]

I just pray they didn't fluke into finding the setup sweet spot this weekend and go back to struggling again at the next race. The other teams are all going to have fairly large updates for Turkey too so I hope that the updates Merc have actually work and make the car faster rather than making no difference or making the car slower as was the case so many times last year.

[marcush.]

Schumacher is just a damn good racer..unfortunatelly his eagerness got the better of him at times in his career but one has to take note that he is really the first lap hero since his comeback making up any ground lost due to his inability to perform that ultimate lap Rosberg is producing wekend after weekend in Q.

If I were Rosberg I would not have lifted to safe fuel....and have fun till she dies on me.. but maybe the points were too important...but stopping with 5 laps to go fighting for the lead with Hamilton and Vettel would have been the best morale boost methinks...

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Well from what Rosberg was saying Mercedes were trying to reinvent the wheel these last 15 months.
Basically, the team went back to basics fo China. And I think a certain element of this is pressure from Stuttgart.

Springs and certain other parts of the car were changed. As there are many tiny "bits and bobs" we cannot see it is speculative as to what was changed on the W02.
What Rosberg intimated was that the changes individually meant little but that the cumultaive effect on the car was quite big.
So Mercedes are focusing on mechanical and they came up with a good base car.

I wonder how much of this is also down to the team running heavier on Friday, allowing the suspension guys alot of room to get good race setups, with the correct springs and so on?
Also it is important to note that Mercedes did not solve their cooling issues for China. They were still running a very open rear exhaust to help them solve their heat problems, F1Technical actually produced a good piece on the cooling problem and how it isnt the most efficient in terms of aero, it didnt effect them that much because their patch solution was effective enough. Once solved, I see them being able to hit the ground running at race weekends. Let alone what optimised DRS(working reliably one hopes) can do for them.

Can someone shed some light on wether adding rake to a shorter car will be more or less difficult? I have had conflicting arguments with some people I know, but the crux is one suggested its easier in terms of aero(being shorter) and the other suggests it will be more difficult for Mercedes because they have a tightly packaged unit more prone to weight distibution(that word again guys ) effects of raising the rear.

[3one]

So Mercedes are focusing on mechanical and they came up with a good base car.

I wonder how much of this is also down to the team running heavier on Friday, allowing the suspension guys alot of room to get good race setups, with the correct springs and so on?

Can someone shed some light on wether adding rake to a shorter car will be more or less difficult? I have had conflicting arguments with some people I know, but the crux is one suggested its easier in terms of aero(being shorter) and the other suggests it will be more difficult for Mercedes because they have a tightly packaged unit more prone to weight distibution(that word again guys ) effects of raising the rear.

My guess was right on the spot when i said they really need to improve their mechanical grip on the car... Which they did! Trying to compensate mechanical deficiencies with aero updates is the worst thing you can do... It should always be the other way around... You we're also right Johnson about Merc having just a few deep seated problems with the setup...

Also i commend them on starting the car on heavy fuel loads, A quick enough car at full tanks helps a lot getting thru traffic during the start of the race, and when the fuel loads go down the car gets easier... Unfortunately they were too fast and burned the gas too fast...

As what i've read the main purpose for adding more rake on the car is to lower the front wing substantially... For the W02, with a short wheelbase, they wouldn't need to raise the rear that much to lower the nose down to the level of the RBs. I would expect the rear ride height would still be lower than the Redbulls, but the nose would be at the same level...

Here's what i think merc will do, they wouldn't go all out with a sudden increase of rake but would rather go with stages little by little raising the car and learning how the mechanical part of the system would be affected...

[Ferraripilot]

They definitely honed their mechanical grip. Make note of S3 times and that Nico was 2nd only to Vettel during qualifying and Schu was quickest through there at the end of practice 2 pulling a 40.2 IIRC. S3 is a very mechanically oriented area and the car performed very well there.

Now for Turkey which has some make-or-break areas for a team's aero. Turkey has that nasty triple left hander turn 8 which everyone had to lift for save Red Bull (everyone spun out at least once too!). If MB brings good aero upgrades in Turkey and places well, I would be reasonably confident in saying they will get to the front or very close to it by the end of the year.

[ForMuLaOne]

It now proves that the W02 has great pace... Given it doesn't get too hot...

I've read somewhere too that Ross said the press that a new rear wing will be available for the next race? Which as he said would fix all the problems on the DRS... Most probably a bigger upper element... I just hope they let go of the floating design and bolt that sucker to the floor..

Also noting that they might go on with a higher rake come Turkey... I'm gonna bet if it goes well, Higher Rake + New rear wing = MK III front wing...

I really hope that this was the way they wanted to go anyways from the very beginning of the W02 project. A few things like the short wheelbase, the exhaust solution, and a DRS working slightly different from other`s versions make sense.

Mep


Haug smiling with rosberg leading was a magic moment, but for sure the W02 I think is a mercurial car capable of alot, in the right conditions.

I had the idea quite early that maybe merc focussed too much on a car working good in test conditions ( WEATHER). They brought their updates not knowing how tyres would behave in hotter conditions. This is why i fear what roadwarrior stated:

I just pray they didn't fluke into finding the setup sweet spot this weekend and go back to struggling again at the next race. The other teams are all going to have fairly large updates for Turkey too so I hope that the updates Merc have actually work and make the car faster rather than making no difference or making the car slower as was the case so many times last year.

To me, this car is the platform for next year`s car. They took a different direction than red bull, they were (or soon are) talking about podium, maybe winning a race. This car is still unfinished and far away from how it could look like. So to me, the whole project is an even earlier beginning of car development for the 2012 season. Sophisticated plattform (radiator layout, short wheelbase, stalling rear wing), but still very raw ( bodywork offers a huge potential for improvements, take it as a positive statement).

I have HUGE respect for the responsibles, having done a brave move to just downgrade to barca version. And i still believe that this car will be a race winner by the end of the season LATEST, which evolution will be strong in 2012. If not, i will substitute my belief by hope.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

@ForMuLaOne

The heartening thing about the W02 is that in China it did what they thought it would. Naturally alot of this was due to the cooler tempratures allowing them to run the car closer to its designed targets. The cooling issue was still unsolved for China, as the big gash on the side pod intimates.


So with hotter tempratures in Turkey, if no solution is found Mercedes will be behind Sauber.

The other bonus for the team is that as Mercedes investment and tech starts to take hold, like the simulators and staffing additions, we will see them improve gradually.
So you may be right in saying they are using the W02 as a platform for a full on assault on 2012(if the world doesnt end of course ).

Important things Bob Bell will need to solve for Mercedes to repeat their performance in China is:

Cooling
DRS(Mechanical and aero)
KERS

In addition, the team will need to maintain there Friday approach of running heavier than normal. This paid dividends for them in that we didnt hear word regards setup issues, a first for Mercedes GP.

Keeping it simple, then going for the complexities of the rake and fancy exhausts will bear fruit. A very impressive turnaround going on at Mercedes-Benz

[Raptor22]

I'm really quite chuffed with the Silber Pheil this weekend.
Especially Schumacher. I think he is still overdriving the car a little to but he seems to be settling into drving mode again nicely. Amazinghow long it takes for a driver to get up to speed and find the sweet spot. In the past with testing he could drive 5000km and find his groove for each car. Now with the testing ban, its akes race miles to acheive the same.
I hope he can start to really challenge Rosberg from this point on

Glad they made some emchanical changes to the car. It looked a lot softer and seems to go where the drivers wanted it too.

[dren]

Brawn just stated on Autosport that the issues with the rear wing are aero related, the wing is right on the cutting edge and they have reattachment issues. He said this will be solved for Turkey. The team also stated there is a cooling solution for Turkey that should help. So I expect the same or similar form to show up in 3 weeks.

[3one]

Did any of you guys noticed how during the race that the W02 takes a tighter racing line than the other cars?

It could be the short wheelbase design and the oversteery nature of the car showing its benefits with the correct mechanical setup...

Also about the DRS problems manifesting mostly on Schumis car. Its because MS brakes way later going in the corner than Nico thus the problem is more pronounced....

[Hangaku]

Did any of you guys noticed how during the race that the W02 takes a tighter racing line than the other cars?

It could be the short wheelbase design and the oversteery nature of the car showing its benefits with the correct mechanical setup...

Also about the DRS problems manifesting mostly on Schumis car. Its because MS brakes way later going in the corner than Nico thus the problem is more pronounced....

If this is a genuine claim, then I don't buy it. Mercedes would already factor this in and work around it. It's much more likely, that Schumacher has lost his racing edge.

Yeah, I went there.

[aral]

Brawn just stated on Autosport that the issues with the rear wing are aero related, the wing is right on the cutting edge and they have reattachment issues. He said this will be solved for Turkey. The team also stated there is a cooling solution for Turkey that should help. So I expect the same or similar form to show up in 3 weeks.

So, is Brawn saying that there is a different wing on Rosberg's car, that does not have an attachment problem? Maybe he should fit that wing to Schumachers car instead.

[Med4224]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/90867

Brawn: "In Malaysia, we were still struggling with cooling, so that meant we compromised what we could do with the car and we spent a lot of time trying to improve that situation. Here, with the lower ambient, cooling is not the consideration, or not much, so we could just get on and sort the car out."

"We also had a weekend where the car has run pretty smoothly. We had a glitch with Michael's car in qualifying again. This wing is on the edge of re-attaching when the flap is activated, and on the crucial lap, as is always the case, it did not quite reattach properly at the time we did not need that to happen. So we have a new wing for Istanbul which should resolve that problem properly."

I can't see how someone managed to relate a glitch on Michael's wing to him losing his racing edge.

For all those who write Michael off, time will tell. See you on his 92nd Victory sooner or later...

[Ferraripilot]

Brawn just stated on Autosport that the issues with the rear wing are aero related, the wing is right on the cutting edge and they have reattachment issues. He said this will be solved for Turkey. The team also stated there is a cooling solution for Turkey that should help. So I expect the same or similar form to show up in 3 weeks.

So, is Brawn saying that there is a different wing on Rosberg's car, that does not have an attachment problem? Maybe he should fit that wing to Schumachers car instead.

I suspect it has to do with the way both drivers have their respective cars set up. Both will never be identical in that respect. I believe Nico stated something about the rear wing working much better since they started their new setup regimen in China

[Raptor22]

Schumacher is always driving the car at its ragged edge d that is perhaps not always the fastest way.
On a car with an inconsistent rear wing downforce due to the DRS, It means thats Schumacher needs the flow to attch faster and ore cinsistently than Nico does.
Nico appears to be more Button like and therefore would have less issues if he brakes for longer but not as violently.In Schumachers case he would be dealing with instability both mechanical and aerodynamic.
At 42 I doubt his reflexes are what they used to be when he was Nico's age.