Mercedes GP W02

[marcush.]

Or changing the materials or surface finish of the radiator grill. That also has an influence.

With the double decker arrangements, just playing with the isolation between the two ducts a bit could prove useful. Or repackaging the KERS system so it stops overheating and singing its wires. There's quite a bit of volume in that sidepod and there are many ways to modify the cooling flow without changing the outer shape: playing around with exhaust manifold layout, radiator shapes, insulation materials and KERS packaging are just a few of the possibilities. They could also duct the excess heat to a low slit à la Renault at the back of the sidepod instead of the gills on top of the exhaust. Then they could further tighten the packaging on the top of the sidepod and improve flow to the beam wing, which would be helped further with the higher rake.

the materials and surface finishing I left out intentionally as I guess they use the best they can imagine being available reliably.If you start with new shapes and coatings or even new production methods thats a serious development programme ,you need a budget and hire specialists or forge an alliance with a specialist -maybe Behr or even more so Modine ,who seem to be leading in core materials and shapes.

But maybe it´s an area where people are not prepared to look into all detail yet...If you do your sim with a porous model then you might take radiator tubes and fins for granted...lateral thinking does not stop with flexi wings.

[Spartan202]

One quick question:
If we increase the rake won't the car slide more and therefore ruin the rear tyres much quicker? In Redbull's case the [say] it helps the flexing and better front end downforce but I'm sure we have more than enough aero grip as we ended up discarding the latest wing just coz of too much of it was messing the car's balance.

[bot6]

For Red Bull, the rake increase works in conjunction with their exhaust layout. Without that exhaust isolating the sides of the diffuser from the surrounding air, raising the rear of the car would just make air gush in from the sides of the diffuser and floor into the central bit, nullifying any advantage in rear downforce created by the increase in volume.

So yes, without their exhaust system it would probably amount to less rear downforce, hence a more oversteery car.

This effect would be diminished by the fact that a short wheelbase means you need to raise the back by a lesser amount to lower the front wing. A clever diffuser sidewall design would also help, and the rear brake duct winglets could be used for similar purposes. But if they raise the rear of the car, they will have to find a way to keep it "sealed" on the sides.

I think having a reliable rear wing and KERS would already go a long way in improving the qualifying performance, and from what Brawn said it's their main focus along with improving cooling (which will also help with the KERS). They also need to understand the hard tyre better, which is a problem for them at the moment. But considering the new approach to setup and how well it worked in China, I think that with a bit more Free Practice time this will soon become a non-issue.

The whole rake thing is quite complex, and I suspect they already have increased the rake by a small amount. It really all depends on what the new cooling solution will be, and what influence it will have on the exhaust layout. They could for example keep the double decker radiators, use a Renault style FEE and move KERS to where the exhausts used to be at the back of the sidepods, where it might be easier to cool. With such a setup, increasing rake would just reduce the efficiency of the diffuser.

Or maybe they will increase rake and go for the cannon exhausts.

Or they will stick to the middle exhausts.

One thing is for sure, Mercedes sure knows how to keep speculation running this year...

[Ferraripilot]

One quick question:
If we increase the rake won't the car slide more and therefore ruin the rear tyres much quicker? In Redbull's case the [say] it helps the flexing and better front end downforce but I'm sure we have more than enough aero grip as we ended up discarding the latest wing just coz of too much of it was messing the car's balance.

That's essentially where my line of thinking is on the issue as well. To really rake the thing like Red Bull I would think they need more rear end downforce which would probably requires a rear wing modification or a new unit to optimize its attack angle at the rake they intend on running. Then again more forward rake could not only make the front wing more effective, but also make the rear wing more effective.

I'm no aero expert so I'm shooting from the hip as a layperson. Although I would greatly enjoy hearing from someone who can comment more adequately regarding this question.

[Ferraripilot]

They also need to understand the hard tyre better, which is a problem for them at the moment. But considering the new approach to setup and how well it worked in China, I think that with a bit more Free Practice time this will soon become a non-issue....

Wasn't Schumacher making fantastic time on the hard tire during the last stint in China? He made up something like a 9 second gap in 10 laps and ended the race .400 behind Alonso and was well quicker than Nico and most everyone on the field for that matter.

[bot6]

Yes, but Nico's hards dropped off faster than the team expected. They had better pace on the hards than the Ferraris overall, but the best car on those tyres still seems to be the McLaren.

I'm not saying they don't know how to be quick on that tyre, but they did expect them to last longer than they did so they still have some question marks there.

[Spartan202]

tx for the info re rake. The short wheel base seems to work nice on our car. Was quite nice to see how tight Michael was attacking the corners while defending against Alonso. I have another question if you fellas don't mind. If I recall correctly at the start of the season or actually a bit before during the practice sessions I recall Ross stating that with the cooling issues they couldn't run the car with it's full potential / power. Last Sunday we saw new Shark Gills on the sides and all of a sudden our car was wayyy better. Could it be that since we had better cooling power was finally opened up? That would explain the sudden fuel issues on Rosberg's car. I don't want to sound too polemic but I recall a few top brass from the Mercedes group were present for the race and I sincerely hope this was not a one off performance.

[3one]

tx for the info re rake. The short wheel base seems to work nice on our car. Was quite nice to see how tight Michael was attacking the corners while defending against Alonso. I have another question if you fellas don't mind. If I recall correctly at the start of the season or actually a bit before during the practice sessions I recall Ross stating that with the cooling issues they couldn't run the car with it's full potential / power. Last Sunday we saw new Shark Gills on the sides and all of a sudden our car was wayyy better. Could it be that since we had better cooling power was finally opened up? That would explain the sudden fuel issues on Rosberg's car. I don't want to sound too polemic but I recall a few top brass from the Mercedes group were present for the race and I sincerely hope this was not a one off performance.

Yup actually with overheating issues they had to lower the power of the engine in efforts to cool it down... With cooler china weather they were able to open up the engine's power, now lets see what they can do with the new bodywork that'll fix the cooling issues... You've noticed it too how tight schumis race line getting out of the corners... Really an advantage of short wheelbase...

[marcush.]

think again about using rake for lowering the front wing...you get not much lowering for each 10mm you lift the rear don´t you? even though you can roughly lower the front by 1mm for each 10 you lift the rear...it still will not be much you hold in hand..considering your CofG rockets with that approach..
The reason for applying the rake has maybe something to more with creating downforce more with the floor thaan with the difusser itself by angling up the car.... if you design the whole car with this in mind the drag penalty might be surprisingly low ...you could taper the floor to the rear of the car -letting it get thinner and adjust everything and end up with no aero drawbacks.
The question is how to contain the drawback of a higher 30mm rear CofG in this..maybe they found in 2010 (when they raised the box 25mm to accomodate the ddd that this was not as big a drawback as it seemed ?

[bot6]

That would be true if they used the front wing axle as a pivot. But you could also redesign the tea tray so that you can pivot the car around a point closer to the middle of the car, which is probably one of the things Red Bull did.

Raising the rear will always have one major aero drawback: more air coming in from the sides of the floor and diffuser instead of having to travel the whole length of the floor. Hence, less downforce coming from the floor / diffuser combo. Red Bull went around that with their exhaust design, but I'm sure it's still an issue for them to some extent.

[marekk]

That would be true if they used the front wing axle as a pivot. But you could also redesign the tea tray so that you can pivot the car around a point closer to the middle of the car, which is probably one of the things Red Bull did.

Raising the rear will always have one major aero drawback: more air coming in from the sides of the floor and diffuser instead of having to travel the whole length of the floor. Hence, less downforce coming from the floor / diffuser combo. Red Bull went around that with their exhaust design, but I'm sure it's still an issue for them to some extent.

That's true for sure, but we have to look at bigger picture.

The real downforce generating combo at lower rear of the car is sidepods, engine cover, floor, diffuser with gurney (Zaparka) flap and beam wing.
Getting gurney flap to work 100% could increase diffuser efficency by as much as 20%, without significant drag penalty.
Increasing floor's rake in a car with very open rear (aka RB7) should help with gurney blowing (thinner boundary layer at the end of the floor, more energetic flow due to lack of obstacles), which in turns should improve diff efficiency. As always one have to balance gains and loses, but IMO the key is clean rear end.
Of course sealing floor sides with exhaust is more important for more raked cars - those running close to the ground draw very little air from the sides anyway.

W02 is relatively short and not best of bread regarding rear packaging, so it will be tough task to modify car's rake.

[atanatizante]

Another solution to increase the cooling is to accelerate the air flow in the radiator area. Therefore could they place a CF bodywork cone shape in front of the sidepode air intake, like SR-71B has ... Or maybe put a pasive/active fan in front of it ...

How far back could they place the tea tray no to be considered a DDD?

Why can`t they build a tear drop shape radiator? It`s more aerodynamic and also has the biggest volume (regarding imposed shape) for heat transfer ...

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Im not so sure a clean rear end is the be all or end all. Look at Williams, they have a stupidly tight rear end, applauded by many.
Where has it got them?

Mclaren dont have a "tight" rear yet they can push Red Bull.

Mercedes neednt have a worry about the rear end of the W02 as its good enough to be competitive. The rake adjustments will hit Mercedes less if they choose to follow it due to their shorter car, and along with resculpted rear wing is a reason why I think Brackley may look at introducing something sooner on this than other teams.

[marekk]

Im not so sure a clean rear end is the be all or end all. Look at Williams, they have a stupidly tight rear end, applauded by many.
Where has it got them?

Mclaren dont have a "tight" rear yet they can push Red Bull.

Mercedes neednt have a worry about the rear end of the W02 as its good enough to be competitive. The rake adjustments will hit Mercedes less if they choose to follow it due to their shorter car, and along with resculpted rear wing is a reason why I think Brackley may look at introducing something sooner on this than other teams.

Williams is nowhere near RBR with their sidepod/engine cover shape.
Even more so Renault, but R31 blows cooling air over diffuser, so they rely less on over/around the sidepods flow.
McLaren got channels with lot of additional flow over the sidepods.

Dual radiator design of W02 allows extremely short sidepods (visible floor area on the rear is one of the biggest despite short car IMO), so it has potential if they manage to get rid of inherent cooling and flow detaching problems.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

The flow detachment issues Brawn said he expects to be resolved by turkey with the new rear wing. The cooling issues are also expected to be addressed for a more long term solution as the season is now heading into european summer time with hotter temps to be expected at some races.

Its speculation from here on in, as to how well these proposed updates will work.

However, something big happened inside the team during China. There was an almighty swing from their first 2 races, something I havent seen heading from one race to another within 5 days. 1 full second was made up.
Their whole race weekend strategy was changed, and the benefits were there for all to see.

Someone, somewhere told the team to forget about the fancy stuff and crack on with things they can change.