Mercedes GP W02

[Pierce89]

Ferrari with 2 element front wing since Monaco, two weeks back i thought it was one off, but they have it here as well!

Where are the people who said Merc wing is basic and unevolved

Canada is also a one off. Three elements will b back at normal tracks,besides this wing is three elements at th ends where you can see two slot gaps. The Merc wing is basic and unevolved as are Ferrari's front wings which people on this forum have said the past 2 seasons. Neither team has come up with the nice 3D wings of Renault, Macca, or Red Bull. Mercedes is 4th best team overall I'd say, which is a good job for Ross Brawn. Because, no matter what anyone says, this is still the Honda F1 team. I believe Ross has dragged out all the potential until this tam has until Merc gets seriously large amounts of new blood. The W02 is really an absolute disappointment.

[mike]

cars are designed to work at a certain horsepower im sure they know this before they started the project, things like maximum acceleration ability etc, hearing from the interviews they seems to have rear tire issues that could be the case that they have too much power at lower speeds that it cooks the tires and too much heat that they can not get rid off. and it also could be the case that they maybe running leaner than mclaren hence the cooling issues

bottom line, if you estimate something wrong it will cost you more than a whole season to fix and again...trouble with tires....like last season

I don't think having too much power is the problem, for the simple reason that all cars have too much power at lower speeds. If you floor any single one of these cars at lower speeds and the appropriate gear, the tires will spin like a tumble dryer.

I think what you and most other people mean when you say too much power, is too much torque. And this can be reduced by using a higher gear ratio (not sure if this will help much though, because these babies have so much power they spin the wheels even if you lengthen, say first, to unpractical levels such as up to third) or just not using so much throttle at that specific speed. I know this first hand and the Pretoria metro police traffic fines department can verify this.

yes what i meant was that if u hav power that is unused in low speed, ie not enough traction to put it down, u will hav to accelearate harder at higher speeds and since tire wear is a function of slip that may be a reason why they are cooking the tires, starting fuel loads are always unknown so no1 can be sure whos running lean or rich

[roadwarrior]

Do you think Merc should try get Pat Symonds on board? His 3 year ban in F1 will be over at the end of the season. I think they need some fresh minds in that design department.

I was disappointed to see no visible changes made to the car for Canada. It seems like they just are not bothering to find more downforce as they haven't brought any aero updates for ages. Even with their cooling issues being a priority I'd still expect them to be trying some new aero concepts. Hopefully they have found a good set up for the race and don't kill their tyres after 8 laps.

[Pierce89]

Do you think Merc should try get Pat Symonds on board? His 3 year ban in F1 will be over at the end of the season. I think they need some fresh minds in that design department.

I was disappointed to see no visible changes made to the car for Canada. It seems like they just are not bothering to find more downforce as they haven't brought any aero updates for ages. Even with their cooling issues being a priority I'd still expect them to be trying some new aero concepts. Hopefully they have found a good set up for the race and don't kill their tyres after 8 laps.

Pat Symonds would be perfect, though he's doing consultancy work for another F1 team at the moment(loophole in the ban)

[NewtonMeter]

I don't think having too much power is the problem, for the simple reason that all cars have too much power at lower speeds. If you floor any single one of these cars at lower speeds and the appropriate gear, the tires will spin like a tumble dryer.

I think what you and most other people mean when you say too much power, is too much torque. And this can be reduced by using a higher gear ratio (not sure if this will help much though, because these babies have so much power they spin the wheels even if you lengthen, say first, to unpractical levels such as up to third) or just not using so much throttle at that specific speed. I know this first hand and the Pretoria metro police traffic fines department can verify this.

yes what i meant was that if u hav power that is unused in low speed, ie not enough traction to put it down, u will hav to accelearate harder at higher speeds and since tire wear is a function of slip that may be a reason why they are cooking the tires, starting fuel loads are always unknown so no1 can be sure whos running lean or rich

Ok, perhaps I'm having one of my brainfarts, but I'm not following you. Do you mean that if you have lower traction at slower speeds relative to another car, you need to accelerate harder (again, relative to another car) to catch up? That makes sense.

But what does this have to do with tyre wear and the fuel mixture? I agree with you that tyre wear is a function of slip. But (assumption warning) all the cars will likely accelerate at the optimum slip (which is about 2-5%, IIRC), so it should be the same for everyone.

And where does mixture enter the equation of tyre wear? Cooling vs Power in conjunction with your theory of power vs wear?

I just want to be sure we're on the same page here...

[marcush.]

did anyone see the onboard footage of alonso closing in on Schumacher in Qualy? that looked very unimpressive on Mercedes side ...the car was unstable under braking corner entry oversteer midcorner oversteer and couldn´t put the power down due to corner exitr oversteer...

the potential for setup changes is not much from Qualy to race ...so lets hope the fuelload will counter the oversteer characteristics of the W02 or they deliberately sent him out with too much pressure and see how it goes..

I´m not convinced this car is any good in long runs in Canada.

[mike]

well its certainly a complex idea, i think i want to say they design with in mind having more grip and better duration, so they gave it more power but since u cant put power down as easily, they change the gears to accelerate more at higher speeds causing more tire wear, because even though they don have the most downforce there are teams having less downforce and down have there rear tyre wear issues

power related to the maximum acceleration torque is a function of gearbox, maybe we should just conclude..they need more rear downforce

[xpensive]

...
Ok, perhaps I'm having one of my brainfarts, but I'm not following you. Do you mean that if you have lower traction at slower speeds relative to another car, you need to accelerate harder (again, relative to another car) to catch up? That makes sense.
...

Perhaps a simplified analysis of Traction-force vs Speed could be of a little help?

Power is always Force times Speed; Newtons * m/s = W

If we can imagine Power being constant, available Traction-force will be much higher at lower speeds, where aerodynamic
grip also is far less, which means it requires good mechanical grip to be able to put as much power down as possible.

When speed increases, Traction-force will go down as aerodynamic grip increases, why mechanical grip is not so important.

[NewtonMeter]

well its certainly a complex idea, i think i want to say they design with in mind having more grip and better duration, so they gave it more power but since u cant put power down as easily, they change the gears to accelerate more at higher speeds causing more tire wear, because even though they don have the most downforce there are teams having less downforce and down have there rear tyre wear issues

power related to the maximum acceleration torque is a function of gearbox, maybe we should just conclude..they need more rear downforce

Agreed!

[marcush.]

Could it be they have compromised their mechanical setup to be able to carry more rake at higher speeds?(eg morte spring rate rear)...this would help their high speed downforce but surely compromise grip /traction at lower speeds..
There are rumours around they want to change their rear suspension (maybe they want to achieve more progression and have a softer initial spring rate -so all new rocker geometries -maybe new gearbox casing?)

The car just looks like having mechanical traction issues and instability under braking ....both indicators of poor suspension performance .
Add Downforce and you will need more spring -leads to even more trouble at lower speeds...

[shelly]

I watched quali yesterday and I have noticed a flexy behaivuor of schumacher's front wing. It was very evident when the car was seen form the front on the straight before the wall of champions: wing tips drooped laterally under load and then sprung back in the chicane. Does anyone have some frontal pictures of schumacher on the straight? the wing was bent so thta endpalted were no longer vertical

[marcush.]

I watched quali yesterday and I have noticed a flexy behaivuor of schumacher's front wing. It was very evident when the car was seen form the front on the straight before the wall of champions: wing tips drooped laterally under load and then sprung back in the chicane. Does anyone have some frontal pictures of schumacher on the straight? the wing was bent so thta endpalted were no longer vertical

I witnessed the same.

[NewtonMeter]

Ok so at least they got the flexi wing part right, that's at least a feather in their cap.

But damn guys, if you can get a system to work that half the grid doesn't understand. How hard can damn cooling and tyre management be!

Disclaimer: It's joke. I'm not that naive...

[marcush.]

but:
where is the half second gain on lap time coming with the flexi wing?

I don´t think you can just slab on components and hope for immense gains .It´s a constant chipping away on the issues you have methinks.

Mercedes needs to arrive fully prepared to the track -a very good basesetup is more important than all those upgrade packages .
As long as you do not perfectly understand what you got how can you improve by changing it all the time?Sounds very unprofessional to me ..if it don´t work change it or what?

Again they are in the same position as last year .The car does not really fit to the tyres .

[atanatizante]

...
There are rumours around they want to change their rear suspension (maybe they want to achieve more progression and have a softer initial spring rate -so all new rocker geometries -maybe new gearbox casing?)
...

They have higher rokers pick up points on the rear wheels http://www.formula1.com/news/technical/ ... 7/869.html
but I thought this update was since Spain ...

Another thing. How could be the car affected with the new rule of max. 10% exhaust gases?

And another one. Withmarsh told us that Macca was running with a rain setup in mind, but JB denied that telling us that nowadays they always run a hybrid/mix setup. How could it be done? And how about MB setup for this race: they gambled for a mix setup or a rain one?