Mercedes GP W02

[Byronrhys]

On.. not inside..

Please see RB5 and STR4.

[marcush.]

one has to take into account what Toro Rosso is doing .They clearly started from a base very similar to RedBull only 3 years and had a identical car (save the engine only one year before.
Yet they developped backwards since 2008 when they clearly had the measure of RedBull in similar equipment.
What caused them to lose the plot ..for them it must be the easy route to copy the RB technology as the foundation was laid by the man himself .
Yet they decided to divert in some areas,natably the sidepod architecture ..
and they don´t have the 2 nd quickest car out there by a long shot either ...even though I´m very sure they heard a lot about the flexy wings and they must have stumbled over a lot of those hidden secrets when dismantling their cars received fromn RedBull Technologies...strange .
So to me this is clearly indicating there is not much in straight copying if you want to survive in Formula 1

[ringo]

Copy is worth a lot.
You can't ignore the team behind the copied car.

Mclaren would do more with a redbull copy than Mercedes or Torro Rosso would.

Toyota 2009 is a good example. That car was a winning car but it never won a race.

The team needs to make the car work, be it setup, understanding it, development etc.

The W02 is a perfect example of a team not understanding their car. They're still trying to figure out what makes it consistent.
If you give Mclaren this car, or give Ferrari, they'll be on top of the issues in a couple weeks.

[Ferraripilot]

The W02 is a perfect example of a team not understanding their car. They're still trying to figure out what makes it consistent.
If you give Mclaren this car, or give Ferrari, they'll be on top of the issues in a couple weeks.

Mclaren, for sure. Ferrari? No, at least not until Luca has fired a few people and put the fear of Enzo's ghost into them.

W02 is what it is and no matter of engineering know-how that isn't already present at MB is going to make it any quicker. To update this car at an exhaustive rate is futile when resources are better spent with data acquisition for methodical updates to W02 and technical knowledge for W03.

[dren]

Copy is worth a lot.
You can't ignore the team behind the copied car.

Mclaren would do more with a redbull copy than Mercedes or Torro Rosso would.

Toyota 2009 is a good example. That car was a winning car but it never won a race.

The team needs to make the car work, be it setup, understanding it, development etc.

The W02 is a perfect example of a team not understanding their car. They're still trying to figure out what makes it consistent.
If you give Mclaren this car, or give Ferrari, they'll be on top of the issues in a couple weeks.

I don't know about that. It took Mclaren almost all season in 2009 to sort out that car. Ferrari just got their performance leap in this last race. The same race Mercedes got a good perforance leap as well.

As Ferraripilot stated, the W02 is what it is. The team, or any other team, isn't going to magically slap on parts or set-up the car different to suddenly jump up the ranks.

The first big performance improvements for the W02 were with simple set-up changes. Those happened during testing and just after. This leads me to believe they understood the car and improved it with simple changes. The team has been engineering fixes for reliability issues for most of the season. This stems from poor initial design and/or underestimating some things.

The overall design direction for the W02 looks to be not as good as some of the others out there. I don't think the W02 at the hands of any top team would perform that much better.

[marcush.]

I surely had the idea that Shovlin and Clear are top race engineers and surely Mark Slade and Tony Ross are up to the job ...so the trackside engineering..it´s hard to believe these seasoned guys all suddenly lost their experience knowledge
or even gut feeling..
But we heard it from the Boss himself he had to question their approach and they went back and rethought basic things like springrates etc and it helped the setup....very strange .
Also it seems this team is reluctant to go in different directions during Free practise sessions and startegies in general.Who is driving this conservatism?

[PlatinumZealot]

On.. not inside..

Please see RB5 and STR4.

From my memory, the STR4 had a weakened Ferrari engine, and of course, different diffusers, wings etc. The chassis was the same, but TR is not as good an engineering team like Merc.

[ringo]

Copy is worth a lot.
You can't ignore the team behind the copied car.

Mclaren would do more with a redbull copy than Mercedes or Torro Rosso would.

Toyota 2009 is a good example. That car was a winning car but it never won a race.

The team needs to make the car work, be it setup, understanding it, development etc.

The W02 is a perfect example of a team not understanding their car. They're still trying to figure out what makes it consistent.
If you give Mclaren this car, or give Ferrari, they'll be on top of the issues in a couple weeks.

I don't know about that. It took Mclaren almost all season in 2009 to sort out that car. Ferrari just got their performance leap in this last race. The same race Mercedes got a good perforance leap as well.

Mclaren needed a front wing. Ferrari was performing good from canada. If you consider what would have happned had Alonso and Massa had a straight race, they would both be on the podium. The ferrari is quicker than the Mclaren for a while now.

As Ferraripilot stated, the W02 is what it is. The team, or any other team, isn't going to magically slap on parts or set-up the car different to suddenly jump up the ranks.

It's crap, but it still could do a little better in the hands of a more knowledgable and fundamentally detailed team.

The first big performance improvements for the W02 were with simple set-up changes. Those happened during testing and just after. This leads me to believe they understood the car and improved it with simple changes.

I though the same thing, but it never really bloomed from there. They would have you think they would have been challenging the top 3 in china and in turkey, and they faded more than blade's (wesley snipes) hair.

The team has been engineering fixes for reliability issues for most of the season. This stems from poor initial design and/or underestimating some things.

Poor work planning and practices in the work place compared to the likes of mclaren.

The overall design direction for the W02 looks to be not as good as some of the others out there. I don't think the W02 at the hands of any top team would perform that much better.

I think it would. Just as a NASCAR which is basically the same for everyone has teams which are generally better than others.

[marcush.]

it really seems impossible for Brawn to isolate the weak links within the Mercedes team so how can we from that far away..
Looking at the likes of Ferrari ,Mclaren and Renault it seems entirely possible that certain team car weaknesses or strengths in addition to circumstances could explain a perfomance gap of 1.5seconds .
Ferrari and Mclaren have shown competitive speed enough to outright beat the RB7 on race speed already and they similarily have shown Mercedes stile performance gaps towards the sharp end of the grid.

[Coefficient]

I surely had the idea that Shovlin and Clear are top race engineers and surely Mark Slade and Tony Ross are up to the job ...so the trackside engineering..it´s hard to believe these seasoned guys all suddenly lost their experience knowledge
or even gut feeling..
But we heard it from the Boss himself he had to question their approach and they went back and rethought basic things like springrates etc and it helped the setup....very strange .
Also it seems this team is reluctant to go in different directions during Free practise sessions and startegies in general.Who is driving this conservatism?

Jock Clear has gone and Shovlin is senior race engineer now I believe.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Poor work planning and practices in the work place compared to the likes of mclaren.

You know this how?

4th fastest and they are poor? Thats more than harsh....

[Ferraripilot]

Any suggestion that W02 could perform better in other hands is purely conjecture and utter nonsense IMO. It's equivalent to saying it could sit on pole position only if young Michael or Senna were driving.

[ringo]

Poor work planning and practices in the work place compared to the likes of mclaren.

You know this how?

4th fastest and they are poor? Thats more than harsh....

theory of relativity.

I'd even go as far as to say renault is a better team. Just watch them out develope and beat mercedes this year.
Even the force indias are a threat to the W02 of Shumacher.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Really ringo?

What are you basing that on? I only ask because Renault appear to be going backwards in relation to the rest as their exhausts prove difficult to develop further. Also, mercedes were behind Renault for much of the year, and now are ahead and looking very good value for 4th.

So by your definition of poor, that means around 70 percent of the f1 grid has "poor" working practices. This is probably the most advanced sport in the world, so personally, I would say mercedes working practices are good... Just not as good as the very best. No shame in that

[dren]

I wouldn't say Renault is a better team. They have churned out parts in the past, especially last year, but what did that really net them? They had a new wing virtually every race.

I'm curious to see how much more performance the W02 gains from the new exhaust.