Mercedes GP W02

[xpensive]

You do work for the government, don't you Brian?

[mep]

No surprise when they have all lights on during the nights and Fernando cruising a Marlboro branded Ferrari around there private track during the days.

It's annoying to read some bullshit like this.

Fully agree. However to add to the BS comment, if it was a Marlboro branded car, then it must be an old car, as there has been no branding for a number of years (ignoring the bar coding, said to "represent" Marlboro)!

It is hilarious to see the reactions of people who are unable to detect some obvious sarcasm.
But who knows some truth might be in every comment.

[xpensive]

Something we can learn from the other Mercedes thread, as well as typical Formula one and life in general actually,
is that there are always room for "interpretations" of the rules.

Based on other xperiences, I don't xpect Mercedes to be worst in class when it comes to follow the rules to the letter?

[marcush.]

room for interpretation is directly depending on the sanctioning body taking a relaxed laid back approoach or policing actively the letter of the rule or deciding to interpret the rules themselves and enforce this view .
As always in life not everyone is equal not on the side of those who have to obey to the rulkes nor those who are there to enforce them.

to me the normal proceedure would be a team is filing a protest if thewy think a car does not comply and the sanctioning body is only checking safety relevant issues and some random legality checks .But now we see a strange situation that teams approach FIA with new ideas ,and they either get the nod or refusal ...and this activity is not documented officially or is a official ways of doings things ..muddy waters ...

[yener]

Can somebody explain why the wo2 has such a high nose??

Ferrari, Redbull and especially RBR are using a way lower nose.

[Byronrhys]

Can somebody explain why the wo2 has such a high nose??

Ferrari, Redbull and especially RBR are using a way lower nose.

The Ferrari Nose is actually higher just with a little bit more bodywork around it, the W02 nose really isn't higher than everyone else's it might look that way because its thinner though, but the nose's of most cars this year are higher basically to feed more the splitter and floor.

[MIKEY_!]

Can anyone explain to me why this car apparently has such poor grip. Surely they could sacrifice some of the straight line speed for a bit more downforce?

[wunderkind]

Can anyone explain to me why this car apparently has such poor grip. Surely they could sacrifice some of the straight line speed for a bit more downforce?

Some publications and forum members have speculated the culprit to be the high centre of gravity of the car because of the short wheelbase. This meant fitting all the bits and pieces inside the relatively short wheelbase required many components to be taller. The prime examples are the tall fuel tank and the double-stacked radiators. This high CoG problem causes the car's grip levels to reduce and also generate a lot of heat in the rear tyres as the car slides around more. So both mechanical and thermal grip levels suffer as a result of the high CoG.

Downforce only works to a certain level. You hit a brickwall (a net loss) when the wings generate more drag than downforce.

[raymondu999]

They could probably also change their rear wing to a long McLaren-like chord length though. Probably would help their lap times a bit. It'll hurt their top line speed slightly, but they'd get more downforce

[MIKEY_!]

Just what i was thinking, and maybe a multi element front wing as well.

[dren]

Maybe the car isn't lacking in the downforce department?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Maybe the car isn't lacking in the downforce department?

The car suffers alot more where high downforce is required.

Looking at the W02 back to back to an RB7 or MP4-26 and it appears to have less aero apendatures on the wings than either of these cars. The rear wing is also in the same guise as it during testing.

Red Bull McLaren and Ferrari have all made extensive revisions to the rear wing seeing them gain lap time.

We wont see anything extensive on the W02 now. It will have minor upgrades from here on in, and probably very hard to make out.

[marcush.]

I don´t buy that high Cof G talk .just a small mindgame here:The wheelbase reduction is 270mm compared to Mclaren (which shares the KERS ).So assuming we got around 3500mm wheelbase this represents some 8percent in loss of plane area (for a given width ),yes but which components really would be affected by the shorter wheelbase?
Engine No
Gearbox ,not really.
Suspension ,Steering ?Not really.
ExhaustNo

So we got:
Radiators
Fuel tank height
some components not finding a space on reference plane or stepplane level due to
the reduced plane area.

The Radiators may weigh some 15kg each including water.Even if they weigh up to 20 kg ,that´s a 3% of the car`s total weight .
The radiators todays are positioned diagonally in the sidepods anyways and simplyfying things thinking of them as solids the CofG should be around half of the sidepod height..and frankly speaking I see no reason why this should be significantly different when putting two smaller ones into a sidepod of the same height in a diagonaql ways...So we are maybe raising the Cof G of 2 of the four radiators say 100mm higher than usual that´s 10 kgs positioned 100mm higher so the cof G of the car is raising maybe 1mm by this ,with empty tanks and a lot less when she´s filled up methinks. I don´t think someone can attribute to the radiators positioning anything worthwhile in terms of CofG ,considering that Mclaren for example have gone for a ultra low and long layout with their car compared to everyone and still Ferrari and RedBull are not struggling compared to them.

As for the tank :again CofG influence on near empty tanks is :0 so the tank related cof G positioning has absolutely no influence on car performance and so it does not explain anything towards their weak qualy performance.but the wider higher tank may rise their drag .
But why are they so quick on the straights then?

My fear is:Mercedes went along a different road with their cooling ,reducing airflow but increasing radiator area to compensate maybe even increasing water speed to get more volume through the rads to improve heat transfer.That would explain why their top speeds have not suffered but it would explain why their rads are 4 and maybe even heavier than anticipated?

But then their top speeds were good even when they cut an awful lot of holes in their bodywork ..and that is increasing drag ...

The Cof G position as the reason for their lack of speed :I call BS on this .It maybe a tenth or two and surely it hurts with tyre life but no ways this explains
their lack of speed around all tracks ,no matter if it´s a track where aero efficiency is not important or a site where Aero is king : they are far behind.
The car lacks overall ,Aero and mechanical.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

With the increase in minimum weight, maybe it was a gamble for some as of yet unknown benefit?

We know the car is slippery, and we know Mercedes actively sought to have a higher top end than others as the W01 struggled in this are in the first half of 2010.

It would be good to hear from the team regards the wheel base and who in particular was responsible for it and why they went forward with the idea.

[xpensive]

...
It would be good to hear from the team regards the wheel base and who in particular was responsible for it and why they went forward with the idea.

You're proficient in the German language JET, Suttgart dialect perhaps?