Mercedes GP W02

[marcush.]

the wheelbase and cofg explanation is as valid as it was last year when they elongated the car and it did nothing to the cars speed -Schumacher commenting :it somewhat enlargens the setupwindow for me but it does not really do much in terms of improving the potential of the car...last year it was also the tyres ...omg..they promised not to talk about tyres anymore after moaning so much ..and the cars weight distribution ... not even featuring this year .....so basically They had no clue last year WHY they were slow ...testimony of this years car retaining all the bad and gaining nothing anywhere ah no .Last year the car seemed to destroy the tyres at both ends of the car this year they seem to at least have a handle on the fronts..
Seriously they lag behind 1% compared to those who win on sundays.If they happened to do anything else in their life they´d be heros ..but this is Formula 1 and so they need to find that 1 percent as quickly as possible and improve reliability as well.They had a fair bit of issues this year already...costing Schumacher 2 points scoring finishes...not to speak of the first race ..wich should have been the second! they were not ready simple as that.
Vanilla car ..we had enough of this.Bell will sort that out .I expect them to half the gap soon.

[mep]

Eh yes lets bring up this CoG topic of last year one more time considering this photo.


So what do you think about it?
How much mass can they probably add to this area?
How much can you move CoG (longitudinal) with this?

Well I would design the car in a way so that you are able to move your COG +- some amount about your theoretical ideal position.
If they need the mass more at the front they can also put it in the nose or would this bring to much disadvantages in terms of increased rotational inertia?

Also how do you suspend this cantilevered floor to the rest of the body?
Lets say it is just rigidly attached on the back so you can easily create something like a mass damper with it because it will start to oscillate.
Well then I come up with the question if this is a good place to have a oscillating mass because it is in the middle of the car. You can't just tune the front with it because it will also affect the rear.
So how about putting the mass somewhere in the front of the car. Maybe the nose or lets go crazy and put it in the front wing tips. I know this had been said before and I said never can you put it in the wing tips because you will create some oscillating system but now I come up with something else. You will create a oscillating system but you will also dampen it somehow. The trick is you just dampen the upwards movement of the wing so the wing will pump itself down to the road. What you get is a wing which bends down and even better you can adjust its characteristics with the damping rate.
So far a couple ideas I got in a few creative seconds.

[dren]

The weight distribution (front to rear) is what the team changed last year. This year the car has a high CofG (top to bottom), meaning they have too much weight high up on the car. The fuel tank design makes this worse when the car is fueled heavily. The Ferrari of years past had a mass damper built into the tea tray as you talk about mep. It was outlawed. Any similar mass damper system in the front wing would be outlawed as well. For it to work properly you would want a mass, spring and damper all tuned to work together.

The team has found some good time in the W02 this year, but the top teams have found time in their cars as well. The W02 has closed the gap slightly, but there hasn't been much of a leap relative to the competition. The team solved the rear tire issues and introduced updates that worked out of the box! Now the W02 isn't a great machine, but the team has done a much better job this year as the season has unfolded than they did the last two years.

[Lycoming]

They've had decent qualifying pace more than once. Rosberg was third on the grid in Turkey. But they just can't seem to get the race pace. They've finished below where they've started in most of their races this season. That said, the car has major deficiencies that need to be worked out if they hope to be fighting for podiums next year, and msc seems ta have figured out how to keep his front wing on once again. perhaps there is still hope for them.

[Ferraripilot]

They've had decent qualifying pace more than once. Rosberg was third on the grid in Turkey. But they just can't seem to get the race pace. They've finished below where they've started in most of their races this season. That said, the car has major deficiencies that need to be worked out if they hope to be fighting for podiums next year, and msc seems ta have figured out how to keep his front wing on once again. perhaps there is still hope for them.

Some good points there, but remember Brawn stated very recently that the obvious issues with the car have caused them to go for one setup or another ie, good qualy setup yet loss of race pace, or good race setup but loss of qualy performance. I'm guessing this issue stems from the high CoG fuel tank more than anything. The double radiators and SWB don't help either.

[marcush.]

Brawn admitted last year that they not only had cofg position trouble but could for several reasons not move the ballast as intended because they had not much to play with .The car was heavy at the front or carried too much weight high up towards the front .Additionally MS weighs 7kg more than Rosberg so scratch seven kilos of ballast to play with from his equation...

Stillyou can say the whole story was a dead horse as the weight distribution thing was brought forward as a reason for not being able to perform they cahnged wheelbase and it did not do anything to their competitiveness.

They basically lack ability to pinpoint clearly the weakness that´s stopping them from going forward.
They intrduced that blade type airbox .but apart from looking different it did enough to their performance to drop it for this year and develop the BGP001 box ..
They had a semidrooping nose after ditching the low slung one and now they carry the highest of all ...loooking for direction ? it did not change their performance.
They adopted pullrod at the rear .They still are no kings of traction.
The story could dwell on endless ..but other teams are banging out subtle updates that close the gap .Ferrari and Mclaren have shown what is possible with a thorrow analysis and a concerted rethink and a few weeks of allnighters .This is what I fail to see from Mercedes so far .Apart from the KERS dramas wich they solved after race 1 drama they are slow to get a handle on the issues and lack direction in terms what to do to close the gap.
In other words: If I think the car is not performing cós it´s too short ,i have to make it longer and prove my point.If it´s not on to do it I have to look elsewhere to close the gap .Introducing an exhaust and then telling the world it´s too late to make it work cos the others ar edeveloping it for 6 month is really cheesy .AQs soon as you see what they are doing you go in the tunnel look at it and quantify it against your idea .In fact the RB solution was the first that cam to my mind so I´m sure everyone and his dog in F1 had this solution on their radar from the word go it´s not like a mega idea ...but brawn makes us believe it´s a surprise it works as good as it does.

[RacingManiac]

Basically, they still suffer the same issue from the Honda days.....07 was dog, they don't know why. 08 was a dog again, they gave that one up and pinned the hope on 09, and ends up being the BGP001 that land them the jackpot of a DDD, that carried them to the WDC+WCC. Once every one catches up they are back to where they were, except now they have a gem of a motor vs the old Honda....

[Ferraripilot]

Basically, they still suffer the same issue from the Honda days.....07 was dog, they don't know why. 08 was a dog again, they gave that one up and pinned the hope on 09, and ends up being the BGP001 that land them the jackpot of a DDD, that carried them to the WDC+WCC. Once every one catches up they are back to where they were, except now they have a gem of a motor vs the old Honda....

Give them a little time. They don't non-championship winning people running the team now. Just a matter of time before the pieces fall into place.

[ForMuLaOne]

What is the lever for Michael is using with his left hand? You can see it in the video posted before....is it not for brake balance i think.

[dren]

yeah i'm pretty sure that is the brake bias adjustment

[dren]

Though I think you're being a little harsh Marcush about the W02 improvements this year. Yes, it's not a contender, but the team has kept the gap to the top teams while the top teams keep improving, even closed it a hair. So the team has shown, finally, the ability to update and improve as the season progresses. This is a huge positive. The team hasn't been able to do so in several years, even with the championship Brawn car. They didn't start to sort the W01 out last year until they quit with updates and learned more through set-ups. This is a huge positive for the team. If they can first put out a half way decent car at the start of the season, they should be looking pretty good.

[marcush.]

To me this HAS UNDERLAYING THE ASSUMPTION Clear,shovlin ,Slade and Ross (in 2011)had to learn about setting up a car .
I think the basic issue is starting when you come to the track with a set of parts and a set of data and it just does not match up with reality.
With limited running and very limited tyre availability you will always struggle to get a good read on your new components when the base data is wrong..
So imagine the rear ride height a tad too high on the fly or you realise after Q2 the cars rear downforce was low compared to what you expected from the tunnel.As you work on trying to find a solution to raise rear dynamic rideheight the chief mechanic comes back to you reporting the new bits have cooked up the floor enough to warp the floor facing the ground a fair bit.
So you throw your callcs into the bin ,ask the driver how it felt initially and if he felt the car degrading from the inital feeling .but all to no avail as the mechanics find more evidence of heat issues and have to perform make do repairs and switch back to an interims solution never tested and with no data from the tunnel available..
So absolutely no wonder that it is impossible to maximise the cars potential .you will simply give up what you found at home for failing to find the sweet spot of the configuration and risk an imbalance in the car the drivers have to drive through ..ruining the tyres doing this.
You got a weak front ...and have to make the rear bad as well to get a balance.But will the front and rears degrade at the same rate? unlikely...you end up with a slow unconsistant car.
The weakness of Mercedes clearly was their inability to produce updates that were raceworthy from the word go and brought significant gains.Very often they had to compromise and turn back the clock to survive the race.
so :the guys in the factorys not realising what´s fact on the track and not designing realistic bits ..and nobody stopping them taking risks that were not manageable:that´s clearly a lack of guidance and lead from a technical director -who signs off all parts to be manufactured -and which form a upgrade package and it´s timeline for introduction.weakness is from the top ,the people on lower positions are not guilty for their lack of experience or producing marginal parts when the leaders lack basic understanding or at least gut feeling enough to stop the guys getting carried away or detracted from the facts.

[GTSpeedster]

Can someone tell me for what is that?

[marcush.]

Schumacher has a history of adding more vents to his cockpit than his teammates.
so it´s a safe bet it is for cockpit ventilation and air cooling of some delicate human parts.

There is a threat about this as well in this very forum.

[wunderkind]

To me this HAS UNDERLAYING THE ASSUMPTION Clear,shovlin ,Slade and Ross (in 2011)had to learn about setting up a car .
I think the basic issue is starting when you come to the track with a set of parts and a set of data and it just does not match up with reality.
With limited running and very limited tyre availability you will always struggle to get a good read on your new components when the base data is wrong..
So imagine the rear ride height a tad too high on the fly or you realise after Q2 the cars rear downforce was low compared to what you expected from the tunnel.As you work on trying to find a solution to raise rear dynamic rideheight the chief mechanic comes back to you reporting the new bits have cooked up the floor enough to warp the floor facing the ground a fair bit.
So you throw your callcs into the bin ,ask the driver how it felt initially and if he felt the car degrading from the inital feeling .but all to no avail as the mechanics find more evidence of heat issues and have to perform make do repairs and switch back to an interims solution never tested and with no data from the tunnel available..
So absolutely no wonder that it is impossible to maximise the cars potential .you will simply give up what you found at home for failing to find the sweet spot of the configuration and risk an imbalance in the car the drivers have to drive through ..ruining the tyres doing this.
You got a weak front ...and have to make the rear bad as well to get a balance.But will the front and rears degrade at the same rate? unlikely...you end up with a slow unconsistant car.
The weakness of Mercedes clearly was their inability to produce updates that were raceworthy from the word go and brought significant gains.Very often they had to compromise and turn back the clock to survive the race.
so :the guys in the factorys not realising what´s fact on the track and not designing realistic bits ..and nobody stopping them taking risks that were not manageable:that´s clearly a lack of guidance and lead from a technical director -who signs off all parts to be manufactured -and which form a upgrade package and it´s timeline for introduction.weakness is from the top ,the people on lower positions are not guilty for their lack of experience or producing marginal parts when the leaders lack basic understanding or at least gut feeling enough to stop the guys getting carried away or detracted from the facts.

I think you got it spot on. I think they struggled to understand the car from the outset and tried very hard to gather data in race weekends in the hope of establishing a base of the car's performance. Only then, could they begin to address the weaknesses of the car and develop it further.

I think they need to bring back a sensible level of in-season testing to help the smaller and less well equipped and less well funded teams develop their cars. They are already at a huge disadvantage without a simulator, top tier windtunnel, and the systems in place to just to be competitive in the mid-field of the grid. Hopefully the FIA and the FOTA will come to some agreement on this.