raymondu999 wrote:I think generally it's a very good car, rather than just generating a lot of DF. It's very good under braking and traction as well. It's not stellar on drag level, but I'm willing to bet they have the best (even if only by a small margin) L/D ratio
Im making a habit of disagreeing with you here Ray!
The car benefits from have a very good drag co efficient(Cd) as its top speed testifies. It lacks downforce as it visible slower in areas requiring DF and the sector times dont lie either, witness the final sector of Singapore...an astonishing 0.95 seconds in that sector alone in Q3 and the same amount during the practice sessions. That sector requires good downforce and also traction in and out of corners, the merc is good under braking, but cannot carry speed through the corner in the same way the F150th MP4-26 or RB7 can.
There is an intrinsic lack of downforce that is made up for the fact that they have pretty much optimised this car for straighline performance. Give this thing a straight and it flies, ably assisted by the Mercedes F0108Y.
My gripe is fairly obvious....tracks arent just straights, and while the W02 will win drag races, it gets punished at tracks like Hungary Monaco and Singapore. All I can say is, what was Loic Bigois thinking?
I keep repeating this, but I cant see how Mercedes can entrust such a sensitive postion to a guy that penned the brick wall W01, through to the very fluid W02(complete with DF flaws). Was he trying to overcompensate the W01 flaw?
