Mercedes AMG F1 W03 (pre-launch speculation)

[marcush.]

True marcush, 250 mm length of composite tub and some wiring is not much of a weight penalty really.

When nobody seems to directly oppose this position of mine, what other purpose or benefits than a low-inertia, "twitchy", car with a rear-biased weight-distribution could a short wheelbase W03 possibly have?

I remember Toyota TD Yamashima elaborating on the progress made with their campaign when they stretched their wheelbase year after year and seemed to find significant benefits with every step in terms of controllability and inspireing driver confidence.

Clearly going opposite direction will leave you with a handful of car ..? With a fixed weight distribution all you have is the aero centre of pressure to play with and I wonder how many drivers are able to excell with those two CofF not in coincidence..

[xpensive]

Either way marcush, there must have been a theory for going the short route for the W02, just to ditch it for W03, if so?

[ajprice]

Were the W01 and Brawn short cars, or was it just the W02?

[Holm86]

Were the W01 and Brawn short cars, or was it just the W02?

IIRC the W01 was also short wheelbase. Mercedes featured a longer wheelbased B version of the car around monaco??

[Hemsy]

People on Twitter are reporting that Pat Fry is very confident about the F2012. Fry apparently says that the car will be on the level of the best and if not will be able to react in 1-2 weeks thanks to the the new way of working in Maranello. Even if Mercedes improve significantly with the W03, they might still have their work cut out for them because the exhaust regulations plus others Ferrari, Mclaren pulling out all the stops to overhaul RBR means that the field might be even more competitive in 2012. I'm just hoping that Mercedes get their act together [-o<

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

@Hemsy
Fry is just rallying the troops.

No way can they overturn a 0.5 second deficit in 1-2 weeks just because of "the way they work".(unless he has the 12 disiciples in his charge!)

As for the exhausts, they ban actually favours Mercedes as they didnt have the best of systems and nor was hot blowing suited to the W02 SWB design according to Auto Motor und Sport.
So while they may have had something better for the W03 it doesnt affect Mercedes position relatively speaking, as of the top 4, Mercs EBD worked less effectively in 2011.

As Ferraripilot mentioned, in 2012 the game is closer and so other areas of development/refinement are going to yield dividend. Mercedes are operating under the radar, as opposed to the fanfare of the W01 and W02....lessons are being learnt.

[Hemsy]

@Hemsy
Fry is just rallying the troops.

No way can they overturn a 0.5 second deficit in 1-2 weeks just because of "the way they work".(unless he has the 12 disiciples in his charge!)

As for the exhausts, they ban actually favours Mercedes as they didnt have the best of systems and nor was hot blowing suited to the W02 SWB design according to Auto Motor und Sport.
So while they may have had something better for the W03 it doesnt affect Mercedes position relatively speaking, as of the top 4, Mercs EBD worked less effectively in 2011.

As Ferraripilot mentioned, in 2012 the game is closer and so other areas of development/refinement are going to yield dividend. Mercedes are operating under the radar, as opposed to the fanfare of the W01 and W02....lessons are being learnt.

I think you misunderstood my post. When Fry said that they will be able to react in 1-2 weeks, he meant that if they found an area of development seen on a rival car which they failed to explore, they would have a first iteration ready in just a few days for testing. While under normal circumstances, it is almost impossible to find 0.5s within a month let alone a few days, Mclaren showed that it can be done when they copied the RBR exhausts during winter testing. As regards to the EBD, I completely agree with your analysis.

[Gatecrasher]

Copying something you can see is easy, just throw money at it. Reverse engineering to get 100% out of a design change is a different story.

[Hemsy]

Copying something you can see is easy, just throw money at it. Reverse engineering to get 100% out of a design change is a different story.

Exactly! Which is why I said that they might have their first iteration ready in 1-2 weeks but not the final, fully developed spec. Also how come we don't have as much info about Merc as about Ferrari?

[marcush.]

Xactly.
You need good reason to go against the tide..the current trend of creating longboats is triggered by the desirte to get more control by stability =mechanical design when you deliberately ignore this trend you either think your drivers don´t need that feature OR you think you got something up your sleeve that will provide the stability you need.
You will always try to package as compact as possible in formula 1 ,less surface =less friction.the compact packaging will of course trigger some issues in terms of components getting too close to each other so you need them to be mounted much stiffer /look very deep in detail what those components are doing through the range of frequencies at any temp...and you may have trouble getting clean inner flows ....I´d think they realised they need to custom design even the radiator tubes to make all this workable.Now they have geared up manpowerwise and maybe they can harvest all the seed with W03 and even more with w04

[Ferraripilot]

With all this talk from other teams about their cars and their supposed 'new' methods of doing things I am reminded of the winter of '09 and early '10 when no one heard or thought anything of the upcoming RB6. Then of course RB6 came out and shellacked the field. So in other words, I'll believe whatever Ferrari is trying to say when I see it. MB seems to be rather quiet about W03 and Bell sure never showed his face pretty much all of 2011. Just saying.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

The problem with that Ferraripilot is that the RB5 was the fastest car at the end of 2009.
The DDD stumped it.

Mercedes W03 will not be a clean sheet design. It will carry over some wares of the W02.
The rear suspension on the W02 was quite interesting in detail, shooting down alot of the talk of "they dont know what theyre doing".
This will be carried over onto the W03 I believe, as it was almost the saving grace of the car along with Mercedes KERS and V8.

By extending the car, they can lower the mass. This was a fatal flaw in the W02.
Just by doing this Mercedes will gain time. Brawn didnt anticipate the EBD having such a massive influence in 2011 which is why Mercedes had the SLR style side exhausts that missed the boat.

The problem for Mercedes is they need aero points. This is their biggest shortfall and an area where Willis can have valuable input.
If the W03 arrives with some fancy detailed aero at the second test, we will know for sure where the time has been spent.

[Ferraripilot]

I can agree with your logic that a W02 with the fundamental flaws removed would be a successful car. Also the lack of EBD and its varying efficiences to worrow about narrows the gap a massive amount as well. RB was obviously seeing the most benefit from that arrangement as it was their technology and if W02 saw half the benefit RB had I would be surprised. With these changes I could see the 1-1.5 second gap being about eliminated. If you think about it (I'm sure everyone has a ton!) W02 sort of had the worst of the worst in terms of CoG. High fuel tank and high radiators just ruined things. Just fixing those issues alone is worth probably a very good chunk of time. Any idea if the front suspension was at all linked to what was going on in the rear?


And yes, RB5 was very quick at the end of the season but I certainly do not at all recall Newey or Horner publicly stating they were excited about RB6 or that it was ready to compete at the front etc. I followed that season pretty close. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[Mr.S]

@Hemsy
Fry is just rallying the troops.

No way can they overturn a 0.5 second deficit in 1-2 weeks just because of "the way they work".(unless he has the 12 disiciples in his charge!)

As for the exhausts, they ban actually favours Mercedes as they didnt have the best of systems and nor was hot blowing suited to the W02 SWB design according to Auto Motor und Sport.
So while they may have had something better for the W03 it doesnt affect Mercedes position relatively speaking, as of the top 4, Mercs EBD worked less effectively in 2011.

As Ferraripilot mentioned, in 2012 the game is closer and so other areas of development/refinement are going to yield dividend. Mercedes are operating under the radar, as opposed to the fanfare of the W01 and W02....lessons are being learnt.

They dont need to make up anything. Without EBD Ferrari was the quickest car in Silverstone. Mercedes even with a weak EBD has probably clawed up as much time or more than Ferrari. It's no secret that the guys at Renault & MBHE have developed engine mapping & EBD much better than Ferrai powered guys.

Ferrari have a short wheelbase too & neither have they maximized the hot or cold blowing like Mercedes or Renault engine guys have. Ferrari are throwing everythig at RBR & will most probably definitely challenge them.

[Mr.S]

I can agree with your logic that a W02 with the fundamental flaws removed would be a successful car. Also the lack of EBD and its varying efficiences to worrow about narrows the gap a massive amount as well. RB was obviously seeing the most benefit from that arrangement as it was their technology and if W02 saw half the benefit RB had I would be surprised. With these changes I could see the 1-1.5 second gap being about eliminated. If you think about it (I'm sure everyone has a ton!) W02 sort of had the worst of the worst in terms of CoG. High fuel tank and high radiators just ruined things. Just fixing those issues alone is worth probably a very good chunk of time. Any idea if the front suspension was at all linked to what was going on in the rear?


And yes, RB5 was very quick at the end of the season but I certainly do not at all recall Newey or Horner publicly stating they were excited about RB6 or that it was ready to compete at the front etc. I followed that season pretty close. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Snap out of it. Longer wheelbase has certain disadvantages too. Besides many guys have had a short wheelbase including Ferrari but nobody has made as much an issue of it as Mercedes.

Not running in Q3 & smart strategies have actually showed W02 better than it was. The whole cog is a bullshit exchuse. Everyone has to make a compromise between race trims & qualy runs. Ferrari too & they have a short wheelbase as well. Mercedes probably have to loose 1 or 2 tenth more of qualifying pace or race pace relative to the opposition.

That & MBHE are the best at EBF on par with Renault. The sheer chunk of time Mclaren & Force India got thanks to it is simply huge & you could see how big Mclaren suffered without it in Britain.

The entire car was a failure,look at W02's front wing & Mclaren's. The car was a dog & without Nico-MSC it would probably have been behind Renault & Force India.