Mercedes AMG F1 W03 (pre-launch speculation)

[Mr.S]

If they stay 4th fastest another 2 years Mercedes will either sell the team or throw away Brawn,Costa,Bell & come with baskets of cash to get Newey.


Frankly they must get 1 Win & atleast 6-7 Podiums. Atleast what Ferrari did this year. Anything less than that is gigantic failure. They are not even debuting their car in the 1st test. If they still cant come in the TOP 3,they never will. Mercedes board wont pay for continous failures. Someone will get the axe soon.


Frankly without EBD Mercedes pace without proper upgrades was not too far behind Mclaren's. Willis has been working for 3 months now. It's time to take a step forward. I see no reason why Bell,Willis,Bigois cant create a good enough car,fogetting Costa's late involvement.

If all these does not bring a step up with the manpower then what is the use of it. W01 genuinely on pace was the 2nd quickest car in Malayasia,Turkey & few other races. Mercedes have just been going down. Even Renault got 2 Podiums last year.

[Hemsy]

If they stay 4th fastest another 2 years Mercedes will either sell the team or throw away Brawn,Costa,Bell & come with baskets of cash to get Newey.


Frankly they must get 1 Win & atleast 6-7 Podiums. Atleast what Ferrari did this year. Anything less than that is gigantic failure. They are not even debuting their car in the 1st test. If they still cant come in the TOP 3,they never will. Mercedes board wont pay for continous failures. Someone will get the axe soon.


Frankly without EBD Mercedes pace without proper upgrades was not too far behind Mclaren's. Willis has been working for 3 months now. It's time to take a step forward. I see no reason why Bell,Willis,Bigois cant create a good enough car,fogetting Costa's late involvement.

If all these does not bring a step up with the manpower then what is the use of it. W01 genuinely on pace was the 2nd quickest car in Malayasia,Turkey & few other races. Mercedes have just been going down. Even Renault got 2 Podiums last year.

Don't jump the ship Mercedes don't have a quick car out of the box. I'd rather they have a fundamentally sound car that can be improved over the course of the season like the 2010 Ferrari. I don't expect them to have a blindingly fast car for the first few races because their simulator just became fully operational plus Bell, Willis and Costa just joined a few months ago. All of these factors will only have a bearing on the car in the second half of the season. Even if the start out as the 4th fastest team (again), as long as they are fighting for podiums come the end of the season, I will consider it as success.

[Ferraripilot]

I'm certain that the W03 will surprise the world with an ultra-compact rear push-rod suspension, perhaps a wager JET?

Who knows.

All I can say is that the time and money spent on that rear suspension which appeared to actually work will not be thrown away for 2012.
Still not expecting anything more than 4th fastest car with the W03.

Didn't they say months ago that W03 suspension was pretty much done anyway??


I suspect things with MB will one day just 'work' the exact same way things just one day snapped into place for RB transitioning from RB4 to RB5. It just 'worked' and all of the sudden they understood things pretty much going from the middle and back of the field to the front.

[marcush.]

3rd or fourth ,there are no guarantees for the top three of the past two years they hit the nail square this time as well..
The question is how close W03 can releastically be to the pole and within reach of a win on merit not circumstances.
My guess is they need to find the missing pieces for a contemporary toprunner as they clearly lacked outright speed at all times.
At some tracks their very different concept was not enough to beat either Mclaren or RedBull who had competitive machinery on every track ,so to me some key incredient was just not there.
some teams made repectable steps forward understanding the tyres better namely TR and FI as well as Mclaren but if I´m cortrect the same did not really happen with Mercedes.So either the base car was bad but they understood it quite well early on or they never really had that aha effect as others did ...you choose.

[dren]

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?

Wasn't it to work with the diffuser and to have less surface area?

[dren]

The suspension design typically takes a back seat to aero demands. The designers will make compromises to fit the suspension based on aero needs. To keep the flow to the beam wing and the rear tight, a pull rod may be retained. It also helps to keep the suspension components down low.

The hydraulically linked suspension worked, but I am not sure if the extra weight made up for the added benefits. If it returns, we will know.

The nose is not significantly lower compared to this year. I do not see any benefit to run a pullrod front suspension (which would require a low nose) due to the aero benefit of a high nose. I also expect the front wing to return unless the W03 has a really funky sidepod layout like the MP4-26.

The W02 rear wing worked well after issues early in the season. I expect no changes to it.

Overall, I expect a stretched looking W02 with tighter sidepods and periscope exhausts.

[dren]

3rd or fourth ,there are no guarantees for the top three of the past two years they hit the nail square this time as well..
The question is how close W03 can releastically be to the pole and within reach of a win on merit not circumstances.
My guess is they need to find the missing pieces for a contemporary toprunner as they clearly lacked outright speed at all times.
At some tracks their very different concept was not enough to beat either Mclaren or RedBull who had competitive machinery on every track ,so to me some key incredient was just not there.
some teams made repectable steps forward understanding the tyres better namely TR and FI as well as Mclaren but if I´m cortrect the same did not really happen with Mercedes.So either the base car was bad but they understood it quite well early on or they never really had that aha effect as others did ...you choose.

I thought TR's boost was mainly engine related?

If, and it's a big if, the W02 showed up with the rear exhaust and no reliability issues, I think the team would have podiumed several times and maybe won a race, just like the team was expecting.

[elf341]

I don't see Mercedes falling below fourth, not with the resources they are putting into 2012 and their driver line up, which is top notch.

My opinion is that Mercedes may be fighting with Ferrari next year. I actually think the 150 Italia was a much worse car than its results suggest, and that Alonso flattered the car with his huge talent - similar to the way that he managed to drag the R29 into places that it had no business being.



E.g. in the above graph which shows smoothed finishing positions of the mercedes vs the ferrari drives, it's quite clear that Massa isn't able to get much more out of his car than ROS/MSC got out of the W02.

[Ferraripilot]

The suspension design typically takes a back seat to aero demands. The designers will make compromises to fit the suspension based on aero needs. To keep the flow to the beam wing and the rear tight, a pull rod may be retained. It also helps to keep the suspension components down low.

The hydraulically linked suspension worked, but I am not sure if the extra weight made up for the added benefits. If it returns, we will know.

The nose is not significantly lower compared to this year. I do not see any benefit to run a pullrod front suspension (which would require a low nose) due to the aero benefit of a high nose. I also expect the front wing to return unless the W03 has a really funky sidepod layout like the MP4-26.

The W02 rear wing worked well after issues early in the season. I expect no changes to it.

Overall, I expect a stretched looking W02 with tighter sidepods and periscope exhausts.

I can definitely agree with this. I see Red Bull in a bit of a situation as their magic bullet EBD for which RB7 was pretty much entirely designed around is gone. I believe they are making efforts to regain that back end downforce but I just don't believe it will be there. That being the case, I could see a .300-.500 second immediate difference in Red Bull's future pace which tells me that W03 does not need to come up with a full 1-1.5 seconds but rather a .500-1.000 difference. Mclaren and Ferrari both know this as well because neither of them saw near the EBD benefit RB7 had. MB W02 was definitely at the bottom of the top 4 list in terms of EBD exhaust efficiency though. I remain optimistic for MB yet not so much for Ferrari as their management is one of living in fear if they don't 'win' as Luca put it. F1 takes time in the soil to grow, not ultimatums which is why I believe MB will leapfrog Ferrari.

[hardingfv32]

[Mclaren and Ferrari both know this as well because neither of them saw near the EBD benefit RB7 had. MB W02 was definitely at the bottom of the top 4 list in terms of EBD exhaust efficiency though. I remain optimistic for MB yet not so much for Ferrari as their management is one of living in fear if they don't 'win' as Luca put it. F1 takes time in the soil to grow, not ultimatums which is why I believe MB will leapfrog Ferrari.

In general everyone, when compared to RB, did a poor job recognizing and or developing the EBD last year. This is a team management issue. At this point there is no reason to not expect RB to be the leaders in what ever is the next hot trend.

Brian

[Mr.S]

The suspension design typically takes a back seat to aero demands. The designers will make compromises to fit the suspension based on aero needs. To keep the flow to the beam wing and the rear tight, a pull rod may be retained. It also helps to keep the suspension components down low.

The hydraulically linked suspension worked, but I am not sure if the extra weight made up for the added benefits. If it returns, we will know.

The nose is not significantly lower compared to this year. I do not see any benefit to run a pullrod front suspension (which would require a low nose) due to the aero benefit of a high nose. I also expect the front wing to return unless the W03 has a really funky sidepod layout like the MP4-26.

The W02 rear wing worked well after issues early in the season. I expect no changes to it.

Overall, I expect a stretched looking W02 with tighter sidepods and periscope exhausts.

I have nothing to add. But the nose is significantly lower. Mercedes have a very high nose this year & if I am not wrong the nose is supposed end at the height of the cente or thereabout. Or was it something else. I could be wrong.

[Mr.S]

If they stay 4th fastest another 2 years Mercedes will either sell the team or throw away Brawn,Costa,Bell & come with baskets of cash to get Newey.


Frankly they must get 1 Win & atleast 6-7 Podiums. Atleast what Ferrari did this year. Anything less than that is gigantic failure. They are not even debuting their car in the 1st test. If they still cant come in the TOP 3,they never will. Mercedes board wont pay for continous failures. Someone will get the axe soon.


Frankly without EBD Mercedes pace without proper upgrades was not too far behind Mclaren's. Willis has been working for 3 months now. It's time to take a step forward. I see no reason why Bell,Willis,Bigois cant create a good enough car,fogetting Costa's late involvement.

If all these does not bring a step up with the manpower then what is the use of it. W01 genuinely on pace was the 2nd quickest car in Malayasia,Turkey & few other races. Mercedes have just been going down. Even Renault got 2 Podiums last year.

Don't jump the ship Mercedes don't have a quick car out of the box. I'd rather they have a fundamentally sound car that can be improved over the course of the season like the 2010 Ferrari. I don't expect them to have a blindingly fast car for the first few races because their simulator just became fully operational plus Bell, Willis and Costa just joined a few months ago. All of these factors will only have a bearing on the car in the second half of the season. Even if the start out as the 4th fastest team (again), as long as they are fighting for podiums come the end of the season, I will consider it as success.

Simulation is pretty meaningless with the idea of a fundamentally working car with a good wind tunnel. Do you know that Mercedes have 2 Wind Tunnels,one which they lease to HRT for hours. Do you actually believe they dont have simulators & are thus building. They already have one & have been using. They new one is State of the Art. The New one has nothing to do with the car now. How are the basic concepts related with a simulator. You test individual components & the speed of a car after THE CAR has been build not the concept.

Bell has joined 1 year back. April 1st,the announced came a year back. Long time in F1,W02 whatever upgrades came from Bell. W03 is completely Bell's baby & he knows the team having already been involved with the in-season development of W02.

Willis joined on OCT. Almost 4 months now. Another 1.5 months to go before they introduce the car. Is 5.5 not good enough to have an aerodynamic car. Costa,I can understand. He has barely joined & with the chasis principally done is not going to have a major role as I dont think a lot can be done mechanically.

BTW with the larke recruit of manpower & Bell & Willis' possible aerodynamic package not good enough to take a leap. I want approx. 0.5s off pole & that is a fair expectatation is it not???

[marcush.]

I´d think suspension is pretty there to keep the car body congruent to the ideal aeroposition at all times these days.
some teams have found ways to achieve that without killing low cornering and traction needs or curb attacking requirements others have appalling traction and are generally in a situation where they need the car to run mechanically too stiff to keep the aero working in the desired window.

[Ferraripilot]

No more than a half second off pole is undoubtedly a fair expectation. That would make W03 a big success IMO.

[Ferraripilot]

[Mclaren and Ferrari both know this as well because neither of them saw near the EBD benefit RB7 had. MB W02 was definitely at the bottom of the top 4 list in terms of EBD exhaust efficiency though. I remain optimistic for MB yet not so much for Ferrari as their management is one of living in fear if they don't 'win' as Luca put it. F1 takes time in the soil to grow, not ultimatums which is why I believe MB will leapfrog Ferrari.

In general everyone, when compared to RB, did a poor job recognizing and or developing the EBD last year. This is a team management issue. At this point there is no reason to not expect RB to be the leaders in what ever is the next hot trend.

Brian

This of course operates under the assumption that Red Bull will be the inventors of said hot trend. It's rare to have two in a row.