Mercedes AMG F1 W03 (pre-launch speculation)

[MercAMGF1Fans]

Schumacher has said that it is unlikely that the W03 will be a WDC winning car. Brawn himself has hinted the same. Their performance deficit was too big to claw back all of it in one go. It should be a solid step-up to the W02 though.

for WDC probably not but maybe 1 win this year or top3. if he wont do that Brawn is a big loser!!! Last year also Renault get a top3. The only problem for Michael is team. Team wants a winner car in 2013 but for a guy like Schumacher is to much. He and WE want this year a good car!! only 35 days:D:D

Yes but Michael's always had a habit of playing things down.. especially in for 2002.. then look what happened!

[hollowBallistix]

Just to add to the previous stuff, a section ripped from Scarbs blog

Summary
With Rake being ever important to the cars aero set up, such linked systems are increasingly being investigated by the teams. Indeed one team has run such a solution since mid 2009 and at least two other teams (one at each end of the grid) ran them last year.

So some teams have already been running interlinked suspension systems for a while, considering the MP4-12C road car has this system in place, i'm betting McLaren are one of those teams.

Last year it was Ferrari, Mercedes and Virgin.
it was said to be REAR INTERLINKED, though. This whole speculation started with the idea of FULL interlink, and its possibilities.

Not on about just last year, some of the top teams have been running FULL interlinked suspension for a few years, not just REAR, and considering McLaren have this system up & running on their MP4-12C road car, your can bet they have a fully developed version working on their F1 cars.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

@Hollowballistix


Can you please provide a source for that? I understand only rear linked suspensions have been used thus far.
As for fully linked suspensions, they are very complex and not something you just decide to adopt.

[Schulteiss]

Just to add to the previous stuff, a section ripped from Scarbs blog

Summary
With Rake being ever important to the cars aero set up, such linked systems are increasingly being investigated by the teams. Indeed one team has run such a solution since mid 2009 and at least two other teams (one at each end of the grid) ran them last year.

So some teams have already been running interlinked suspension systems for a while, considering the MP4-12C road car has this system in place, i'm betting McLaren are one of those teams.

Last year it was Ferrari, Mercedes and Virgin.
it was said to be REAR INTERLINKED, though. This whole speculation started with the idea of FULL interlink, and its possibilities.

Not on about just last year, some of the top teams have been running FULL interlinked suspension for a few years, not just REAR, and considering McLaren have this system up & running on their MP4-12C road car, your can bet they have a fully developed version working on their F1 cars.

Well, whatever. I don't give a crap about it to be honest, and I doubt many here do. There is a good 30 pages of discussion on it, mostly quite interesting technically, but there are some who went out of their way to detract, while it was mostly near-unfounded speculation. It is not something that will make or break any team's season, and it never was. Again, I don't really care about fan-biased squealing.

[gato azul]

@ JET

Do you have a source for your "Mercury is banned by the FIA" claim?
Or is it just hearsay, because Scarbs said so?
No offence, I´m just curious, because the published FIA rules, explicietly
say, that fluids are excempted from any limitations on materials.
There is perhaps an FIA directive, but I have no seen this in the public domain.

[Fabi1111]

Mercedes will do the shakedown on wednesday? Do anybody have informations at what circuit they will do it? Silverstone?

[Neno]

From now on i starting call this team Mercury AMG

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

@ JET

Do you have a source for your "Mercury is banned by the FIA" claim?
Or is it just hearsay, because Scarbs said so?
No offence, I´m just curious, because the published FIA rules, explicietly
say, that fluids are excempted from any limitations on materials.
There is perhaps an FIA directive, but I have no seen this in the public domain.

I dont. But I can tell you that Beryllium was banned by the FIA over its supposedly high toxicity as a substance. This goes against the fact that once the berylium had machined and was used inside the cylinder walls, it was harmless.
Now using this as a precedent, and knowing that Mercury is in fact a metal with liquid properties at room temperature, it is considerably more toxic than Beryllium.
If it is not banned, it would be banned incredibly swiftly as teams will have no trouble whatsoever fielding mercury in some exposed area just to get the substance banned. Such is the nature of F1.
So to debate its legality, I feel is a moot point.

[aral]

@ JET

Do you have a source for your "Mercury is banned by the FIA" claim?
Or is it just hearsay, because Scarbs said so?
No offence, I´m just curious, because the published FIA rules, explicietly
say, that fluids are excempted from any limitations on materials.
There is perhaps an FIA directive, but I have no seen this in the public domain.

I dont. But I can tell you that Beryllium was banned by the FIA over its supposedly high toxicity as a substance. This goes against the fact that once the berylium had machined and was used inside the cylinder walls, it was harmless.
Now using this as a precedent, and knowing that Mercury is in fact a metal with liquid properties at room temperature, it is considerably more toxic than Beryllium.
If it is not banned, it would be banned incredibly swiftly as teams will have no trouble whatsoever fielding mercury in some exposed area just to get the substance banned. Such is the nature of F1.
So to debate its legality, I feel is a moot point.

There are both EU and US protocols about the use of mercury. So these alone could prevent its use in such a manner.

Apart from that, all this talk of mercury being used is purely speculation. Or, can anyone point me to ANY article where Mercedes GP have even hinted that it was being considered.

From recollection, wasn't the interlink last year in the rear suspension, purely mechanical?

[timbo]

There are other high-density liquids available. Not nearly as dense as Hg, but something around 3 g/cm3 is easily possible for some salt solution.
Gallium with density just a shy of 6 has a melting point around 30oC, and most likely have eutectic with some denser metals with even lower melting point.

Checked wiki -- Galinstan is a liquid eutectic with a density of 6.44 and melting point at -19oC

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

There are both EU and US protocols about the use of mercury. So these alone could prevent its use in such a manner.

Apart from that, all this talk of mercury being used is purely speculation. Or, can anyone point me to ANY article where Mercedes GP have even hinted that it was being considered.

From recollection, wasn't the interlink last year in the rear suspension, purely mechanical?

Fully agreed.

I believe scarbs diagram shows a it used some Hydraulics. It is believed other teams may have interlinked suspension but perhaps not Hydraulically realised.

[Gridlock]

F1 cars go on aeroplanes.

Try taking a mercury barometer on a flight sometime. If it breaks inflight, that airframe is pretty much scrap. And that's on top of the severe health risks.

But, we're back to page 76 or so...

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

F1 cars go on aeroplanes.

Try taking a mercury barometer on a flight sometime. If it breaks inflight, that airframe is pretty much scrap. And that's on top of the severe health risks.

But, we're back to page 76 or so...

So it is ordained!

NO MERCURY!

[atanatizante]

+1 If michael can overcome his qualifying troubles, theres a high chance that he will outscore nico. He definitely had a better race pace last year and hopefully the new tyres will suit him well. I dont think he will retire at the end of this year. I hope he doesnt.

His problem was he wasn't able to "switch on" the tyres in quali as Nico did..

Why? Because:

1. Michael tends to setup the car more bias to race rather then qualy, because his race performance and abilities are far more bigger than qualy ones
2. Tyres didn`t help him also to get a pointy car, like he wants.
...

[Schulteiss]

+1 If michael can overcome his qualifying troubles, theres a high chance that he will outscore nico. He definitely had a better race pace last year and hopefully the new tyres will suit him well. I dont think he will retire at the end of this year. I hope he doesnt.

His problem was he wasn't able to "switch on" the tyres in quali as Nico did..

Why? Because:

1. Michael tends to setup the car more bias to race rather then qualy, because his race performance and abilities are far more bigger than qualy ones
2. Tyres didn`t help him also to get a pointy car, like he wants.
...

First point is simply not the case. There is no bias towards the race, I mean there is no such thing. Because of the current qualy rules, (which are BS IMHO) the setup from Q3 is a compromise in itself. And even if he did what you imply, that given'race' setup cannot result in 3-4 tenths slower laps in qualy, sometimes 0,8s. That simply cannot be explained by your theory. Tyres, ok, they are a factor, but there had to something else too. Or he is simply that slower than Nico Rosberg, and I do not believe that to be true either.