Mercedes AMG F1 W03

[WhiteBlue]

problem cleared

[bhall]

Yeah, I'm the sensible one.

And, on that note, I don't think other teams feel particularly coerced into adopting the Mercedes' W-duct. It's not in the same league as the DDD, EBD or the F-duct (and various other acronyms!) as far as being a performance differentiator. The scope for its use is simply too limited.

[raymondu999]

I don't think we can particularly see that to be honest. They could be in fact just running more downforce, and letting the W-duct take care of the extra drag - rather than adding straight line speed per se. McLaren used to do that with their F-duct in 2010...

[bhall]

So how does that benefit the car in the race? Is it just supposed to suffer from additional drag until it somehow closes to within a second of a car that doesn't suffer from relatively more drag? I don't get it.

[raymondu999]

Supposed to pull away in the corners I guess. Worked for Red Bull the last two years.

[bhall]

Granted, it's still very early in the season, but I feel pretty safe in the assumption that no one will ever confuse the W03 for the RB7. The latter was a masterpiece; the former seems to be configured to be at its most vulnerable while in the lead.

(?!)

[ArchAngel]

You got your quotation wrong. I did not say that.

Apologies. Corrected.

[siskue2005]

I don't think we can particularly see that to be honest. They could be in fact just running more downforce, and letting the W-duct take care of the extra drag - rather than adding straight line speed per se. McLaren used to do that with their F-duct in 2010...

then how come they similar top speeds to mclaren in quly & race?

[Ferraripilot]

I don't think we can particularly see that to be honest. They could be in fact just running more downforce, and letting the W-duct take care of the extra drag - rather than adding straight line speed per se. McLaren used to do that with their F-duct in 2010...

then how come they similar top speeds to mclaren in quly & race?

Just because they attain a certain top speed that for instance the mclaren is capable of does not mean they reached that top speed at the same time. Perhaps the Mclaren reaches that top speed during race pace 50 meters before W03 does, but W03 is running more downforce therefor going quicker in the corners. I don't put a lot of weight into top speed as much as I'm interested in corner speed and when the car can get on the accelerator out of the corner. Red Bull is of course true to that.

[Ferraripilot]

And, on that note, I don't think other teams feel particularly coerced into adopting the Mercedes' W-duct. It's not in the same league as the DDD, EBD or the F-duct (and various other acronyms!) as far as being a performance differentiator. The scope for its use is simply too limited.

It provides a massive strategic advantage in qualifying which as we know can be very difficult to regain. Qualifying is certainly not as important as it used to be, but it's still important if your car is within a breaths pace of other front runners on race pace. This is exactly why Lotus and RB have such an issue with this technology. They know good and well if W03 fixes its tire issue that it's a very competitive car and it has a qualifying advantage.

[bhall]

I really don't know that the Mercedes Daffy Duct is all it's cracked up to be. Brawn himself has admitted that the W03 has a very narrow window for optimal performance, and I think that, rather like the F2012*, is the result of the Mercedes being tasked with too much. There's such a gap between its qualifying pace and race pace, and the rules and characteristics of contemporary F1 are as such, that either one of those traits is likely a detraction from the other. The rules and tendencies of F1 don't really allow a team to have its cake and eat it, too, as it were.



* Obviously, not nearly on the scale of the F2012's futility.

[Pierce89]

I really don't know that the Mercedes Daffy Duct is all it's cracked up to be. Brawn himself has admitted that the W03 has a very narrow window for optimal performance, and I think that, rather like the F2012*, is the result of the Mercedes being tasked with too much. There's such a gap between its qualifying pace and race pace, and the rules and characteristics of contemporary F1 are as such, that either one of those traits is likely a detraction from the other. The rules and tendencies of F1 don't really allow a team to have its cake and eat it, too, as it were.



* Obviously, not nearly on the scale of the F2012's futility.

which car has outscored the other, 35-1?

[Pierce89]

...I'm not even entirely sold on the idea that other teams need to copy it. The qualifying speed-trap numbers thus far don't point to it being essential for success.

The other teams shouldn't have to, and there's no reason for them to feel as if they're being arm-twisted into going down the w-duct route as the only avenue of development for finding additional qualy & race pace. They've already got a development plan/strategy in-line with their budget for the year, so there's no reason for them to feel that they're being coerced into dumping all that in lieu of another team's innovation.

As for the Mercs not crushing everybody else in the speed-traps by a large margin, I've always felt that their system allows more aggressive wing AOA for greater DF through turns, while neutralising some of the drag penalty in straights and still keeping them close to the top in speed-traps.

If the effin duct really allows them to run increased wing, think how bad their race pace would be otherwise.

[bhall]

If the effin duct really allows them to run increased wing, think how bad their race pace would be otherwise.

That's just it. How much of an advantage does the Daffy Duct give when its use in the race is very, very restricted even though the car has to be set up heavily in its favor for it to be effective?

which car has outscored the other, 35-1?

I'm sure you really mean, Alonso: 35; Mercedes: 1.

[hollus]

I find it interesting everything about this system seems to be in a pair - two inlets, two tubes, etc. Does this suggest that each side of the car can be stalled individually, depending on the difference in pressure across the inlets? Creating in effect an aero-assisted turning aid in principle not different to McLaren's split brake pedal.

That is a really good point. Before we saw so much of this system, we could only speculate, now we know it inded comes in twos. These two pipes come very very close together at the crash structure and around the bulkhead. It follows that they could have been fused to one slightly larger pipe between the crash structure and the bulkhead saving some weight (relatively high in the car) at the price of having an assymetric pipe, which I would think is rather small.
Whiteblue cited simplicity and redundancy in the design, but I am still to see a F1 team trade that for a higher COG, so I'll assume that is not the case.

For the following discussion, I'll assume that the holes in the rear wing are indeed in a high pressure area and meant to collect flow, and that the tubes carry air from the rear wing to the front wing. I know there is no consensus yet of that being indeed the case, but for the sake of discussion, let's assume so.
This is a very simple scheme of the situation in that case, representing only the front wing and the rear wing.

In a straight:

_________                  _______ 
|        |                |       |
|        |________________|       |    Front wing
|_________________________________|
  Stall                     Stall
                                         ||                                        
                                         || Wind   
                                         \/  
 _________________________________ 
|                                 |
|                                 |    Rear wing
|_________________________________|
  High                       High
 Press.                     Press.

In a left handed corner, and I have added the duct connections to the scheme:

_________                 _______ 
 \       \                \      \  
  \       \________________\      \     Front wing
   \_______________________________\
    Stall                  Stall
      ||                      || 
      ||                      ||         ||                                        
      ||                      ||         || Wind   
      ||                      ||         \/  
 _________________________________ 
 \                                \
  \                                \    Rear wing
   \________________________________\
     High                    High
    Press.                  Press.

Now the car is turning and it will have a (small) yaw angle. Hence the air is hitting the rear wing asymmetrically, ramming against the end plate in the inside of the corner, increasing the local high pressure, while the hole in the outer end plate is shadowed by the end plate itself, reducing the local high pressure. It follows that the flow would be higher in the inside pipe than in the outside pipe, and hence the stall would be more pronounced in the inside side of the front wing.

This difference in local pressure and flow at the DRS hole intakes (basically having two flows of different strengh) hints at a possible reason to keep two pipes: a joint at the crash structure would offer a short circuit route for part of the air to go from the inside end plate of the rear wing directly to the outside end plate, never reaching the front wing.
It also opens an intriguing possibility: that the pipes cross over, either at the crash structure or, I'd think more likely, af the front wing right after the bulkhead but before the pylons. The new flow and stall diagram would look like this (note the crossing pipes):

_________                 _______ 
 \       \                \      \  
  \       \________________\      \     Front wing
   \_______________________________\
    Stall      \\   //       Stall
               \\ //            
                \X/                     ||                                        
                /X\                     || Wind   
               // \\                    \/  
 _____________//___\\_____________ 
 \                                \
  \                                \    Rear wing
   \________________________________\
     High                    High
    Press.                  Press.

What are the implications of this? I'd leave a more thorough discussion to the vehicle dynamics gurus here, but I'd think that in the latest scenario, with crossed pipes, the different stall of both sides of the front wing would result in the inside part of the front wing plate being more loaded than the outside, creating a torque that would be transmitted through the nosecone and try to level the car against its natural tendency to roll in the corners. Whether there is much of an advantage in this, I am not so sure.

Disclaimer: Just wild speculation here, no sources involved or to be blamed.