Mercedes AMG F1 W03

[Forza]

@raymondu999 If the FW stays on for the rest of the weekend we could suspect that the car setup prefers this kind of aero balance (more rearwards). They did a lot of development in this direction to preserve their rear tyres.

Some pictures of W03 from yesterday at Silverstone via Amus

[mantikos]

Canada was low Drag, and Valencia is relatively too. But the cascades are still gone for Silverstone? Interesting...

Indeed!
Spl with the chance of rain, one would expect them to run a higher downforce setup...maybe the diffuser isn't generating enough downforce and they needed to take a few points off the front downforce in order to balance it
But then again, the monkey seat is gone

*head scratch*

Also, I don't see any external updates...so they must have internal airflow or suspension updates

[elf341]

The fact they omit the monkey seat and the upper cascades is very surprising.

Either they're completely lost, and are really adopting a back to basics approach to try and work out how they can be gentler on the tires, - or they're being incredibly clever and have spotted something that no other team has yet! (all other teams have upper cascades)

I suppose when we have see that getting your tires into the window can be worth at least 1sec a lap (perhaps more), maybe they're trying to do a one step backwards, two step forwards approach.

[Morteza]

With that front wing, I'm worried again

[PlatinumZealot]

That means they have good front downforce?

[bhall]

The monkey seat is about keeping flow attached to the underside of the rear wing. Cascade wings are about downfornce and deflecting flow around the front tires. It's conceivable that their Daffy Duct, and all of its constituent parts, does the job of those now-omitted parts. If so, that's great for Mercedes, as it means less drag.

EDIT: Maybe we've been wrong about the Daffy Duct all along. Perhaps opening the DRS flap actually stops air venting under the front wing rather than activating said venting. Consider the following:

Scarbs says this about Red Bull's blown starter motor hole:

The middle section of diffuser where the SMH lies, is the steepest and thus the most difficult to keep flow attached to. Blowing the SMH acts like an extra slot in a wing, it adds energy to the flow and keeps the flow attached to prevent separation\stalling.

If air collected from the nose scoop is vented on the underside of the front wing at all times, that vented air would help keep the flow attached by the same principle Scarbs described above. So, it would seem that stopping such venting would then stall the front wing.

That would allow for running a higher AoA that wouldn't ordinarily be possible because of both flow separation and the added drag penalty. The Daffy Duct could eliminate those concerns if it's applied as I've just proposed. (Who needs cascades and their drag then?) Air can also be vented under the rear wing for the same reason - that's still allowed, by the way - and it would eliminate the need for a monkey seat and its resultant drag.

Forgive me if this has already been proposed. I don't give a ton of attention to this thread.

[zyphro]

...

Thanks for that, interesting stuff.

+1'd .

[bhall]

Just keep in mind that I've forgotten how to do long division.

But, there's also this...

OK fellas, just back from the [Malaysian] GP...

Spoke with a FIA tech officer during scrutineering..

I spoke with him briefly about the secondary effect of the Fduct feeding it to the
front wing

he said thats simply not the case and the media (and speculation) was simply wrong and he couldn't say anything more

[mantikos]

Monkey seat aids reattachment but also produces down force. I think they might have a new slower drag way of DF than monkey/cascades.

[PlatinumZealot]

The monkey seat is about keeping flow attached to the underside of the rear wing. Cascade wings are about downfornce and deflecting flow around the front tires. It's conceivable that their Daffy Duct, and all of its constituent parts, does the job of those now-omitted parts. If so, that's great for Mercedes, as it means less drag.

EDIT: Maybe we've been wrong about the Daffy Duct all along. Perhaps opening the DRS flap actually stops air venting under the front wing rather than activating said venting. Consider the following:

Scarbs says this about Red Bull's blown starter motor hole:

The middle section of diffuser where the SMH lies, is the steepest and thus the most difficult to keep flow attached to. Blowing the SMH acts like an extra slot in a wing, it adds energy to the flow and keeps the flow attached to prevent separation\stalling.

If air collected from the nose scoop is vented on the underside of the front wing at all times, that vented air would help keep the flow attached by the same principle Scarbs described above. So, it would seem that stopping such venting would then stall the front wing.

That would allow for running a higher AoA that wouldn't ordinarily be possible because of both flow separation and the added drag penalty. The Daffy Duct could eliminate those concerns if it's applied as I've just proposed. (Who needs cascades and their drag then?) Air can also be vented under the rear wing for the same reason - that's still allowed, by the way - and it would eliminate the need for a monkey seat and its resultant drag.

Forgive me if this has already been proposed. I don't give a ton of attention to this thread.

For a blown wing you need faster air jetting out the slots. You have to get that from somewhere.
The Merc DDRS as we were told by the media, sucks air from the rear. In other words, the sucked air is being energized not adding energy to. So in that Case the DDRS are we know it cannot function as a blown wing.

However, if what you say is true and the DDRS functions differently, Merc has to be getting high pressure air from some source at steady predictable rates.

[bhall]

Yes. I think it comes from the chassis scoop. For the very reason you mentioned, plus the fact that it makes no sense to needlessly route air across the length of the car, I've said all along that I think the DRS slots are but fluidic valves to turn the system on and off.

The DRS flap just acts like a driver's knee or hand or whatever was used to operate F-ducts back in 2010.

[Byronrhys]

new mirrors i see.

[marcush.]

you would NEVER add drag =appendages like cascades or monkey seats if you can get away without them.....last race they had the speed and no cascades ..so I´m not worried at all .

btw it was Bigois at Prost who introduced the cascades a long time ago...so if his team does finally find ways to overcome them ..fine! so be it.

Stop watch is the real performance indicator not the presence of features al others do have .It´s not like they could not put them back on the car...

[aleks_ader]

new mirrors i see.

Actually they are dont new... Merc aldready have this one in Valencia...

[Byronrhys]

new mirrors i see.

Actually they are dont new... Merc aldready have this one in Valencia...

....as I said....new mirror mounts...