Mercedes AMG F1 W03

[elf341]

Are you honestly reading into test laptimes?

Maybe, maybe not. In this instance, there's not a lot of information to be gained from the single lap time.
But suppose the fastest lap was 1:12.124s, then that would be something to sit up and notice, even from a single data point. Similarly, if their fastest time was 1.22.315, we can probably conclude they were doing heavy fuel load for the whole day.
Also, being able to do 25% more laps on the wednesday is a good sign that things have been going according to the testing plan. So even from this small, single, item of data I can discover something interesting about Mercedes' progress.
I thought others would be interested in making similar inferences to me from this data which is the reason I posted it.

[raymondu999]

Laptime data means absolutely diddly squat. Say a team decided to artificially weighten their car to see how the tyres would react to an extreme weight, and consequentially increased their laptime by 2 seconds. Wouldn't tell you anything.

The only thing that tells you anything in the slightest would be the quickest laptime - then we can infer that the car can at least do that laptime in qualifying trim, with full power, DRS use, and optimum setup. Of course, the car could possibly go even quicker still. But without any benchmark to compare this against - it means nothing. Again.

Number of laps is a different matter - it just shows you how much on track work got done.

But suppose the fastest lap was 1:12.124s, then that would be something to sit up and notice, even from a single data point.

I disagree. You don't have any benchmark to say that 1:12.124 was quick. What if an HRT could do a 1:10.00? You just have no baseline to work from. F1 is not a singular thing - an F1 car in isolation is never "fast" or "slow" - those adjectives only come into pay once it's compared against the rest of the field. Which without relevant data is not possible.

Similarly, if their fastest time was 1.22.315, we can probably conclude they were doing heavy fuel load for the whole day.

Why heavy fuel? Why not a constant speed run for CFD and windtunnel validation?

Look I'm desperately trying not to be an ass here. But honestly? Laptimes from testing mean jacksquat.

[quixpeed]

Here are some closeups of the MGP updates.
http://www1.skysports.com/formula1/gall ... -in-detail

[turbof1]

Laptime data means absolutely diddly squat. Say a team decided to artificially weighten their car to see how the tyres would react to an extreme weight, and consequentially increased their laptime by 2 seconds. Wouldn't tell you anything.

The only thing that tells you anything in the slightest would be the quickest laptime - then we can infer that the car can at least do that laptime in qualifying trim, with full power, DRS use, and optimum setup. Of course, the car could possibly go even quicker still. But without any benchmark to compare this against - it means nothing. Again.

Number of laps is a different matter - it just shows you how much on track work got done.

But suppose the fastest lap was 1:12.124s, then that would be something to sit up and notice, even from a single data point.

I disagree. You don't have any benchmark to say that 1:12.124 was quick. What if an HRT could do a 1:10.00? You just have no baseline to work from. F1 is not a singular thing - an F1 car in isolation is never "fast" or "slow" - those adjectives only come into pay once it's compared against the rest of the field. Which without relevant data is not possible.

Similarly, if their fastest time was 1.22.315, we can probably conclude they were doing heavy fuel load for the whole day.

Why heavy fuel? Why not a constant speed run for CFD and windtunnel validation?

Look I'm desperately trying not to be an ass here. But honestly? Laptimes from testing mean jacksquat.

You could check the long runs if the times remain quite constant without a big drop off. I think that would give some informationn about tyre deg. But yeah, comparing between cars is very difficult here due the 3 teams having different testing programs.

[NonNewtonic]

Another thing is what are those tiny fins on each side of the diffuser? are those sensors?

[bhall]

Yes. They're monitoring the flow of the exhaust plume.

[Ozan]

High fuel runs are crucial for W03, especially in first stint, the car eats the tires, for example if you look at Monza's first stint, Schumi can only do 15 laps in Mediums, whereas Hamilton did 22 laps. That's why they do more high fuel runs and try to improve rear tire wear.

[Morteza]

Is this the old front wing?

[zyphro]

Is this the old front wing?

It's cascades on, so it's not Monza spec no.

[FrukostScones]

W03 fastest lap timings Magny Cours test:
Fastest lap (2012-09-12): 1:17.482s, 125 laps
Fastest lap (2012-09-11): 1:19.094s, 95 laps

So 1.5s faster today than yesterday. All cars appeared faster today though, so this may be due to rubbering in.

Are you honestly reading into test laptimes?

what is wrong with his assumption, Jules Bianchi today again the fastest, now in the Findia, is he fast or due to fuel, I think a lot of people read something into BrawnGP testing times and had fun with it. Of course you had already settled .

[raymondu999]

Yes, but back then there were a lot less variables. It was easier to filter out the noise and get the real picture. Anyways, Brawn was 7 tenths or something quicker in testing, which didn't pan out in the races either. It was quicker, but not 7 tenths so.

[Ferraripilot]

Is this the old front wing?

No, that appears to be the post-Monaco spec front wing only with cascades in place. The main plane does not have the inboard cutouts under the wing, just outboard, and that's the main difference with those wings.

[mantikos]

Is this the old front wing?

Yes, it is the older version of the wing but not the OLDEST version

[Morteza]

Thank you for the replies. So it's not the oldest version of the wing they introduced on W03. The cascades look different on this one, right?

[Ferraripilot]

Thank you for the replies. So it's not the oldest version of the wing they introduced on W03. The cascades look different on this one, right?

Cascades are the same as the beginning of the season. This is indeed the post-Monaco spec wing with the different main plane but altered 2nd and 3rd elements. This wing is however missing the latest 1/4 height uprights mounted outboard of the endplates which we saw at Spa.

We have never seen this wing run during a race with cascades in place though. Never, we have mainly only ever seen this wing cascade-less and with the inner 'r' pylons. The picture you have shown shows this front wing in its full downforce capable configuration which we have yet to see for this particular main plane.


I can assume they were testing to see if the back end can handle all that front end downforce.