Mercedes AMG F1 W03

[SamH123]

I'm still looking for a reasonable explanation how they could win in China, and win with a quite large gap to the second.

You know that the Mercs race pace in China was no better than average? Back at the start of the season teams were regularly failing to hit the magic temperature for their tires. Mercedes nailed it in a cool qualifying session that got their tires working perfectly and DDRS was giving them a nice jump on others in quali. I think the DDRS also helped them add lots of downforce but still be ok on the straight.

Their race pace relative to their quali pace was uninspiring like it has been all season but it was solid, unlike what we had seen in the first two races. The big gap was due to how the race unfolded (remember the huge train behind whoever was 2nd at that point?)

http://intelligentf1.wordpress.com/2012 ... -the-data/

[yener]

Mercedes spent their resources developing a trick front wing and realized too late that blowing the diffuser was the solution. I can only imagine that the trick front wing caused them to ignore the obvious gains from properly blowing the diffuser.

Gary Anderson writes an interesting column. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/20118852

It's not only the trick front wing. They are always trying to build a car with a high topspeed while the winners sacrifice topspeed for downforce. For instance Red Bull.

[ArchAngel]

Their aerodynamic design philosophy has always been one of "the path of least resistance." Lacking any real aero geniuses who'd majored in DF, they just settle for low-drag tricks in the hopes that high straight-line speeds would allow them to overtake the cars up ahead.

For the past 3 years, we've all seen how well that "school of thought" worked out.

[Cocles]

Autosport reports in an interview with Brawn that they're currently using a Mark II version of their coanda exhaust. Yeehaw. Developments!

[raymondu999]

Link?

[Skunk0001]

We are on our second iteration of the system now, and there are probably some further modifications before the end of the year and certainly a revamp of the system for next season.

Source: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/103868

[FoxHound]

I think what's telling is they are getting the info from the exhausts, but aren't able to utilise much more of it in W03 guise.
I believe Lotus are in a similar position, and Red Bull themselves took a fair few races to perfect the system.

[raymondu999]

Red Bull never had problems with their exhaust - it was the sidepod tunnels that they couldn't get working.

Mind you the Coanda bulge style exhaust is probably harder to tune.

[FoxHound]

Red Bull never had problems with their exhaust - it was the sidepod tunnels that they couldn't get working.

Mind you the Coanda bulge style exhaust is probably harder to tune.

The side-pod tunnels which in turn work with their coanda exhaust.

[raymondu999]

The tunnels are just for the crossover though - they don't interact with the exhaust. But the exhaust itself was never a problem for Red Bull - as they demonstrated in Bahrain.

[turbof1]

The tunnels are just for the crossover though - they don't interact with the exhaust. But the exhaust itself was never a problem for Red Bull - as they demonstrated in Bahrain.

The exhaust did pose a problem though: they couldn't get a solution where both the crossover and the optimal exhaust flow was guaranteed. They were able to fix that in Valencia, by taking the tunnel idea to the extreme.

[Timstr]

Lauda has apparently hinted that the biggest problem of the car is the complex hydraulically interlinked suspension which is hard to tune.

http://www.motorsport-total.com/f1/news ... 03003.html

[raymondu999]

Earlier in the year wasn't there a lot of chatter about something with an interlinked mercury based suspension? I don't remember much though.

[Ferraripilot]

Lauda has apparently hinted that the biggest problem of the car is the complex hydraulically interlinked suspension which is hard to tune.

http://www.motorsport-total.com/f1/news ... 03003.html

I stated quite some time ago that their rumored genius suspension system is both their best and worst asset. I suspect they may have to dumb the system down a bit to play nice with the very fickle tires. I would also conjecture they already have reduced the ability of their suspension system in the name of benefitting the tires as their massive gap to even Mclaren now just doesn't make sense. Ross stated earlier in the year that their system has for their practical non-computer controlled purposes, the ability to 'think' which is quite a bold claim. A hydraulic system so complex surely would require a tire practically designed for such a system.

[Mika1]

"Das Budget von Mercedes ist wesentlich niedriger als das von Red Bull und sogar niedriger als Lotus."

Didn't know that. They have to increase their budget then, if they want to succeed.