Mercedes AMG F1 W04 (pre-launch speculation)

[Coefficient]

I have a feeling that WO3 was never really pushed much development wise because they probably realised in pre season that the DDRS was of limited scope and therefore the whole concept was compromised.

The development items we did see come on to the car were all done with an eye on 2013 so I suspect that Brawn, Costa, Bell, Willis etc have been busy all year working on the 2013 car. Otherwise I would have expected to see these characters trackside at races seeing how their latest developments worked but we never did. They've all been dug in at Brackley i suspect in order to have a stronger car from the first test.

Brawn does tend to do this, i.e. throw away a season or 2 to really get on top of things and then come out guns blazing. When he arrived at Ferrari he took a couple of seasons sorting stuff out and then bang, they were unassailable. 2008, development of the Honda stopped before the european season got underway in order to focus on 2009. Well we all know the result of that.

[Mika1]

I hope Elliot can do the job.

[Neno]

I hope Elliot can do the job.

will see. elliot came from lotus in mercedes, lotus this year made best progress in season from all teams compared to last year. but elliot is no where signed on paper sheet about designing Lotus E20. maybe was one of smaller employess or he was not involved in his designing.

[MercAMGF1Fans]

One more thing.. will we see this again?

[Holm86]

I dont understand how Mercedes has been able to produce such bad cars this past 3 years. They have a good budget and many good engineers. Every year its been like they have had trouble managing the tires. How hard can it be?

Are they just focusing too much on one area of the car? Are they trying too much to be innovative??

They also seem to be the worst team at copying things from the others. In the F-Duct year they created a passive one which was rubbish. In the blown diffuser years it was also rubbish. They tried alot of diffirent cunfigurations before having something good at the end of the season. And this year their attempt to copy the coanda exhaust was also rubbish.

I hope the W04 will be a completely new design (which i guess they have allready statet?) but a relatively conservative design. No more innovations like special engine intakes and stalling front wings to remove focus.

[stefan_]

One more thing.. will we see this again?

From what I understood at the time, it was a testing thing because FOM/FIA want to implement a system that allows a better and quicker identification (for the public) of who is in what car. In my oppinion, the red & yellow Ts are sufficient.

[MercAMGF1Fans]

One more thing.. will we see this again?

From what I understood at the time, it was a testing thing because FOM/FIA want to implement a system that allows a better and quicker identification (for the public) of who is in what car. In my oppinion, the red & yellow Ts are sufficient.

yeah, but as Scarbs pointed out.. there is a slight aero advantage, and believe you me! Merc need ALL the aero advantages it can get hahah, nah seriously.. something to do with yaw.

[ESPImperium]

One more thing.. will we see this again?

From what I understood at the time, it was a testing thing because FOM/FIA want to implement a system that allows a better and quicker identification (for the public) of who is in what car. In my oppinion, the red & yellow Ts are sufficient.

yeah, but as Scarbs pointed out.. there is a slight aero advantage, and believe you me! Merc need ALL the aero advantages it can get hahah, nah seriously.. something to do with yaw.

It will be back in 2014.

All the teams will forced to use standard number size and a font from FOM.

Its not for TV, its for the track side fan believe it or not.

All numbers, flags and three letter verifications will all have to be placed in 3 of 4 areas.

The TV picks up the T Cams pretty well, however there may be a few more tweaks for this like fully yellow/red/black (Black for GP3) cameras and the cars to have early 90s style Ferrari colour boxes on the rear wings and Caterhams GP2 teams coloured leading edges on the front wing pillars on the nose cone as well.

FOM have been testing things out for about 18 months in GP2 and they have been, and will use testing in the pre season to further test and develop the track side identification as well.

The other thing the track identification will be used for is the asian races where the marshals dont know Adam driver from Eve driver. Also the drivers may also may have to have their number and 3 letter ID on their overalls as well.

This will piss off some sponsors and teams, but it's coming from the guy that FOM hired from the Premiership in England in late 2010 in order to get trackside and car branding better for all. He has pretty much got the trackside up to standard, now he is looking at getting the cars and drivers brands better. He even brought up the idea of teams going to "Traditional/Historical" numbering again with the WDC and WCC title holders getting 1 & 2 every year. This would make better sense in my opinion.

So this would mean Williams would be 5 & 6; Ferrari 27 & 28 and McLaren 7 & 8 for instance. However the teams would have to pay FOM a premium taken off their prize money of say €2.5m a car.

[raymondu999]

Source, ESPI?

[einhander]

Does anyone know of a date/source, for precisely when work began on the W04?

[ESPImperium]

Source, ESPI?

Sports business magazine Sports Pro and a source that shall remain unnamed.

Why do I have to tell all my sources? You would expect a trusted Journalist in trusted national publication to reveal a source without compromising the person i guess?

Take things i say with a pinch of salt if you want, but im not going to reveal all my sources. You just have to trust me, or choose not to believe me. You have the choice!

[raymondu999]

Why are you so defensive? It's just that adding a source always adds credibility to what it is you're saying, that's all.

[MercAMGF1Fans]

Does anyone know of a date/source, for precisely when work began on the W04?

Well the last reference we had that was back in Suzuka that the 2013 car was "ALREADY" Being worked on

http://mercamgf1-fans.com/2012/10/06/wh ... o-in-2013/
Ross said here:

One of our strong points is our technical staff, Aldo Costa is currently working on the 2013 car while Geoff Willis is concentrating on the car for 2014.

So I'm thinking they started working on it since the wind tunnel scale model upgrade

[Raptor22]

It is likely they have started on W04 as early as March.
Most teams start work on the car for next year as early as April of the current season. Even though they may have started earkier than everyone else, they have so many challenges to addres that I can't see a major turnaround. Even with a completely new car which whose technology would only be applicable for a single season, They have a conceptual and developmental problem back in Brackley.
With current testing being so limited they have very little time for experimentation to figure out whch concepts work and why.
with Costa having left Ferrari when they were in a design and engineering slump I'd hazard a guess that he was contributary to that slump, so I'm not going to be holdin gmy breath that they will have a major turnaround.

Where can they improve? Everywhere I guess. Nothing really worked consistently well did it, not even DDRS

[astracrazy]

in a pen and paper sence your prob right