Mercedes AMG F1 W04 (pre-launch speculation)

[marcush.]

the teams organigramme on the operative side is:

Brawn as Team Principal and Fry as CEO -

Bob Bell as Technical director in a big company those people are usually called CTO (technical direction/strategies ,budget ,staff strategies,Equipment etc

Below sits Geoff Willis ,reporting to Bell -Integrating Aero-Vehicle dynamics and System groups and
Aldo Costa heads R&D ,Design and Transmission


Mike Elliot as Head of Aero reports to Geoff Willis
John Owen as chief designer reports to Costa


In fact they have now basically three levels of leadership on the operative side even before you go into systems level detail.
Obviously a formula 1 team is not a small business these days and it is very clear there is a lot of meetings and commitee work ,task force ,workgroup etc non productive doings around just to make sure the level of communication(or better information) is somewhat acceptable.

[Cocles]

I also remember Brawn mentioning that Bell was in charge of (or at least working on) the engine. Does that make him the full-on liaison with Mercedes AMG HPP? In charge of engine mappings, etc.? Both?

[FoxHound]

I also remember Brawn mentioning that Bell was in charge of (or at least working on) the engine. Does that make him the full-on liaison with Mercedes AMG HPP? In charge of engine mappings, etc.? Both?

Possibly engine integration into the final concept.

Although I don't rule out sorting out the Coanda business. Mercedes where carrying 15-20KGs more fuel than necessary due to them not having tuned the engine enough to deal with the exhaust. So mapping would also be on his "to do" list.

[mep]

Guys, I can understand that you desperately want a wining car but to be honest for next year it’s more or less hopeless. The season has just finished and you already need to start production of the parts for the new car. This leaves you literally no time to do any significant development steps, which is fine when you have a decent car to build on. The problem is that Mercedes does not have this and they struggle to get the Coanda exhaust working. The exhaust is still one of the main components for performance. Mercedes has struggled to develop the exhaust in the past and they are something like half a year behind the other teams with that. Also, dropping their DDRS might hurt them because it means a complete redesign of the car. Further time will be lost by that.
How do they want to fix all their problems in a few weeks? – No, chance.

[Cocles]

Guys, I can understand that you desperately want a wining car but to be honest for next year it’s more or less hopeless. The season has just finished and you already need to start production of the parts for the new car. This leaves you literally no time to do any significant development steps, which is fine when you have a decent car to build on. The problem is that Mercedes does not have this and they struggle to get the Coanda exhaust working. The exhaust is still one of the main components for performance. Mercedes has struggled to develop the exhaust in the past and they are something like half a year behind the other teams with that. Also, dropping their DDRS might hurt them because it means a complete redesign of the car. Further time will be lost by that.
How do they want to fix all their problems in a few weeks? – No, chance.

There's a difference between desperation and optimism. Why be a pessimist over something I voluntary pay attention to for fun? You're right, you can't do everything in just a few weeks. Good thing they've been working on the car for over half a year now. I'd imagine coanda exhaust technology begins to plateau at a certain point, so no, there's no guarantee they'll be chronically behind.

A complete redesign will be great for them. The entire BGP-001 bloodline has been neutered since double-diffusors were banned.

[MercAMGF1Fans]

Guys, I can understand that you desperately want a wining car but to be honest for next year it’s more or less hopeless. The season has just finished and you already need to start production of the parts for the new car. This leaves you literally no time to do any significant development steps, which is fine when you have a decent car to build on. The problem is that Mercedes does not have this and they struggle to get the Coanda exhaust working. The exhaust is still one of the main components for performance. Mercedes has struggled to develop the exhaust in the past and they are something like half a year behind the other teams with that. Also, dropping their DDRS might hurt them because it means a complete redesign of the car. Further time will be lost by that.
How do they want to fix all their problems in a few weeks? – No, chance.

I don't want to be seen as an eternal optimist, but few points.
1. They'd started working on the concept, for next years car waaay back in spring (like pretty much all teams, usually conceptual ideas)
2. they've upgraded the scale model to 60% which apparently somehow makes a difference in fine tuning the aero details etc..
3. Dropping the DDRS, which as Ross recently said is actually a good thing, as it was limiting the front wing development. And as it turned out, it wasn't as big an advantage as they thought it would be.
4. The super/hyper-nutter inter-linked hydraulic suspension needs to be sorted out, along with the aero.

[Cocles]

Before this thread gets too deep, I just have to say how excited I am about this oncoming season. The W04 is the car a lot of us have literally been waiting for. FINALLY we're going to get to see what this dream-team can do when they build a car from the ground up. I've been waiting almost two seasons now for this car. Plus, Hamilton will squeeze every ounce of speed the engineers put into this car. I can hardly wait.

It's time for Mercedes to start climbing up the grid. I don't expect miracles; Red Bull is still an unstoppable force, but I do look forward to them putting Lotus back in their place, and chasing down the McLarens and Ferraris.

We'll just have to wait and see.

[MercAMGF1Fans]

Before this thread gets too deep, I just have to say how excited I am about this oncoming season. The W04 is the car a lot of us have literally been waiting for. FINALLY we're going to get to see what this dream-team can do when they build a car from the ground up. I've been waiting almost two seasons now for this car. Plus, Hamilton will squeeze every ounce of speed the engineers put into this car. I can hardly wait.

It's time for Mercedes to start climbing up the grid. I don't expect miracles; Red Bull is still an unstoppable force, but I do look forward to them putting Lotus back in their place, and chasing down the McLarens and Ferraris.

We'll just have to wait and see.

Realistically a Solid P4 in the WCC, optimistically, P3

[Mika1]

I am optimistic, because they will design a whole new concept.

[FoxHound]

I wouldnt hazard a guess as to where they will finish.

The most important thing for 2013 is they show improvement throughout the season. Updates that work.
All of the previous Mercedes have a dubious update record. This more than anything led to Bigois' departure.
The idea to start fresh will be an acid test for the reorganisation that has taken place.

If they start with a dog w04 but can improve it through the season, it would be positive in my view. Because in 2014, everyone starts from scratch.

Expect a simple car with some nice details. Nothing extraordinary, but something to work on.

[marcush.]

just to blow the whistle a little bit...
MGP was the team to drop Coanda AND finding speed from it after struggling with it for ages.We have seen RedBull and Ferrari and Force India along with TR and Marussia rising the competitiveness of their cars with in Season development considerably.
Mclaren did so as well ,but their drops in competitiveness were less
Lotus had a decent package the whole year
Williams and Sauber had a competiive cars but less so drivers who were able to make the most of it in terms of points.
Leaves us with :
Caterham ,HRT and MGP not really delivering .

HRT -again change of ownership ,lack of finance ,relocation -no surprise they struggled
Caterham -an enigma really all the incredients seem to be in place but by the looks of things the Force India /Marussia ways of developing a team -by using Mclaren Applied Technologies seems to work better than Caterhams shoptour with RedBull (they effectively had a complete RedBull drivetrain rear half of the car but could not even compete with TR who had to develop RBT
base ideas..
Leaves MGP who found themselves with quite quick package at the start of the season but a serious lack of race speed and
apart from China and Monaco never really found the conditions needed to make their development competitive
So what separates MGP from those who are in front? Exactly this:
When RedBull Mclaren and Ferrari are in a position to ADAPT their cars to changing parameters and circumstances -MGP needs
the conditions to come to them and then it all works more or less .We were made to believe it was a matter of cornering speeds or corner lengths that influenced their competitiveness but looking back this is just not the case .MGP lost their ways in understanding their package completely and not even needed to develop the car to make this happen!I really have difficulty to see a single sign causing optimism for 2013 as their understanding of what really happened and why was not really resolved before the last race this season and the main developments for next years car have been set in stone quite a while ago at a time when MGP thought they had a brilliant car with w03 ....

[raymondu999]

I'm actually half surprised that Brawn haven't just done what he did in his sportscar and Brawn years - basically toss 2013 down the sink and lump it on 2014.

[marcush.]

We all know that BGP001,W01,W02 and W03 were born with LOOONG leadtimes , at least when one believes the official voices made back then .
With BGP001 it was more or less logical as the car was dominating even though it was just a quick and dirty adaption of the Mercedes engine ,
W01 suffering from a weight distribution /stiffness issue the team stopping development quite early ,W02 suffering from a reported too bulky fuelreservoir owed to its short wheelbase and W03 coming short of expectations plus development stopped early due to concentration on tyre understanding ...
the idea of dropping whole years in the hope to come back with a cracker is not really based on any logic as basically there is no freeze of anything apart from the homologation obligations before one can compete with new bits or whole cars.The actual manufacture and running of the cars is a complete separate entity from design and manufacture so where is the advanatge to campaign old outdated designs?
In fact there is a constant within the car assembly -the engine -which is pretty much fixed as is +a set of rules mandating little to no deviation -degree of freedom -when it comes to designing several aspects of the car -so in effect designs need to evolve and in a ways this does prohibit resting too long on your latest design iteration -but strive for ever more detail and sophistication.

[mep]

1. I already took into account that the teams start early with their development but that does not make things better. You need to understand the main components for performance to be able to develop your car. Mercedes GP has the problem that they don’t get the coanda exhaust working, which the other teams do already. It takes around half a year to catch up with that.

2. Almost every team has an interlinked suspension. So it’s not the secret weapon Mercedes wants to make it look like.

3. The drop of DDRS is maybe a good decision but nonetheless it means new development time needs to be spent to make the car work without it. Apart from that do the other teams blow the beam wing and basically have a form of DDRS as well. If Mercedes wants to adopt that, then they have another thing to catch up.


Actually I am curious to see what kind of exhaust they will run at the roll out. They don’t have it working so far and they need to decide now to start production.

[NewtonMeter]

I wouldnt hazard a guess as to where they will finish.

The most important thing for 2013 is they show improvement throughout the season. Updates that work.
All of the previous Mercedes have a dubious update record. This more than anything led to Bigois' departure.
The idea to start fresh will be an acid test for the reorganisation that has taken place.

If they start with a dog w04 but can improve it through the season, it would be positive in my view. Because in 2014, everyone starts from scratch.

Expect a simple car with some nice details. Nothing extraordinary, but something to work on.

I've seen by your posts that you are a big fan of the team, such as myself. I must admit that I very much enjoy asking for evidence or an explaination when someone posts something negative about the team and it appears to be only conjecture. I believe you're trying to put a positive spin on Bigois leaving, so in the interest of fairness I'm going to ask if you'd mind sharing your information with us. I for one am really interested in your statement.

I figured he left because he felt threatened by the new arrivals. Maybe he was assigned another job that he felt was a demotion. But that I will happily admit is pure conjecture on my part.