Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2013

[Hail22]

Indeed.

However I don't think the rear package of the car will be the same as this year, especially in regards to suspension layout etc.

I suspect the main tub will be unaltered?

Does anyone else think they may go pull rod or stick true with the push rod setup?

[FoxHound]

@Hail

I agree the rear will be changed.
The issues they had with rear tyre wear and the suspension tweaks and lighter gearbox etc, all point to them looking at change here.
As for the front pullrods, anyones guess. But it seems to have worked okay at Ferrari.

[marcush.]

It´s not like W03 was in any ways a "revolutionary car" -I tend to believe it was rather conventional apart from the DDRS thingy
they were not willing to drop at least temporarily .

It very much looks like the team was unable to develop the thing from Monaco on -hitting a brickwall in compromising the gimmicks they had when adding other stuff .

[FoxHound]

It´s not like W03 was in any ways a "revolutionary car" -I tend to believe it was rather conventional apart from the DDRS thingy

You say that...but think about the complexities in getting aero balance correct. The front wing is giving downforce one moment then shedding it the next. Allied to the complex suspension arrangement which is not only front to rear connected but also diagonally connected. Ontop of that you have DRS, and then later on Mercedes toyed with Coanda...
It may not have the outright refinement of an RB8 or MP4-27, but in terms of ideas...Mercedes where very brave.

They got it wrong in hindsight. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

[FoxHound]

Mercedes have appointed a new engine chief.

Out goes Thomas Fuhr, and in comes Andy Cowell.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/104787?

[marcush.]

RedBulls car had DDRS as well and as soon as it was implemented the car had the speed required...
The complication thing is just the reality of how formula 1 works today .If you cannot handle it you lose-simple as that.A simpler car will not solve your problems it will just not be as quick.
I ´m pretty sure the crux is more in their methods than it is in the endproduct the car.I wonder what RedBull ,Ferrari or Mclaren would have gotten out of Mercedes package or how they would have developped it.
I very well remember them flatly denying the rear grip issues how they talked themselves out of the obvious issue of tyre life compared to others and it did not really improve over time.
Compare this to Ferrari...who had a dog of a car to start with but they left no stone unturbned until their package at least was competitive on race day.
How come that MGPs car is the one that cannot be improved year after year in season?It´s nothing else than a basic lack of understanding what is missing -a lack of analytic competence pinpointing the issues and developing a strategy to make the damn thing competitive or ideally keep the championship campaign on track.
The visible development of MGPs car this year was some rearwing blowing thingy -that never made it into a race worthy iteration -and earmarked non suitable for 2013 by Brawn...and after a loooong period a half hearted attempt to implement Coanda that did not work and they had no clue of how to make it work apparently...Infamously this development is a musthave for next year by the looks of things...they just lack direction.
Of course this is only a gauge against their competitors and absolutely not to be seen in absolute terms.The car and team is less around 1%underperforming but life is hard when ever more people find better solutions in shorter timescales.

[FoxHound]

How many times.......

The W03 was a dead end due to the focus of the package with DDRS.

Red Bulls DDRS was rear wing focussed. Easier to tune than the front wing blown version Mercedes ran. Other teams also had rear wing versions...but none had the Mercedes FW type.

They used the second half of the season to assess developments and to try integrate a Coanda exhaust into their package.
What more is there to understand?

Over the course of a season, they outdid your beloved Sauber. Not by much Marcush, but you cannot put that down to luck. Mercedes suffered more ill fortune with MSC than both Sauber drivers did together.

And comparing Mercedes to Red Bull is just a tad unfair given how RB operate.

[dren]

Expect the floor and rear to be redesigned to work with a coanda exhaust. The rear wing will be designed around this as well. I expect them to ditch the endplate actuators and go with the norm. I expect to see the passive device show up again in winter testing. The front wing will likely not change a bunch, just a few different bits to work with the exhaust and floor. Likely see revised brake ducts. I expect the sidepods to be even tighter. I am curious to see what direction they go with their linked suspension set-up. Brawn hints at some flexible parts.

[Neno]

Expect the floor and rear to be redesigned to work with a coanda exhaust. The rear wing will be designed around this as well. I expect them to ditch the endplate actuators and go with the norm. I expect to see the passive device show up again in winter testing. The front wing will likely not change a bunch, just a few different bits to work with the exhaust and floor. Likely see revised brake ducts. I expect the sidepods to be even tighter. I am curious to see what direction they go with their linked suspension set-up. Brawn hints at some flexible parts.

i agree with this, but didnt they said they will remove their linked suspension? they said they have problems with him working him how it should, that dont work good with tyers or something like that.

but problem with this team is that they trying every year find hole in regulations for some advantage, but they dont devolop a concept of their car. i dont understand why you need some new revolucionary on car if your car even without that dont work how you imagine it. you can't first start reading book, without understanding letters and sentences in same book.

[user001]

i am very adamant, that merc wanted to have and developed a far more complex ddrs systems but they were not allowed due to new regulation changes to sink the concept. the air blowing under the FW was supposed to be sucked right with the FW in the first place. Through the whole you can see on the tip of the nose (many cars have).

brawn is the guy who believes or believed in such concepts to find a loophole in regulations. simply because he thinks you have to because without this innovations you won't get any significant advantage over other teams at all to have a WDC winning car.

i do not know if they've changed this philosophy due to w02 and w03 but maybe they will. anyway first of all they thought 2014 will be more a fresh start than it now actually will be. what a drama. but you know that's entertainment as also bernie recently said .

[ringo]

Expect the floor and rear to be redesigned to work with a coanda exhaust. The rear wing will be designed around this as well. I expect them to ditch the endplate actuators and go with the norm. I expect to see the passive device show up again in winter testing. The front wing will likely not change a bunch, just a few different bits to work with the exhaust and floor. Likely see revised brake ducts. I expect the sidepods to be even tighter. I am curious to see what direction they go with their linked suspension set-up. Brawn hints at some flexible parts.

If they come back with the same front wing, they are doomed. That wing is a fossil.
With new engineers, i don't see them retaining that old wing, especially with the car being developed for more than a year so far. I feel that wing was only on the car for so long because the team lost the lead aero guy.

If they know what's best for them, they need to forget about any gimmicks, and get the tyres to last and the car to work properly. I've seen Nico wrangle that car in the esses at the US GP. They can't bring that low level of performance to next season; they'll be eaten alive my the mid pack.

[marcush.]

maybe it´s time to realise that others are simply better in exploiting the rules these days.Brawn was famous for finding loopholes in the regs and stretching them far enough to shove a complete Jag,Bennetton or Ferrari through them.
these days it´s Newey with bendy aero ,Ferrari,Mclaren and now Lotus interpreting the rules in the best possible ways.
Why not compare MGP to RedBull? the aim is clearly bagging the outright title for both teams and I bet the recources available are similar even if we are made to believe that was not the case .
As a matter of fact ,both Force India and Sauber have shown it is not headcount and money only and I have my doubts about the driver pairings of Perez /Kobayashi and di Resta/Hülkenberg being on the same level as Rosberg/Schumacher.
both Sauber and FI have outscored the worksteam in the second half of the season and they sure had no extra budgets to devote more capacity towards 2012 than Mercedes..
In fact everyone said it´s not like you´d have to throw away anything developped in 2012 really as the rules are the same it´s a learning exercise and you can carry over as much as you like.
As stated before the mistake is not the finished product it´s the way how you arrived there.MGP is generally slow in reacting to new challenges and seems to be unable to question themselves hard enough.It´s not enough to say we can do better .

[FoxHound]

maybe it´s time to realise that others are simply better in exploiting the rules these days.

Do you think Red Bull will win ad infinitum? There was a time when their sister team Torro Rosso had more victories than Red bull, despite their vastly superior technical team. Did you want Red Bull to sack Newey in 2008?
Be fair, Marcush.

Why not compare MGP to RedBull? the aim is clearly bagging the outright title for both teams and I bet the recources available are similar even if we are made to believe that was not the case .

The resources available are unquantifiable to you or I. What is quantifiable however is that Mercedes entered F1 on the premise of the RRA. Lower head counts, less windtunnel time etc. etc.
Well Marcush, are you aware that Red Bull Racing only has 52 staff members? The bulk of their F1 operation is run by Red bull technologies which is a supplier and thus not privy to the Resource Restriction Allowance.

So compare away if if you like, but it's a tad unfair when view from the perspective of applying the RRA.

Disclaimer:
It is important also, that I'm not calling Red Bull cheats. They found their loophole and will probably win the next 2/3 years titles because of it. Fair dinkum some would say, but please don't compare Mercedes operations to those of the vastly different Red Bull.

[Mika1]

They will design a new FW, maybe RBR-style.

[raymondu999]

They will design a new FW, maybe RBR-style.

Source?