Mercedes AMG F1 W06 Speculation

[FrukostScones]

Is it better or worse for Honda if Mercedes have used all the tokens?

worse (I think, if FIA rule is consistent )

"For example, if the three 2014 manufacturers have eight, seven and five unused tokens respectively at the start of the season, then the new manufacturer will be allowed to use six during the season (the average rounded down to the nearest whole number)."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/117386

2examples:
0Merc+8Ferr+7Renaul=15 /3= 5 Honda
0Merc+15Ferr+12Renault=27 / 3 = 9 Honda

So Honda boys will still scream unfair I guess...

[PlatinumZealot]

Merc engine will start with "new" 2015 design from the start. (not sure if already all 32 tokens used on that stage?)

https://translate.google.de/translate?s ... t=&act=url

Maybe the Honda decision by FIA influenced this move?

Oh. So we at forty horses now? Haha. Waiting for a journo. To say thirty.

Anyway. My view on this: Merc will not be rattled by the new developments. They will stick to their plan. Guys remember you cannot change engine within five races or you get a penalty! If you run any specification of engine no matter how many tokens you are stuck with it for five races! Lets think about that!

[turbof1]

Actually you are allowed to change the PU between races. As long as you don't use more then 4 of the same part within one season, you are allowed to for instance do the first race with the old spec of the part and the other 19 races you'll race the other 3. That's not a realistic example, I know, but it gives you an idea what they are allowed to.

I'm not completely sure if they are allowed to race the old spec once the new spec has been homologated.

Mercedes is in the same boat as Ferrari and Renault on this one: they probably were in a very advanced stage of the development concerning the tokens. It's not as simple anymore to say "I'm keeping that, that and that token on the engine, and the others I'll develop further." It's likely that some specific eyed changes to the PU means a sacrifice of multiple tokens. At this point it's weighting how much performance per point of token they get for a single group of tokens, and how much more performance they are going to get out of it by keeping it off the car, develop it further and introduce it later. For instance a group of tokens that has high performance gain and doesn't have much more performance to be extracted out of it will definitely be on the pu in Melbourne. Something with low performance but high potentional will not be on it yet.

[ParkerArt]

I'm not surprised by Mercedes bringing all of the changes to the 2015 power unit to Australia. They had the best start to the regulations and by far the most complete 2014 engine homoligated.

I am actually a bit surprised that Renault and Ferrari aren't going to have their 2015 engines ready. They should know very, very clearly where their power unit was lacking from March 2014 and should have spent 9 months getting ready for the start of the 2015 season.

Maybe Renault and Ferrari have used all of their tokens but now might want to second guess and redo some more critical changes and take another couple months to find more performance?

I understand that Red Bull is now working directly with Renault on the hybrid electronics but they settled that months ago. Renault and Ferrari spent 2014 making software, fuel and reliability adjustments but what were the rest of the hardware people doing? You would think the engine teams would not want to be caught with their pants down for the second season in a row.

That either engine manufacturer still has tokens left to spend is very telling that Mercedes is going to walk to another dominant first part of a season.

[PlatinumZealot]

I'm not surprised by Mercedes bringing all of the changes to the 2015 power unit to Australia. They had the best start to the regulations and by far the most complete 2014 engine homoligated.

I am actually a bit surprised that Renault and Ferrari aren't going to have their 2015 engines ready. They should know very, very clearly where their power unit was lacking from March 2014 and should have spent 9 months getting ready for the start of the 2015 season.

Maybe Renault and Ferrari have used all of their tokens but now might want to second guess and redo some more critical changes and take another couple months to find more performance?

I understand that Red Bull is now working directly with Renault on the hybrid electronics but they settled that months ago. Renault and Ferrari spent 2014 making software, fuel and reliability adjustments but what were the rest of the hardware people doing? You would think the engine teams would not want to be caught with their pants down for the second season in a row.

That either engine manufacturer still has tokens left to spend is very telling that Mercedes is going to walk to another dominant first part of a season.

If your engine sucks from the first test you woukd be so busy trying to get the damn thing to run reliably you won't even know where you went wrong on the performance until many races into the season. Actually Ferrari and renault spent nearly half the season finding what they did wrong and how to make it right so imagine how far back behind tey were compared to mercedes.

[mattylwd]

Thanks for screens, sectorone.

Does someone in this forum have the F1 app and knows if these data are (still) available for the qualifying sessions?

The data (FPs, Qually and race) is still available at the F1 app as we speak. I don't know if I can still reach it when the new season starts.

If I have time this weekend I can have a look for you. Which circuit, corners and drivers are you interested in?

That would be great, thanks for taking the time for this. The best would be to only use dry qualifying sessions and show the data for the best Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari car(and any other car if it is quicker through the timed section).

Corners should be the faster and longer ones, like Parabolica @Monza or Spoon @Suzuka or sections like the esses @Suzuka or COTA or the middle part of the Red Bull Ring, if available. Maybe you should open a new thread for this?!

I made a new topic for it:

http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... =1&t=21300

[dren]

Mercedes probably will just have minor changes to the nose tip, minor changes to the front and rear wing, and a slightly different middle section of the car to cope with overheating of electronics, which hampered them a few times in the 2014 season. And, offcouse the chrome livery.

That's what I am expecting. The batwing under the front chassis and turning vanes will all be developed to fit with the lower front nose. The cooling inlets will be larger if the PU will be making more power. Everything will probably look similar with slight detail changes.

[MercAMGF1Fans]

Merc will debut it's 2015 engine after all.. in Jerez day 1
http://www.omnicorse.it/magazine/46467/ ... t-del-2015

[tranquility2k4]

Merc will debut it's 2015 engine after all.. in Jerez day 1
http://www.omnicorse.it/magazine/46467/ ... t-del-2015

The question is how many of their 32 tokens will have been used up on this iteration of the 2015 engine. If they've used all of them, then that will be impressive, and it'll likely be light years ahead of the others.

[MercAMGF1Fans]

Merc will debut it's 2015 engine after all.. in Jerez day 1
http://www.omnicorse.it/magazine/46467/ ... t-del-2015

The question is how many of their 32 tokens will have been used up on this iteration of the 2015 engine. If they've used all of them, then that will be impressive, and it'll likely be light years ahead of the others.

The article at the end says the 32 tokens are for in season dev.. apparently, and they've done most of the major changes out of that limitation

[turbof1]

Since the pu doesn't have to be homologated yet for testing, it's still possible for them to test the whole 2015 unit and decide after thay which parts they want to develop further.

[Alexgtt]

Merc won't change their plans, they'll simply build the best engine they can using all advantages and therefore use tokens to their maximum effect. This is because they can turn the engines up or down to their desire. They are so controllable they could be running round, as last year, with an engine hiding any amount of performance they want such is their advantage. This is why it's good news for Honda to have in season development de-freeze.

[FrukostScones]

Merc will debut it's 2015 engine after all.. in Jerez day 1
http://www.omnicorse.it/magazine/46467/ ... t-del-2015

The question is how many of their 32 tokens will have been used up on this iteration of the 2015 engine. If they've used all of them, then that will be impressive, and it'll likely be light years ahead of the others.

The article at the end says the 32 tokens are for in season dev.. apparently, and they've done most of the major changes out of that limitation

Normally 32 till 28. FEB 2015. But with FIA legalized loophole they now can continue during the season.
Merc initially wanted to wait with introduction of full 2015 spec because of comfort reasons (even more gains, reliability?)after FIA gave green light to inseason development (all is 2014 tokens), (they had not many mistakes to correct and their development schedule was set for 28 Feb 2015. Fer and Renault where overwhelmed by their problems and need the extra time to use all their 32 tok.). (AMUS)
Now with the new Honda rule, they adapted to the new situation I think.
The Omnicorse article messes it up with the new rule regarding Honda (they dont get 32).
And I messed up when understood that they would bring the 2015 spec to the season start, Omnicorse only said testing start. But also this implies that Merc might want to use full (up to 32 tok. used) 2015 spec at the season start to hinder Honda's development (and of course to have the advantage over all three competitiors, 2 of them behind schedule).

[turbof1]

Merc won't change their plans, they'll simply build the best engine they can using all advantages and therefore use tokens to their maximum effect. This is because they can turn the engines up or down to their desire. They are so controllable they could be running round, as last year, with an engine hiding any amount of performance they want such is their advantage. This is why it's good news for Honda to have in season development de-freeze.

let's stay away from glorifying the team. We are a technical forum after all.

Last year they refrained from running maximum performance all the time because the power unit was not reliable enough for that. Customer teams had to explicitly ask mercedes if and when they were allowed to run full power, and within the team itself came a big argument about the unauthorized running of max settings. It gives more points to run the engine reliably and a bit slower then to go full power all the time and break down more often, even if the competition is too close.

I don't think Mercedes gives itself the luxury of laying back. They'll do just the same as the others: trying to extract the maximum performance out of a given situation. They'll bring what they have developed to testing and make an evaluation after the data is collected. If they think all the used tokens are as good as they can be and extracting more performance isn't worth running a half updated pu, they'll introduce all the tokens in Melbourne. Else they'll keep tokens under development. It's a cost benefit analysis, one that demands to consider what the competition does.

[tranquility2k4]

Merc will debut it's 2015 engine after all.. in Jerez day 1
http://www.omnicorse.it/magazine/46467/ ... t-del-2015

The question is how many of their 32 tokens will have been used up on this iteration of the 2015 engine. If they've used all of them, then that will be impressive, and it'll likely be light years ahead of the others.

The article at the end says the 32 tokens are for in season dev.. apparently, and they've done most of the major changes out of that limitation

The article is incorrect/misleading. They have 32 tokens to use in total for 2015, they may use them up right from the start for their first iteration of the 2015 engine, or use some up, e.g. 20, then introduce the 12 further tokens throughout the season. It's likely that for their planned debut of the 2015 engine in Feb, they will not have had time to use all 32 tokens, as some components have a longer development/manufacturing time. Now with the new ruling they can take advantage of this. We'll see.

As the previous poster stated, Merc have likely brought forward their plans with the ruling on Honda to hopefully ensure Honda have the least possible amount of tokens.