2015 Austrian Grand Prix - 19-21 June

[Samraj_official]

i would request you to read RACECAR ENGINEERING Jan 2015 issue and then clarify....

[3jawchuck]

i would request you to read RACECAR ENGINEERING Jan 2015 issue and then clarify....

https://www.scribd.com/doc/268861538/RE ... h4XTx2yEdC

Would this be the article in question?

[windwaves]

That's actually incorrect, well the Mercedes part anyway. Soon as these new regs for the turbo era was released and I think it was in 2013, Mercedes got straight to work on the turbo engine, so it had two or more years development ahead of the other manufacturers and good on them for taking imediate reaction. The outcome though is races we have now when it's only a two car race. Ferrari in the other hand have done well to close the gap and have made a steady improvement.

Honda announced their involvement with Mclaren back in May 2013.
Do you seriously think they started designing their engine a year later? then joined a year later after that?

They all had roughly the same time to build engines, one got it right from the very start, one got it right after a years running and one looks like it might be getting it right the third time around albeit down on power.

We will have to see where Honda slots in next year.

Bravo. Well put. Trivial after all, yet some refuse to get it.

[turbof1]

Hmmm... . Does one really believe that Honda would have thrown a serious budget on before effectively having a customer? My personal opinion is that Honda only started developing the engine in earnest when they signed up with Mclaren. Sure, Honda would have prepped something in a computer program, but it would be nowhere anything serious until that moment.

However, the manufacturers already were I believe developing the engines for 2 years. Indeed the proposal for the 4 cylinder engine was back in 2010, but a switch was made to the current format in 2011:
http://www.topspeed.com/racing/f1/f1-ne ... 88901.html
http://adamcooperf1.com/2011/06/30/fia- ... -thinking/

Not to mention the R&D about the recovery system would probably still be partly applicable from the 4 cylinder on the 6 cylinder.

So in short I still think the likes of Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault had roughly 1.5-2 years a headstart, with even more on the recovery systems.

[Samraj_official]

On a chilly day shortly before Christmas in 2012, a new model was bolted into place in a wind tunnel on the outskirts of Brackley, a small town in the centre of England. That model was to form the basis of what would become one of the most successful grand prix cars of all time, the Mercedes W05 Hybrid. As other teams struggled to even complete their cars, let alone shake them down, the latest Silver Arrow was the first car to take to the track in winter testing. After watching it drive out of the pit lane, Toto Wolff, head of motorsport at Mercedes-Benz turned to the journalists stood alongside and joked ‘now we are leading the world championship!’ It was a lead that Mercedes would never relinquish. On the face of it, the Mercedes W05 Hybrid is a fairly conventional 2014 grand prix car, with pushrod actuated dampers on the front suspension and a pull rod actuated rear, the composite monocoque chassis carrying the 1.6 litre V6 engine as a fully stressed member driving the rear wheels through an in-house eight-speed sequential transmission. But the detail is where this car has made the biggest gains according to Mercedes AMG F1 team technical director Paddy Lowe: ‘It is by far the most complex car I’ve worked with but at the same time, it is the most elegant.’ A quick look under the bodywork of the W05 bears that out, where every other car on the grid has a cluttered array of electronic boxes, wiring looms and various plumbing elements scattered all over the place, especially in the side pods, the Mercedes is exceptionally neat and tidy. It is without doubt the most integrated design of the 2014 season with a symbiotic relationship having been created with its power unit designers at Mercedes AMG HPP (see p16). ‘Successful cars do not just come from nowhere,’ Lowe continues. ‘There is a sequence of building blocks that you need. One of those areas was aerodynamics. Putting the team together to get the aerodynamics right was done two or three years ago by Ross Brawn and Bob Bell. In 2012 the Mercedes was not a great car aerodynamically, it was well behind. By 2013, the team was getting pole positions and winning races against Red Bull when engines were not a big ru differentiator. So, that showed our growing aerodynamic confidence and the 2014 aero package was a result of that development. We took the understanding from that and applied it to the new efficiency formula, which gives you a different slant. As a result there is a huge amount of family resemblance between the W04 and W05 Hybrid.’ One of the most distinctive aerodynamic features of the W05 is its low nose. Clumsily written rules for the 2014 season saw many teams adopt oddly shaped front crash structures but Mercedes instead adopted wider low noses for 2014, to the relief of the marketing staff. ‘The team looked at all sorts of designs, though I’m not sure they came up with the full range of ugliness. But the solution we have came up with was the best on the numbers in terms of aero, so it was quite pleasing to know that not only is it the best looking but it is also the best aerodynamically,’ Lowe chuckles

[Samraj_official]

The above quote is from RACECAR ENGINEERING jan 2015, as you can see the scale model of WO5 was tested as early as 2012

[f1316]

But I thought in 2010 plans were to use 4-cylinder turbos? Wouldn't that make the R&D done back then almost irrelevant?

I don't know about their PU though, but in the issue of Racecar Engineering JAN 2015 (i think) i read, when asked about their WO5 paddy Lowe said that their first initial windtunnel model was run in the summer of 2012.
they could have developed only in the early 2011,because in 2010 they had to agree on the engine regulations.

Eh. They binned the second half of 2012, only because they were going through scaling up of their wind tunnel for 60% model. How can they be running a W05 model in a wind tunnel which they were to use to develop W04 (a car that was their first competent car)? A lot of aerodynamic regulations were not completely clear in 2012, which wouldn't even help in getting their basic model out. May be they had some basic designs made ready, but a wind tunnel model?

They could easily have had parallel programs (in fact, I'm sure all teams did at one point or another).

Nevertheless, if Mercedes started earlier then they were smart and the others were stupid; it was obvious from the get go that the engine would again become a performance differentiator in 2014 and also obvious Ross brawn was very confident Mercedes were well prepared for it year's in advance.

I find it particularly ludicrous that Ferrari misunderstood what would be needed so badly, since they had been bemoaning the lack of engine development for years and here was their (+ Mercedes') chance to overhaul red bull as a proper works team.

[windwaves]

[quote="Samraj_officialI don't know about their PU though, but in the issue of Racecar Engineering JAN 2015 (i think) i read, when asked about their WO5 paddy Lowe said that their first initial windtunnel model was run in the summer of 2012.
they could have developed only in the early 2011,because in 2010 they had to agree on the engine regulations.

Eh. They binned the second half of 2012, only because they were going through scaling up of their wind tunnel for 60% model. How can they be running a W05 model in a wind tunnel which they were to use to develop W04 (a car that was their first competent car)? A lot of aerodynamic regulations were not completely clear in 2012, which wouldn't even help in getting their basic model out. May be they had some basic designs made ready, but a wind tunnel model?

They could easily have had parallel programs (in fact, I'm sure all teams did at one point or another).

Nevertheless, if Mercedes started earlier then they were smart and the others were stupid; it was obvious from the get go that the engine would again become a performance differentiator in 2014 and also obvious Ross brawn was very confident Mercedes were well prepared for it year's in advance.

I find it particularly ludicrous that Ferrari misunderstood what would be needed so badly, since they had been bemoaning the lack of engine development for years and here was their (+ Mercedes') chance to overhaul red bull as a proper works team.[/quote]
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Yep, agree 100%.
Mercedes got it right, vastly right, and now everyone is accusing them of some wrong doing. Stupidity. The other teams need to get to work and do a better job instead of wasting time and energies in the art of whining.

[CBeck113]

Whether it was an i4T or a V6T, their biggest advantage seems to be ther energy recovery, and that is not dependent on the form of the ICE, except for the integration. But getting the software right for recovery vs depletion was/is the key to their success - I believe that they would be just as far ahead it they implemented 3-cylinder engines as well. They simply took the "risk" of sacrificing two seasons to have the success they have now. They were smart to realize that they couldn't compete toe-to-toe with RB in the last formula, and still managed to maintain a competitive team and a good learning curve. As much as I don't like domination since there is no real development left (tesing, windtunnel and simulation all drastically restricted "for costs"), they did their homework and deserve the success they are currently having, and will do so until the next formula change.

[f1316]

Whether it was an i4T or a V6T, their biggest advantage seems to be ther energy recovery, and that is not dependent on the form of the ICE, except for the integration. But getting the software right for recovery vs depletion was/is the key to their success - I believe that they would be just as far ahead it they implemented 3-cylinder engines as well. They simply took the "risk" of sacrificing two seasons to have the success they have now. They were smart to realize that they couldn't compete toe-to-toe with RB in the last formula, and still managed to maintain a competitive team and a good learning curve. As much as I don't like domination since there is no real development left (tesing, windtunnel and simulation all drastically restricted "for costs"), they did their homework and deserve the success they are currently having, and will do so until the next formula change.

They also hired a lot of very senior technical personnel so they could have multiple programs running at once.

As such I don't think it's fair to say they sacrificed any season; they knew that if, say, Aldo Costa was working on the 2013 car and Bob Bell the 2014 (don't remember who did what) each was perfectly competent and learnings on aspects like getting the best setup for mechanical grip are never going to be wasted.

[Jordan44]

http://m.crash.net/f1/news/199805/1/mer ... 1-w05.html

"With the 2014 F1 season marking perhaps the biggest change in regulations in the sport's history, initial engineering conversations between the teams at Brackley and Brixworth dated back to late 2010. Since mid-2011, when the rules for the new V6 Hybrid Power Unit were officially published, Mercedes-Benz has taken a fully integrated approach to every major performance decision with a clear-sighted focus on maximising overall car performance. "

[mrluke]

Pretty sure Honda build engines to match the vast majority of sporting regulations as technical projects for their engineers. I think they also built the old V8s but obviously didn't race them.

I doubt they announced to the world they were going to supply engines to F1 without having gone far enough down the development to know that they would be competitive. They wont have announced and then started looking, they probably already had a PU on the dyno producing competitive numbers.

[tylerlm97]

Looks like we might have a chance at our first wet race of the year also

[wickedz50]

Looks like we might have a chance at our first wet race of the year also

It will be interesting, I just hope we do not have a split session i.e. a wet qualifying and dry race ... vice versa.

[Vasconia]

Looks like we might have a chance at our first wet race of the year also

Its about time!!!!

full wet weekend?