Williams FW38 Mercedes Speculation Thread

[bill shoe]

Bernie Ecclestone says the F1 engines supplied by Mercedes and Ferrari to their customer teams have “a lot less power” than the ones used by their respective works outfit.

http://en.f1i.com/news/38761-mercedes-f ... stone.html

Comments are welcome !

Consensus in 2014 was that McLaren had 40 hp less than Mercedes, both running Mercedes powertrains. This was thought due to McLaren already known to be going to Honda the following season.

In 2014 Red Bull said something snooty to the effect of: We can win the championship with 40 hp less, but not with 80 hp less.

Any rumors about what the late-2015 power gap was between works vs customer engines? The teams get each other's GPS data and know quite accurately.

[Sevach]

One of the Lotus guys said the Mercedes Monza spec is 3 tenths faster, he might've been exagerating, just like Mercedes who downplayed the differences between engines.

A couple of things to note:
That was a "special" circumstance, the hardware was actually of a different spec in this case.
Same thing happened to Sauber in the Ferrari camp.

We can speculate about fuel supply and engine programming, but no solid evidence anywhere.

If it's so easy to do this... why be so afraid of Red Bull(and even STR)?

[godlameroso]

I'd say the difference lies in no specific order, fuel, engine management, cooling charge air and the combustion engine itself. For the most part, otherwise, I'm guessing all Mercedes supplied teams have essentially the same lump as the works team.

[tranquility2k4]

I think the biggest differentiator is fuel - I can't remember the figure, but I know Ferrari gained a lot from 14 - 15 and indeed through 15 by introducing new fuels. RB have also gained through fuels, probably more than anything else! I think at the beginning of 2014 no one realised how much you could gain with fuels apart from Merc. McLaren didn't have the same fuel and this probably made a big difference. Didn't shell say they gained Ferrari 1 sec per lap on fuel alone, or was it 0.5?

Merc could be telling the truth when they say their engine is the same as previous in performance, because their new engine introduced at Monza was designed to work with new fuels, and therefore the gain was probably through the fuel - or at least you could argue it that way. Maybe there wasn't much of a gain but it will lead to a big gain in 2016, that is if they think it has mileage as a development direction.

[ScottB]

McLaren persisted with Mobil 1, while Merc obviously collaborated very closely with Petronas, so I'd agree there's definitely something in that.

Less so for Red Bull / Renault. Presumably they both used Total fuel? I think Williams used Petronas, despite their Petrobras sponsor...

[denisjp]

Williams used Petronas in 2014. In 2015 they switched to Petrobras. Each time I recall Felipe talking about a less powerful PU than Mercedes, I always think it is partially related to Petrobras fuel being less efficient.

[Gridlock]

Fuel *and* lubricants. I think the latter makes a surprising difference.

[LookBackTime]

In 2015 Williams used PetroNAS fuel and lubricants.
PetroBRAS could not deliver the products to Williams F1 because they did not get access to Mercedes engine data.

An insider from one of the Mercedes clients said that last year all the clients HAD a least one step back of fuel and lubricants from PetroNAS. Sometime even more steps back.
Time difference between Mercedes Team and the rest of their clients could be as big as .6 sec per lap only from using the latest version of fuel and lubricants. Quite amazing !

One more info: difference between last spec of Mercedes engine and the previous one was .4 sec per lap

[tomazy]

Pat Symonds answered som questions from fans on tweeter:

can this years car be a race winner and bring williams back on the top step of the podium

https://twitter.com/WilliamsRacing/stat ... 7474626561

How are you working towards the slow corners weakness of the chassis?

https://twitter.com/WilliamsRacing/stat ... 1185656832

The FW37 was quick on straights. Will we see that again on the FW38? Or will there be more downforce

https://twitter.com/murphy945/status/688416716171382784 https://twitter.com/WilliamsRacing

[LookBackTime]

Pat Symonds answer: The FW38 will have more downforce and with that comes drag. We've worked hard to maintain efficiency targets #ASI16 WILLIAMS RACING added,
Junaid #JB17FOREVER @JunaidSamodien_
@WilliamsRacing @Autosport_Show #AskPat The FW37 was quick on straights. Will we see that again on the FW38? Or will there be more downforce

[Juzh]

He didn't really answer anything, did he? Just a bunch of generic stuff you can hear daily.

[LookBackTime]

The revealing of the FW38 will be on track in Barcelona on February 22nd. Smedley announced it on Sky Sports.

[Sevach]

He didn't really answer anything, did he? Just a bunch of generic stuff you can hear daily.

He more or less anounced a change in design focus didn't he?

No one is gonna tell a "super secret suspension layout" at this stage.


Launch scheduled for Feburary 22 at Barcelona btw, fingers crossed =D>
I wonder if we will get renders of the car before that...

[LookBackTime]

WILLIAMS FW38 WILL BE READY FOR BARCELONA
18 January, 2016

The 2016 Williams car – the FW38 – will be ready to run on the opening day of Formula 1 pre-season testing next month in Spain.

“There will be no glamorous unveiling,” chief engineer Rob Smedley said at an auto racing show on the weekend. “We will run the car for the first time on 22 February in Barcelona.”

Having finished the constructors’ world championship in third place for the past two seasons, there are high hopes but technical boss Pat Symonds smiled that there are also “millions of reasons” why Ferrari sped past in 2015.

He is referring to the big difference between the budget of F1’s top independent team, and the grandees like Ferrari and Mercedes.

Nonetheless, Valtteri Bottas declared last week that he thinks winning in 2016 is “quite possible” for the Grove based team.

But on the 20th anniversary of his 1996 world title for Williams, Damon Hill questioned whether the team can ever win as a mere Mercedes customer.

“I think as a team wanting to win the outright championship, strategically they would be better off with another engine,” Hill told Sky. “And I think the only other engine you can think of is a Honda.”

[turbof1]

I'll update launchdates in our key threads topic:

http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... 23#p611123

They'll be shown right next to the car name and relevant topic