Mercedes W07 Speculation Thread

[drunkf1fan]

Also Kvyat's accident put paid to a few second runs in Q3.

And neither Hamilton nor Rosberg made particularly good bankers.

On top of all the above reasons, you simply have slightly different tack temps at a given point, different engine capacity/life left and many other things going on.

This year had a much more tactical engine usage, Merc do Barcelona on the same engine they started the season with, deciding to take a huge distance on the first engine to let the second engine be the upgraded one. In my mind Merc saw what an advantage they had after Australia, got a full weekend of data from all the teams and at that point decided they could turn down the engines on all teams and stretch to Canada on the one engine.

In terms of race distances, some races just have a situation where the gap is so big you stop pushing. Was it barcelona Hamilton got stuck behind Vettel, meaning rather than two Merc's pushing each other start to finish, Vettel held up one Merc, Rosberg didn't have to push and a slower race time would be expected.

Multiple races had faster qualifying and race pace, direct comparisons using one or two races to decide a whole season wasn't faster (or was faster) just isn't possible as there are far too many factors in play.

[WaikeCU]

I feel like Mercedes haven't shown their full potential at all tbh. Most of the time I believe they were controlling the race and the gaps behind them. Managing everything till the end of the race. So therefor I think that there were far more things in the pipeline in '14 and '15, but weren't put to use at all during the season, simply because they could afford it with the pace they had on the field. Instead they were focused on building German tanks that hardly fail mechanically. I expect it to be the same for 2016. Perhaps this time they won't have any mechanical failures at all. If they feel like Ferrari closing in, they simply send some new parts that should have gone sooner on the cars and they'll suddenly be a few tenths quicker per lap.

[GoranF1]

HOW DO THEY DO IT? BEHIND THE SCENES SNEAK PEAK AT MERCEDES’ F1 ENGINE BASE

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2016/02/h ... gine-base/

[De Jokke]

Crash test passed



http://www.f1analisitecnica.com/2016/02 ... tml?m=1#sp

[De Jokke]

Fascinating insight from @MercedesAMGF1 today on why there is 'no stopping' its engine gains in 2016

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/merce ... 16-671911/

[dans79]

Fascinating insight from @MercedesAMGF1 today on why there is 'no stopping' its engine gains in 2016

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/merce ... 16-671911/

I would liked to have seen an exact quote for this, Cowell doesn't seem like the kind of guy that would openly boast about something like this.

Cowell confirmed that the Mercedes engine was now delivering in excess of 900bhp.

[De Jokke]

http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/form ... 68318.html

According to this article, Mercedes didn't go full beans the last few races and can now use that "excessive" power to their use to keep the gap to ferrari. They only used 7! tokens of the available 32 for the new engine, it says
The rest, they'll save for the 2nd half of the season.
+ they'll go for a higher nose.

[ringo]

that can be a good thing for the other teams. It means the developments Mercedes have made didn't bring much to an already well developed PU, so it was best to save the tokens for a rainy day.

[Moose]

http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/form ... 68318.html

According to this article, Mercedes didn't go full beans the last few races and can now use that "excessive" power to their use to keep the gap to ferrari. They only used 7! tokens of the available 32 for the new engine, it says
The rest, they'll save for the 2nd half of the season.
+ they'll go for a higher nose.

Unless I've missed something, they can't keep tokens for late season this year, unless the FIA --- up the homologation date again.

[ME4ME]

They can use the 32 available tokens however they want this season. However it makes no sense anymore to save them untill the end, because in 2017 the token system goes into the bin. You'd expect them to use as many tokens as they usefully can at the start of the season. Well that's my oppinion anyway.

[turbof1]

They can use the 32 available tokens however they want this season. However it makes no sense anymore to save them untill the end, because in 2017 the token system goes into the bin. You'd expect them to use as many tokens as they usefully can at the start of the season. Well that's my oppinion anyway.

No, that's actually the wrong way to handle it. Look at how that turned out for Renault last year: rushing out updates, only to have giantic issues which dragged on for the rest of the season.

They should spend them, even if those are only very, very small improvements. But only if they are sure it does not harm reliability.

I also believe the reason why the have spend that little tokens is partly down on the fact that the turbo and exhaust don't need tokens because the regulations around it changed, which gave them a free upgrade on those.

[Stalker1]

Maybe it is a beginning of psychological war with Ferrari? I do not doubt in the ability of Mercedes to extract more perfomance out of their package if the need arises, but nobody knows exactly, where is Ferrari?

[ME4ME]

No, that's actually the wrong way to handle it. Look at how that turned out for Renault last year: rushing out updates, only to have giantic issues which dragged on for the rest of the season.

They should spend them, even if those are only very, very small improvements. But only if they are sure it does not harm reliability.

Like I said, as many as they usefully can. I did not say rush development, nor do I think Mercedes are as disorganized as Renault was last year.

I also believe the reason why the have spend that little tokens is partly down on the fact that the turbo and exhaust don't need tokens because the regulations around it changed, which gave them a free upgrade on those.

You already take this AMuS rumor as a fact? I thought facts were preserved until the actual car was unveiled and a new W07 thread opened

[turbof1]

No I have not. Speculation thread you know, so that's what you and I are doing: speculating. In reality, we'll only get to know that when we arrive in Melbourne.

It will make sense however that Mercedes, and probably also the others, will spend les tokens then expected at the beginning of the season. That free upgrade is really significant. I also believe most if not all manufacturers will have quite a few token points left over at the end. There will be no strategic use for them for next year, and they might not have enough tokens left to make any useful alterations at that point.

It'll depend on the gains made by Ferrari. If the advantage Mercedes has, is in danger, they might start taking risks actually.

[ferkan]

I'm almost completely sure AMUS is right on this one. They were right last year as well. PUs are now already getting into chassis for testing in Barcelona so someone from Merc probably leaked it to them.

In any case, AMUS and Omnicorse get alot of stuff right, especially AMUS. People were trowing rocks at them when they said Renault has big engine knocking problem, and Omnicorse saying that Honda has centrifugal compressor set inside V of an engine rather then axial (and that they won't be able to fix fundamental problems with it till next year) but it proved to be right.

In general there are couple sites that get legit info from whatever the source they can, best one IMO is f1analisitecnica from Italy. For whatever the reason the guys there have info on Ferrari and Mercedes days/weeks before anyone else has, maybe because guys writing on it are actual engineers so they have connection but they are spot on.