Mercedes AMG F1 W07

[F1Krof]

If they needed to work the front wing to it's outright limit to balance the rear downforce, you'd see a lot of the conditioners disappear for pure downforce producing devices. That's when you're starting to get limited with a chassis because you start compromising downstream and overall downforce for balance.
I don't see any team doing that yet.

Balancing out the car by reducing downforce on the other end of the car isn't really a thing done commonly in top-level motorsports. Like said, the front wing is very important for rear downforce as well, and removing siad flow conditioners would hurt downforce(which then means you don't need to balance it with the front wing anymore, making the initial action virtually pointless). So to balance out the front without hurting the rear you need to push the AoA. That is why a lot of teams run a five-plane wing(and Red Bull even a six-plane), to be able to push the AoA, but attempting to reduce sensitivity.

I think the idea of sensitivity doesn't hold in this case. You cannot increase the aoa without impacting the sensitivity at the same time. Every degree of disbalance on DF front to rear will be felt, especially in high speed corners.

This is the reason I believe Merc couldn't go with the blown wheel hub, they're simply using the front wing's upper corner as proxy to reshape the airflow sideways of the tyres and added an extra element just for this purpose. Whilst in Ferrari, Williams and Red Bull's case they have this area where they can use the front wing explicitely for pure down force and channeling the airflow inwards to the t-tray and difuse it to the rear underwash.

Again, what's the limiting factor? Its the Nose, they couldn't compromise the yaw balance which is mostly needed in high speed corners which we all know Merc has the advantage. The nose shape is the factor that gives them this balance, hence any change on it would reflect in poorer performance in highspeed curves. This is where I think the dilema rose, they stuck with their advantage on high speed hoping that they would increase the overall performance in mid and low corners with their serrations on t'tray and bargeboards. Very delicate margins they're running on, can't see how they would develope further without changing the nose shape.

[zioture]

Formula 1 Video comparison Rear @ScuderiaFerrari vs @MercedesAMGF1

[flickerf1]

Review on Mercedes' S-duct w/ Giorgio Piola and Matt Somerfield:
http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/tech- ... el-677769/

[zioture]

[A-Bap]

Still very curious to know the delta between old nose and the new one, and the same for the picket fence barge board.

With respect to the latter, it does seems rather draggy, which make me wonder if we'll only see it on high downforce circuits.

What's got me thinking about all this is the speed trap data. Hamilton's speed trap numbers were OK--on par with one would expect, but Rosberg was the toilet--way down. What I am getting at is that neither driver was hitting top speeds consistent with the supposed gains in PU output. (Sector one would be a natural and easy place to sandbag, wouldn't it?)

That they used it constantly during testing is also interesting. If Im right about where it's going to be used, the team might not have been too concerned with complete lap times, but very much interested in what was happening in sectors two and three.

I'd love to dive into this, but be don't have any sector times, do we?

With that its going to be very interesting to see if they use the kitted up version of the car at Australia or revert back to the day-one testing trim. That will be very telling.

[SiLo]

I think it depends on whether Rosberg was using DRS for his runs.

[F1NAC]

On this video he did use DRS ..

[A-Bap]

On this video he did use DRS ..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoVTceoJ-4Q

Now I'm even more curious about the speed trap data. (Also raises questions about the delta between Nico and Lewis. )

But back to the fence/bargeboard, it really does seem like a draggy but high DF solution, and I'm almost ready to conclude that Merc had to be following a deeper development testing plan that focused on sectors 2 and 3. Again, also a good/easy way to hide true engine performance across all fuel loads.

[SectorOne]

Maybe they had one guy run heavy fuel/high engine mode and the other low fuel/low engine mode.

[A-Bap]

Maybe they had one guy run heavy fuel/high engine mode and the other low fuel/low engine mode.

Well yes. I think that's a given. But they were certainly going beyond such elementary testing.

[ringo]

I don't see anything to sugges that it is more draggy.
The frontal area isn't much more than the usual barge boards because of the multiple gaps.
most of the drag may come from vortices, but no real evidence exists to say how much of it is considerable drag.

[SectorOne]

Maybe they had one guy run heavy fuel/high engine mode and the other low fuel/low engine mode.

Well yes. I think that's a given. But they were certainly going beyond such elementary testing.

And beyond in this case means...?

[A-Bap]

I don't see anything to sugges that it is more draggy.
The frontal area isn't much more than the usual barge boards because of the multiple gaps.
most of the drag may come from vortices, but no real evidence exists to say how much of it is considerable drag.

On a fundamental level, there's much more surface area meeting the flow than with a standard bargeboard, and therefore more points of flow energization. Energizing air costs power.

[A-Bap]

Maybe they had one guy run heavy fuel/high engine mode and the other low fuel/low engine mode.

Well yes. I think that's a given. But they were certainly going beyond such elementary testing.

And beyond in this case means...?

As I kind of said above, there is something peculiar about Mercedes' test data. With their much advertised PU advance, I was expecting them to be even more dominant. I believe that reason they weren't quite so dominant is that their focus wasn't fixed on overall lap times.

While we were all watching total lap times, Merc was taking it easy in sector 1, and testing and optimizing their new aero bits for high DF tracks in Sectors 2 and 3--that was their focus. For them, sectors with main straits aren't a concern because they're confident enough in their power that they can pretty much ignore that factor. This also conveniently hides their true performance.

[SectorOne]

As I kind of said above, there is something peculiar about Mercedes' test data. With their much advertised PU advance, I was expecting them to be even more dominant. I believe that reason they weren't quite so dominant is that their focus wasn't fixed on overall lap times.

While we were all watching total lap times, Merc was taking it easy in sector 1, and testing and optimizing their new aero bits for high DF tracks in Sectors 2 and 3--that was their focus. For them, sectors with main straits aren't a concern because they're confident enough in their power that they can pretty much ignore that factor. This also conveniently hides their true performance.

My post was originally aimed at the top speed disrepancy between Hamilton and Rosberg and solely that.