2016 Singapore Grand Prix - Marina Bay, 16-18 September

[bhall II]

Note for any pedants, not all corners were won by the Mercedes. But it won more than it lost through the twisties, and with less rear wing.

It's simply not possible to discern between various performance characteristics from such limited input. I asked earlier how people were able to draw any conclusions in that regard, because I was hoping for something more than those speed figures. That sort of stuff can only be taken at face value.

From last season...

Firstly, he told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport that the W06 is not designed for street tracks like Singapore.

“The aero characteristics of our car is for efficiency,” Lowe said, “so that’s maximum downforce with as little drag as possible. That is why we are so strong on circuits like Suzuka and Spa.

“And that’s why we find tracks where only maximum downforce is required more difficult,” he added, explaining that because Red Bull for instance is down on power, they have a completely different approach to car design.

Lowe said Mercedes’ designers divide the 19 current circuits into 3 categories: street tracks Monaco and Singapore, high-speed tracks Spa and Monza, and ‘the rest’.

“We have optimised our car for the rest,” he revealed, adding that the second priority is the fastest tracks.

“Since wind tunnel time is limited, you have to decide where you put your priorities,” said Lowe, who thinks Mercedes also made setup mistakes in Singapore.

“Singapore was also our weakest circuit last year,” he recalled.

Nothing about either team's philosophy appears to have changed since last year. So, I don't know why Paddy Lowe understood Red Bull's strategy then but can't understand it now...unless it's all just empty gamesmanship that people are inexplicably treating as gospel.

Mercedes' development strategy emphasizes downforce/drag ratio while Red Bull's development strategy emphasizes downforce coefficient, and that makes them all but incomparable aside from whatever can be gleaned from basic generalizations. (Note: downforce isn't necessarily linear.)

[djos]

As for Silverstone....Red Bull clearly ran far more rear wing than Mercedes...allied to rake and a larger surface area on the front wing. Basically a drag block...
https://www.formula1.com/content/fom-we ... medium.jpg

https://www.formula1.com/content/fom-we ... medium.jpg

I mean it's clear as day.
You cant sit and hide behind the engines, when Mercedes were beating Red Bull through corners with less wing!
Note for any pedants, not all corners were won by the Mercedes. But it won more than it lost through the twisties, and with less rear wing.

All those pictures prove is that RedBull use a completely different design rear wing than Mercedes do.

The design of the lower element's in particular and the way they cascade into the top element is completely different and I don't think you can easily say one is producing substantially more drag / downforce than the other without more evidence.

[FoxHound]

It aint simple.

But when you are given information as we have been in regards to silverstone, its golden.

Simple idiotic rhetoric that has been flogged by some pedants to be a holding constant, that the engine decides who wins, is flawed and a falsification.

I keep saying it, but i keep reading the bullshit excuses here.

That being said, the Mercedes PU has an advantage. Obviously people will focus on that statement.

Would Red Bull win more with a Merc PU? If you grafted it on the back of an RB12, I'd give it half a season to get anywhere near a fully integrated Renault PU RB12.

For every team there are compromises to reach their absolute best time. And we see that every race weekend.
But i dont see how you do that with a fat rear wing(comparative) if your engine is "down 60bhp".

The narrative is pushed on us despite the gap in horsepower being no issue for them to fit a clearly larger and more draggy wing.
Speed differentials at silverstone would show up clearly and in a very predictable way.

Only they didnt.

So either they are not 60bhp down or they are stalling that rear wing in ways the Jedi have yet to learn.

[bhall II]

Speed differentials at silverstone would show up clearly and in a very predictable way.

That's prejudicially reinventing calculus in order to satisfy the requirements for an unrelated conclusion, and it's true of anyone who looks at that data and draws from it anything beyond "car-X exhibited speed-Y at location-Z." The more you take from it, the further from reality you stray.

I don't have a (prancing) horse in this race, because it's too busy putting together a very compelling argument that it should be allowed to compete in the Special Olympics. I just hate seeing fodder treated as fact. We're better than that.

[FoxHound]

Speed differentials at silverstone would show up clearly and in a very predictable way.

That's prejudicially reinventing calculus in order to satisfy the requirements for an unrelated conclusion, and it's true of anyone who looks at that data and draws from it anything beyond "car-X exhibited speed-Y at location-Z." The more you take from it, the further from reality you stray.

I don't have a (prancing) horse in this race, because it's too busy putting together a very compelling argument that it should be allowed to compete in the Special Olympics. I just hate seeing fodder treated as fact. We're better than that.

That fodder is as much a reality as anything I've seen.

If car X exhibits speed Y at location Z, thats a reference point.
Because if car X achieves speed (A/B/C)
over locations (A/B/C) the cumulative effect will be lap time.

I don't see prejudice if 2 cars are measured fairly in both straights and corners.
Besides this I certainly take the point that the 2 cars are very different as to how they operate to achieve their lap time.

One thing though Ben, when you say Red Bull emphasise drag coefficient, is that Cd per Kg DF?

[bhall II]

Downforce coefficient, not drag coefficient. Think of it as total downforce.

I don't see prejudice if 2 cars are measured fairly in both straights and corners.

It's prejudicial because of the arbitrary decision to treat those figures as a reflection of horsepower, downforce, and drag, largely to the exclusion of other characteristics that are nonetheless equally valid, especially since the margins are inconsistent and razor thin.

For example, since there's nothing at all in those numbers to dispel such a notion, one could just as easily conclude that both cars have the same horsepower, downforce, and drag, and only settings related to tire management distinguish one from the other.

[FoxHound]

Downforce coefficient, not drag coefficient. Think of it as total downforce.

By your suggestion, or my assumption of it.....

Red Bull focus on total DF, with Mercedes looking at getting the most it's DF/drag ratio?

It's prejudicial because of the arbitrary decision to treat those figures as a reflection of horsepower, downforce, and drag, largely to the exclusion of other characteristics that are nonetheless equally valid, especially since the margins are inconsistent and razor thin.

For example, since there's nothing at all in those numbers to dispel such a notion, one could just as easily conclude that both cars have the same horsepower, downforce, and drag, and only settings related to tire management distinguish one from the other.

It won't be the absolute truth, but it still gives as accurate a picture as cars being speed trapped down a straight.
We may be looking at it the wrong way, but the end results do not lie.

[NL_Fer]

I don't believe it is a choice. All teams are searching for a design that give high downforce low drag, efficient downforce so to say. Both Mercedes and Redbull found a design that has that efficient downforce that works for them. But ended up one design that leans more to high downforce on slower speeds, the other a less draggy car at high speeds.

[FoxHound]

I don't believe it is a choice. All teams are searching for a design that give high downforce low drag, efficient downforce so to say. Both Mercedes and Redbull found a design that has that efficient downforce that works for them. But ended up one design that leans more to high downforce on slower speeds, the other a less draggy car at high speeds.

That's my opinion.

And we've seen the Renault team hit top speeds in excess of Red Bull at a fair few events now.
Given the gutting of that team over the last 3 years, and the fact they spend 300 million dollars a year less than Red Bull, it aint because they have devised better Drag to Downforce ratio. If anything, they shouldn't get near Red Bull in the speed traps, as they have a car designed to use a Mercedes PU.

[diego.liv]

RE Monaco qualy, couldn't find the quote, but i recall Hamilton/Merc saying "RedBull can add more DF than us"..anyone recalls those comments?

[bhall II]

I agree that each car's performance characteristics in terms of downforce coefficient and downforce/drag ratio are the result of strategic decisions rather than the basis for those decisions. But I also think the teams do chase very different performance targets.

By focusing on the front of the floor, Mercedes seems to stress consistency, because that's an area of the car where, even on an undulating circuit like Spa, local ride height doesn't change much, which means the downforce coefficients of the individual components around the front of the floor also don't change much. Conversely, I think Red Bull's focus on the front wing via added rake is about generating maximum possible downforce.

If my ideas are correct, Red Bull's strategy comes at the expense of added pitch sensitivity since the front wing's ride height is much more dynamic than that of the leading edge of the floor. It also complicates the development of downstream aero components that have to be made to operate on the fringes of their respective performance envelopes in order to balance the car. Plus, it creates more drag.

The drawback to Mercedes' design is that the front wing must be relatively weak, or optimized for something other than peak downforce, in order for the strategy to be effective, and it's literally (literally) impossible for any car to generate maximum possible downforce if any part of it is deliberately weakened. It also makes the car more sensitive to wake turbulence, because it creates a more rearward center of pressure compared to others, and "dirty air" moves it back even farther. (Not really a problem if you're almost always up front, though.)

Ultimately, I think that's why we saw the dramatic shift in the running order at last year's Singapore GP. The short straights don't severely punish weaker power units, and the circuit's table-like topography doesn't reward consistency, because it makes every car consistent by default.

(I've never said RB12 exhibits more or less drag than W07, or anything of the sort, only my belief that the rationale put forth by others to support their ideas were invalid, in part because no one was [is] willing to acknowledge RB12's greater downforce. I genuinely don't know why that's such a problem, because it's completely irrelevant in and of itself.)

[iotar__]

Just to remind:
Vettel 1:43.885
Daniel Ricciardo 1:44.428

Lewis Hamilton 1:45.300
- 1,42 Ferrari [I thought (bad memory) that it was ~0,8 ]
- 0,87 RB

Considering the engine advantage (still there despite the track, tenths?) and overall advantage over the season I find it difficult to believe that it was track/car design problem worth over 1,5 s. Adding all the small variables - still not enough. Anyway should be similar now, shouldn't it? Unless they abandoned all the principles for '16.

[FoxHound]

@Ben

AMuS have their theory.

http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/form ... 38621.html

Goes with your line of thinking that Mercedes favour stability over outright DF. The more stable the platform, the better it uses its tyres.
Red Bull cottoned on to this and poached Pierre Guard(chassis guru) From Mercedes late last year/this year.

[bhall II]

Goes with your line of thinking that Mercedes favour stability over outright DF. The more stable the platform, the better it uses its tyres.
Red Bull cottoned on to this and poached Pierre Guard(chassis guru) From Mercedes late last year/this year.

I'm quicker than Red Bull.

For Mercedes, it also makes sense aerodynamically.

Components with a high downforce coefficient are generally only helpful at relatively low speeds when the cars are more traction-limited. The increased drag inherent to high downforce coefficients makes them a hindrance to performance the rest of the time.

So, if the driveability of a power unit is such that it minimizes problems with low-speed traction (and because the rules no longer permit flexible bodywork that cuts drag at higher speeds) why on Earth would it make sense to double down with unnecessary downforce?

I've been trying to steer the RB12 vs W07 chassis debate toward that conclusion for months!

[FoxHound]

Ahh yes but, in the AMuS story, Mercedes have had issues with too much power in the accelerative phase.

The cars are traction limited, up to which speed is anyones guess but we've seen Mercedes lay down black strips up to 120kmh.

I'm not suggesting the engine is not "driveable" but they do exhibit issues off the start attributed to the clutch, itself a critical part in any discussion in terms of driveability.
The suspension itself could help at higher speeds, where other teams do not have this hydraulic set up. Just a theory...