ClarkBT11 wrote: ↑27 Apr 2017, 03:10
F1Krof wrote: ↑27 Apr 2017, 01:07
This is just an assumption. I do not believe it to be true. The circumstance is same for every team. I strongly believe that the tire problem is down to the way they have built their car. They must have done some bad calculations somewhere whilst trying to push to the limit. The compromise is that they have ended up with a car who's a bit overly (in relative terms) hungry on rubber.
Remember 10' 11' 12' 13' , all W0x had rubber problems. Its one weakness the team always found it to be difficult to extract max performance. They surely got better at it, especially in 14' 15' 16' , but again they had a massive headsup time and massive pace advantage in this era.
This time around though... it is going to be very interesting to see the development. They had to do it quickly before Red Bull catches up, otherwise Seb and Ferrari are going to run away.
It's more than a assumption, the two teams which have had their suspension overruled by the FIA are struggling slightly with their setup. It's going to take a little more time to get their cars into the right window without the planned suspension designed for this year. So yes I think Mercedes do need more time with representative conditions and definitely in Bahrain were the track is the most abrasive one on the calendar.
Well, it looks like we are missing some understanding related to the suspensions. So, let me shed some light and where Mercedes and Red Bull are trying to go with their trick suspensions.
There are fundamentally two major advantages of a great suspension system (and there are many more).
1. Good tire management.
2. Stable aero profile for straights and cornering. (This is what Mercedes and Red Bull are chasing)
The issues that Mercedes faced from 2010-2013 are behind them. Their whole philosophy has changed with time and with the arrival of a number great people like like Mike Elliott, Geoff Willis, Aldo Costa and Paddy Lowe, they are over their tire management issues. They have enough technical strength, knowledge and simulation tools at their disposal to get that sorted. If one remembers, they started 2015 with similar headache and then got over it after a few GPs.
Now, coming back to the two points highlighted above, the first one is not a headache anymore. LIke I mentioned, it is much easier to sort out and I wouldn't be surprised, after the Bahrain test, if we would never hear the tire issues ever for the season.
The second point is what is more lucrative and the whole reason why Mercedes and RB have put in so much of effort. Mercedes started to reap the benefits of great mechanical grip for cornering from 2013, after they developed the FRIC suspension completely. They mastered it for 2014 (specifically after the arrival of Aldo and Paddy, who both are suspension specialists from the start of their careers). You can see the videos of W05 and how smooth it used to corner, ride the curbs and obviously reduced ride height. They got it absolutely perfect as they completely mitigated the diving problems that happen on breaking and cornering. By removing the negative effects of diving, they managed to keep the car aerodynamically stable to get out of the corners with better speeds. With an inefficient suspension, when a car rides the curbs aggressively, the car gets thrown out of shape. Mercedes suspension allowed them to overcome that problem too. So all in all, they had a car that was not diving in the corner, maintained stable aero profile for cornering, rode the curbs extremely smooth and had a low ride height. That enhanced their performances on all types of circuits and all types of corners. You can watch the W05 and W06 videos.
If you notice, when the FRIC was banned in mid-2015, it hardly affected the tire performance of the car. Though, they had tire issues at the beginning of the season while FRIC was still on the car! For 2016, they came up with another trick with the loop hole. The following explanation is taken from another forum.
All teams have a heave unit that connects the left and right front wheels which control the pitch based on the down force load and braking. Few images of heave units used by different teams- Ferrari, Red bull, Williams, STR, Mercedes. Conventionally teams have used springs and damping. The system Mercedes has in place uses a double acting hydraulic system and a series of values and accumulators to compress a remote spring they have mounted in the side pod, all of which tune the ideal spring effect into the suspension. The metal cylinder in the heave unit acts like a "J-Damper". Normal springs and dampers other teams use are no way near achieving the same effect. They used this only in Hungary and Germany. Not sure why it wasn't used at Spa. They revised the version they ran last year. It's more complex now. They can tune it get perfect hydraulic control of the remote spring. The system creates a similar effect to FRIC resulting in more control of the pitch and front end. It has an obvious aero advantage because lowering the ride height can improve wing performance.
For 2017, they were continuing to build from the last year's loop hole, which was closed when Ferrari raised objections.
So I hope people now understand where the ban has hurt. It is definitely not on the tire management part and like I said above, I wouldn't be surprised to see them overcoming the issue soon.
Engineers don't unlearn anything and I am sure both Mercedes and Red Bull would continue to chase to get the advantage back with different ways and would try to explore different avenues.
