Mercedes W09 Speculation Thread

[Mattchu]

What's it called? I'll have to look it up.

"How to Build a Car" by Adrian Newey, it`s come down in price quite a bit...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Build-Car- ... rian+Newey

p.s. Pm me if you wan`t an epub version...mods please remove if this is against any rules.

[garyjpaterson]

Neweys book is hilarious regarding Ferrari - talks about 3-4 separate cases in his career where, upon finding out they cannot make it work properly, they ask for 'clarification' and get it banned.

What's it called? I'll have to look it up.

Adrian Newey's How to Build a Car. It an autobiography, but goes into some detail with some of the more interesting aspects of various cars he's been involved with.

[SectorOne]

Why does it have to be a choice between high-rake/short car vs low rake/long car?
Or does it?

Seems long car/high rake would net you the most DF?

[OO7]

Why does it have to be a choice between high-rake/short car vs low rake/long car?
Or does it?

Seems long car/high rake would net you the most DF?

It doesn't, take Force India's 2017 car for instance.

[Just_a_fan]

Why does it have to be a choice between high-rake/short car vs low rake/long car?
Or does it?

Seems long car/high rake would net you the most DF?

One issue is keeping the air happy on a long car with high rake. The harder you work the air, the harder it is to keep it attached etc. There will be a sweet spot where length and rake give the best result. Likely that sweet spot is smaller on a long high rake car than a shorter high rake car.

[Maritimer]

Long wheelbase and high rake would give you the most peak downforce to be sure, but the car would end up being slower since your operating window would be so limited. Too much would have to go into controlling the airflow and the car would be even worse in traffic than this year's car was.

[PlatinumZealot]

If w08 was made with a 10% tolerance on aero, suspension and chassis... Imagine the filthy beast that will be the w09!

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/merc ... gn-990752/

[Just_a_fan]

The 10% could be one reason for the long wheelbase, of course. Get the rest sorted, shorten it and play with the rake.

[roon]

Given Merc's level of development and speed thereof, I would not be surprised to see Merc take the middle route--a both short and long wheelbase car. Changing gearbox casings, floor and engine-cover per track-type. SWB mode for Monaco and the like. LWB mode for Monza and such. Maybe even an intermediate mode. Only thing to stop them is traditional development limits. Will the W09 be a transformer?

[dren]

The supposed 10% was built in for set-up adjustability for 2017. The article stated that the actual issues they ran into weren't in the 10% adjustability window they built into the car. So there is improvement in removing that 10% and optimizing it. Overall, I figure the car will look very similar to last year's car, with maybe some suspension mounting modifications.

[f1316]

From the article it seems the 10% is primarily a packaging thing - I.e. not shrinkwrapping for absolute peak performance but allowing 10% tolerance for adjustment should they need it, perhaps for things like cooling, weight distribution etc.

But the issues they had seemed to be more tyre related, so this kind of loose packaging would be of little benefit for those types of things.

[PlatinumZealot]

The 10% could be one reason for the long wheelbase, of course. Get the rest sorted, shorten it and play with the rake.

Not in that sense i would think. 10% allowance means give or take in either dierection. Long wheel base is not something that is easily reversible or give or take IMO. I have a hunch the allowances were for the aerodynamic structures that are formed. You give those and the surfaces they interact with a large margin for play. For the suspension, the same. You try to make the tyre working range broad (this back fired actually! ).
The long wheel base and low rake was the opposite idealogy, as that tends to be unforgiving if you get it wrong, so I presume the team strongly believed in the long wheel base concept and it was never in question. So possibly 2017 new things" like aero features, barge boards, brakes and the tyres were the things that they created the allowance for.

[PlatinumZealot]

Given Merc's level of development and speed thereof, I would not be surprised to see Merc take the middle route--a both short and long wheelbase car. Changing gearbox casings, floor and engine-cover per track-type. SWB mode for Monaco and the like. LWB mode for Monza and such. Maybe even an intermediate mode. Only thing to stop them is traditional development limits. Will the W09 be a transformer?

Toto confirmed that long wheelbase will remain. Can't find the article though!

[ClarkBT11]

There were tolerances in the W08, Mercedes can be more aggressive with the W09 is the gist of the story. I've read the article a couple of months ago, but can't find it. Motorsport are writing Mercedes(Alison) are thinking about the red bull "high rake" design, are they confident they can keep the floor attached... They haven't in the past?

[Maritimer]

They must be able to roll up some monster voceces with their bargeboards to pull that off.