F1 2019 Pre-Season Testing Thread

[gandharva]

As an aside this is how you know the entire f1 press core is full of sh** these days.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/14169 ... -advantage

Present data, and then spend the rest of the article stating why its worthless. They even missed a good reason why its worthless, namely being none of the teams could reproduce the gaps Pirelli is predicting.

Even better: Gary Anderson took those Pirelli gaps and used it for his current ranking where Renault then came out as the second fastest car. I instantly canceled my prime subscribtion after raiding this pile of ---.

[LostInTranslation]

Another interesting point of view.

Mark Hughes.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/opin ... -f1-test-1

[Phil]

I'm very much curious to see if their car and the concept they have chosen allows them to close that gap or if they will be behind indeed once the season hits off.

What has set the Mercedes apart in the V6 era, is that, they have always followed their own aero philosophy. While 2014-16 was a cake walk, when they turned up with a longest wheel base in 2017 and with lowest rake, there were doubts in winter testing. There were rumors that, when Mercedes tried the higher rake, they were losing downforce and hence had to stick to lower rake. For large part of the season, they got flak for that philosophy as they struggled on slow corners (and slower tracks). There was almost a certain guaranteed speculation that, Mercedes would return to shorter wheel base for 2018, but yet again, they turned with the same philosophy, whereas Ferrari surprised everyone by going for longer wheel base!

While in both 2017 and 2018, Ferrari started with faster car out of the box, Mercedes were struggling in taming the 'diva' W08 and 'diva-ish' W09. In both of those seasons, at various points, Ferrari had better PU. This might very well be a RB 2012 like season for Mercedes. It might very well be, with the might of development and problem solving capabilities that they have demonstrated in the past 2 years. Who knows! I expect Mercedes to move ahead with their aero philosophy and fine tune it to yield the expected performance. All the teams have plans of bringing significant aero upgrades for Test 2. It would be very interesting to see what those upgrades are gonna look and perform like. Let's enjoy the Winter Test 2.

Arguably, low-rake worked for them so brilliantly because they developed extensively around the problem (i.e. FRIC and later iterations, that then were banned) and found solutions for it, not because low-rake was per se better. Mercedes knows their concept because that's what they've used for many years. Going high-rake would introduce lots of unknowns, new territory so to speak. They'd be way out of their comfort zone by going radically different from that.

The fancy suspensions have been banned and this year introduces more new changes with the front-wing, so perhaps we are moving into territory that marks the end of a successful era without high-rake. Maybe. Of course, PU performance is one of the big factors too that has allowed them to go so far using an alternate philosophy, but as I already said, that PU advantage is now over, at least vs. Ferrari.

[GPR-A]

Arguably, low-rake worked for them so brilliantly because they developed extensively around the problem (i.e. FRIC and later iterations, that then were banned) and found solutions for it, not because low-rake was per se better. Mercedes knows their concept because that's what they've used for many years. Going high-rake would introduce lots of unknowns, new territory so to speak. They'd be way out of their comfort zone by going radically different from that.

The fancy suspensions have been banned and this year introduces more new changes with the front-wing, so perhaps we are moving into territory that marks the end of a successful era without high-rake. Maybe. Of course, PU performance is one of the big factors too that has allowed them to go so far using an alternate philosophy, but as I already said, that PU advantage is now over, at least vs. Ferrari.

Mercedes lost the PU advantage in 2017 itself, but yet, they have followed the low rake philosophy with elongated wheel base. It's hard to believe that, everyone is being made to accept that high rake is the best philosophy and there are no alternatives. Oversimplification at it's best. It's like the season of Superheroes and Animation in Hollywood and that is the best formula to rake in the moolah. It definitely is, but that's the ONLY thing.
FRIC was banned in 2015! That was a long time ago, but yet there are avenues that helps garner back the advantage, even with the traditional suspensions.

There was a time when high noses were the flavor of the season and not anymore, but you see how designers adapt their thought process to bring back the performance. The day an engineer/designer accepts that there are no alternatives, he would be lying in his grave. Until Mercedes came to the fore, Newey's design ideas were the bible for engineers. Everybody copied RB as it was the easiest way to get performance.

Mercedes were the early adopters of out wash front wings and in came a point when even Red Bull copied that by ditching their own, established design. Same goes with the side pod inlets that Ferrari introduced in 2017. In my opinion, there can always be different ideas that can be equally successful, it's all about right people.

[Phil]

I didn't single out FRIC, I said FRIC and its (later) iterations. Of course, different concepts offer different strengths. To take Mercedes concept however and assume it's the best because they won 5 championships while neglecting to mention the large PU advantage (in what is predominantly still an "engine-formula") they had is a gross simplification. Tire wear is arguably also one of the biggest factors in extracting performance and again, high-rake offers distinct advantages in that sense.

I find it extraordinary that Mercedes have performed as well as they have, even last year. It's no small accomplishment that race to race, they have showed up and found the perfect balance to make their car work as best as possible. In 2017, this worked very much in their favor (Pirellis compound were very conservative). Last year less so, but they still found ways despite evidently a much smaller working-window. Make no mistake however; Mercedes/Hamilton won in 2018 not because they had the best (technical) package, but because as a team they extracted the best possible results, even on the days they weren't fastest. And most importantly, they capitalized on those days when the opposition shot themselves.

Again, I'm not saying that their low-rake concept doesn't offer it's fair share of advantages too, but at the end of the day, the sheer fact that everyone is going the other route should raise some questions. But considering the amount of experience Mercedes has with it, I fully understand why they are keeping with it. But will it still prevail this year with engine parity and the new front-wings? Now that is the question.

[GPR-A]

Somewhere you are ignoring the fact that, after the first 3 years where they had PU advantage, they were even with Ferrari on PU part for the past two years.

Nobody can drive a car more than what it is capable of, neither Hamilton. The car has to be capable of it for a driver to drive it and a team to execute it well. Of course some "difficult to master" cars require more talented drivers to extract the best out of it and last two years have been such for Mercedes. But the car worked, without necessarily having any kind of PU advantage over Ferrari. While it was popularly believed that the longer wheel base is detrimental in slower corners, the W09 excelled in Singapore which was a nightmare circuit for Mercedes up until last year and retained it's strengths on Suzuka, which was nick named Red Bull circuit due to it's high down force demands.

[Phil]

I'm really not sure what you are arguing here. That the long-wheel-base car struggles in slow corners is and was a myth. Best to move on from that, no one brought that up. What however isn't a myth, is that a high-rake car offers an advantage in regards to driveability (among others) as it can ride a softer suspension at the rear. Mercedes were able to mitigate many disadvantages earlier with their trick-suspensions and of course power advantage that they now no longer have.

I am well aware that Mercedes lost the power advantage since 2017 (I'd say 2018 definitely, they still had a small edge in 2017, mainly qualifying), but as I already mentioned, the tires were very conservative, so to a large degree, tires were easier to manage. This wasn't the case last year and they suffered for it. Still, they pulled through, not because Hamilton outdrove the car (again, I never said anything to imply that), but because Mercedes as a team extracted the most from their package while also capitalizing on huge mistakes by their competitors. You also bring up Singapore, however fail to highlight that at that particular race, Ferrari went off in the wrong direction with their upgrades.

I have to ask; what exactly are you arguing here? That the long-wheel-base-car/low-rake concept is a winner in 2019? As a friendly reminder; the formula has changed. What was best in 2017 and 2018 doesn't necessarily apply in 2019 due to the numerous changes. Again, I'm not saying Mercedes can't prevail in 2019 again because of their design choice - I am saying that I think it'll be extremely difficult. More credit to them if they pull it off, but I am really not taking anything for granted at this point. And while most people are thinking Mercedes are simply playing games and that this is just testing 1 (aka "irrelevant"), I honestly believe they are going to face quite an uphill battle.

[GPR-A]

Simple answer. You started with,
1. How Mercedes is going to struggle with low rake because high rake is the way to go, especially without fancy suspensions.
2. That they had PU advantage and that is why they could overcome the disadvantage of low rake.

The instances I gave about longer wheel base, different noses is to point you that, there can be different aero philosophies that can be equally effective. Even without PU advantage, the differing philosophies have worked well for Mercedes and there is no reason to believe that high rake is the way to go.

[LostInTranslation]

Can I say mine? You are only two half saws. Mercedes and Ferrari would be proud to hire someone like you. What are you waiting to apply for?

[PhillipM]

High rake has disadvantages just as low rake does - you have to design your geometry with more compromises to deal with the extra travel if you're using it to run a soft rear, you have to go for less peak aero and instead more that works over larger AoA changes, etc. Neither is better per-se than the other, as Merc have well proven.

[Tzk]

What however isn't a myth, is that a high-rake car offers an advantage in regards to driveability (among others) as it can ride a softer suspension at the rear. Mercedes were able to mitigate many disadvantages earlier with their trick-suspensions and of course power advantage that they now no longer have.

Just a thought:
Wouldn't a long-wheelbase car with low rake have low(er) lateral forces, due to the wheelbase? So you could at least make the heave element of the suspension softer? Also couldn't you use anti-squat and anti-dive kinematics to somewhat overcome these issues, even without trick suspension?

I'm not so sure that the redbull concept with shorter wheelbase and very high rake is necessarily better than the low(est) rake, long wheelbase concept of the mercs. Ferrari is inbetween with wheelbase and rake.

[Sierra117]

I have a friend who is a rally champion and has very advanced level of practical experience and knowledge of engineering and he clearly prefers the overall advantages of a low rake long wheelbase.

[PhillipM]

I'm pretty sure that would be for very, very different reasons to an F1 car....

[Sierra117]

He wasn't speaking it in relation to a particular category, it was an engineering pov that we were discussing.

Merc know what they're doing. There's a reason why Ferrari also went for a longer wheelbase and coincidentally had a better car too. They wouldn't do that if shorter was working great with their existing rake. The day we have 4-5 Monaco replicas they'll all switch to shorter wheelbases.

[Mandrake]

According to AMuS the problem of driving behind another car has not been solved. It has, if anything, worsened....

https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... geln-2019/