Mercedes-AMG F1 W10 EQ Power+

[Sevach]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/merc ... s/4343462/

Mercedes on FW concepts.

[dren]

I wonder if we'll see some more push rod attachment solutions.

"We were struggling a bit over the week to find a good balance for all the corners.

"There were some corners that were good, some corners we would have balance issues and other corners [where] we would have massive balance issues.

"We were getting to a much better state at the end of the week, but some of the handling issues can only be sorted with some upgrades. We're hoping to fix those hopefully soon."

[SiLo]

All the focus on front wings and the Mercedes being slow rhetoric coming from the media absolutely benefits the media. It's going to generate more clicks and views if the article and headline says Mercedes is slow and Ferrari is fast because a lot of people are tired of Mercedes winning everything, even if they are seemingly doing it was class.

Regarding the testing performance - I think the temperatures could have been playing a bigger role than we think. On the harder tyres the car put down some very quick times, in line with Ferrari and their long run pace was once again incredibly quick and consistent.

[Coefficient]

I would like to suggest that Mercedes have been running in "concept validation spec" for the first test and will bring a freshly baked batch of carbon fibre muffins to attach to W10 during second test and promptly leap to the top of the field. Possibly not ahead of Ferrari but on a par with them.

[paulo_f1]

My favourite personal thought is track temperature related problems that you do not want to waste a lot of time correcting as that is not what you will be dealing with later in the year.

This, 100%. Been on my mind too. One of the problems with Barcelona as the pre-season test is that track temperatures are rarely representative of likely future conditions. There must be many tremendously tempting bear traps awaiting performance engineers and designers, where one could be fooled into making changes to the car which may work now in Barcelona, but which are dead ends at warmer future circuits.

I've always assumed it is one of the mystic skills of performance engineers to be able to set a car up across FP1 / FP2 for likely future conditions in quali and race when the track temperature may be different (Weather, time of day) and the track surface different (rubbering in etc.).

It's been the warmest pre season Barcelona test ever, albeit it's still cold in the morning, but the air temperature has been in the mid 20s during the afternoon with the track into the low 30s. This means it's fairly representative of Melbourne and several of the other European races...

It's hard to know how big their problems are, and we'll have a better picture at the end of this week, but Toto also said the car is pretty close to Melbourne spec, so hopefully they're not too far off.

If it is a front wing concept issue, this is a big problem, as the cars airflow will be optimised around their concept and it will be too big a job moving to a Ferrari style solution for it to be ready for the first few races.

[dans79]

His sound much more reasonable unlike the utter bs so much of the media spewed during the first week.

http://www.grandprix.com/news/nothing-f ... ottas.html

Explaining Mercedes' problem, Bottas said: "The tyre window is very small and the balance is on a knife's edge. We have problems in some corners and bigger problems in some others.

"But it also does not feel like something is fundamentally wrong with the car."

Team boss Toto Wolff denied that Mercedes is "sandbagging".

"You have to find a balance between not showing all your cards and developing a car that is representative of what you take to Melbourne," he said.

"We can see that Ferrari has done a good job, but other years have looked like that as well," Wolff added.

[siskue2005]

The fact that Redbull and Mercedes have the same concept of front wing has allowed me to sleep properly
Well, common Newey cannot get aero concepts wrong! The problems with merc could be entirely not to do with their aero concept

[Manfer]

The fact that Redbull and Mercedes have the same concept of front wing has allowed me to sleep properly
Well, common Newey cannot get aero concepts wrong! The problems with merc could be entirely not to do with their aero concept

They do not have the same philosophy. Its the end plate that define the outwash-inwash characteristics. Newey implied in his interview with AMuS that what Merc has might not be the right way as their endplates sweep inward(( ferrari, alfa, tororosso, mclaren) or (red bull, haas, RP, renault)). All the the teams except Merc follow this principle. The media outlets are incorrectly grouping redbull and merc in the same group, which is not correct. Both the teams are using the wings to move the air differently aroung the front tyre.

https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... k-outwash/

[siskue2005]

The fact that Redbull and Mercedes have the same concept of front wing has allowed me to sleep properly
Well, common Newey cannot get aero concepts wrong! The problems with merc could be entirely not to do with their aero concept

They do not have the same philosophy. Its the end plate that define the outwash-inwash characteristics. Newey implied in his interview with AMuS that what Merc has might not be the right way as their endplates sweep inward(( ferrari, alfa, tororosso, mclaren) or (red bull, haas, RP, renault)). All the the teams except Merc follow this principle. The media outlets are incorrectly grouping redbull and merc in the same group, which is not correct. Both the teams are using the wings to move the air differently aroung the front tyre.

https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... k-outwash/

You mean to say the Merc wing in not outwash?? no mate it is outwash, they all have been using outwash wing for past 10 years....that is the way to go, everyone knows that...and why do you thing they all agreed to widen the wing when they wanted to remove all the appendages of the front wing? it was to allow outwash with simple methods......the difference is merc end plate is curved inwards to generate vortex which allow more air to go outwards....it is the same concept but different way of doing it.

scarbs clearly explains the inward curve of the endplate to generate vortex


Please provide link for Newey saying Merc wing in not outwash

well common this is 10th year of this wider wings and dont tell me the team which won more than half of it is now going for inwash wing...that will be idiotic

[dans79]

What do you think might be the reason behind Merc finding it hard year after year when it comes to understanding tyres and/or general mechanical handling? It's not like Merc doesn't have experience building racing cars outside of F1. Afterall they built some of the most brilliant cars (ahh CLK GTR <3)

In my opinion, its their aerodynamic philosophy that causes issues. They seem to need a car with minimal heave, Pitch and to a lesser extent roll to get the most out of their aero philosophy. This leads to a very narrow setup window.

Pirelli changing the tires every year probably isn't helping them much either.

[siskue2005]

What do you think might be the reason behind Merc finding it hard year after year when it comes to understanding tyres and/or general mechanical handling? It's not like Merc doesn't have experience building racing cars outside of F1. Afterall they built some of the most brilliant cars (ahh CLK GTR <3)

In my opinion, its their aerodynamic philosophy that causes issues. They seem to need a car with minimal heave, Pitch and to a lesser extent roll to get the most out of their aero philosophy. This leads to a very narrow setup window.

Pirelli changing the tires every year probably isn't helping them much either.

and how much of that issue is due to banning of FRIC?

[hollus]

Just a gentle reminder that pace talk is to be in the team thread (or the testing thread, or its own thread). As are more philosophical issues.
There is a lot of gray zone posts from today. It is almost like this site is full of F1 engineer wanna-be with a taste for breaking the spirit of the forum rules without breaking the wording of the forum rules

Only hardware related stuff in the car threads, please.

The last page was full of posts that have now found a better home in the team thread.

[kalinka]

Maybe the car has understeer in fast corners due to too little front downforce compared to rear.

Wouldn't this cause oversteer also? Why would the car understeer in fast corners due to lack of front DF?
If the overall DF is low, but balanced, it should again transfer into oversteer in the middle of the fast corner where power is applied..? Just curious.

Hi Kalinka
Not sure that you read what I said properly as I said " too little front downforce compared to rear" which means it is not balanced?

Yeah, my bad. It was too early Monday It reversed in my head

[OO7]

It looks like Mercedes have increased the number of turning vanes just below the forward, leading edge of the floor. There are what looks like 5 curved strakes compared to 3 last year.

[dans79]

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OGW4TIpju-Q/ ... -05-05.jpg
It looks like Mercedes have increased the number of turning vanes just below the forward, leading edge of the floor. There are what looks like 5 curved strakes compared to 3 last year.

are you saying this is a photo taken today, or something form the first test you just noticed?