Mercedes W11

[mkay]

I actually think it could be for Silverstone 2.

I mentioned this in the race thread, but after Ferrari got away with running almost Monza-spec levels of downforce in the first race at Silverstone, I thought both Red Bull and Merc would do the same this week.

Not only did Ferrari have decent race pace with their dragster spec, they had the added benefit of not putting the additional energy through the front left that caused failures in both Mercs and nearly a failure on VER’s front left.

red bull have indeed appeared to go the same way as well

Yep, I just saw that. I am beginning to think that both teams will take a page out of Ferrari’s book and trim off even more DF. Ferrari did not turn their tires into bubblegum in the race, and they didn’t have the tire stress troubles either compared to higher-DF cars like Merc, Red Bull, and McLaren.

Granted, but Ferrari was also 1.5s/lap slower in race pace. In a normal GP without safety cars, they would have gotten lapped...

[zibby43]

red bull have indeed appeared to go the same way as well

Yep, I just saw that. I am beginning to think that both teams will take a page out of Ferrari’s book and trim off even more DF. Ferrari did not turn their tires into bubblegum in the race, and they didn’t have the tire stress troubles either compared to higher-DF cars like Merc, Red Bull, and McLaren.

Granted, but Ferrari was also 1.5s/lap slower in race pace. In a normal GP without safety cars, they would have gotten lapped...

Absolutely, but how much of that was their inherent lack of power/pace, as opposed to their setup choices? I'm curious.

[zibby43]

via AMuS

[Jozsusz]

Terrible race.

Much work to do with the tires.

[holeindalip]

Terrible race.

Much work to do with the tires.

Everyone was having issues with the tires besides red bull, the tire pressures will be back to normal ranges next week...

[gshevlin]

Despite the late pit stop, Lewis had no chance of catching Max Verstappen. By the time he passed Valtteri Bottas, his own tyres were already overheating. He took no time out of Verstappen after passing Valtteri.
If you look at the 2 Mercedes cars at the end of the race, they had, once again, acquired the same tyre overheating pattern as on their first set of tyres, with 2 tyres blistered.
Looking at the tyres in parc ferme, the Red Bull of Max Verstappen had very pristine-looking tyres, while the Mercedes tyres, even allowing for the usual off-line touring to pick up rubber, looked very badly and unevenly worn and overheated.
The Mercedes race set-up on Sunday was overheating every Pirelli tyre. The race was won on Saturday, when Red Bull, with a better-balanced car, qualified Max in Q2 on the hard tyre.

[Just_a_fan]

Guys, this is a car thread. The discussion you're having should be going on in the race thread. Thanks.

[holeindalip]

Despite the late pit stop, Lewis had no chance of catching Max Verstappen. By the time he passed Valtteri Bottas, his own tyres were already overheating. He took no time out of Verstappen after passing Valtteri.
If you look at the 2 Mercedes cars at the end of the race, they had, once again, acquired the same tyre overheating pattern as on their first set of tyres, with 2 tyres blistered.
Looking at the tyres in parc ferme, the Red Bull of Max Verstappen had very pristine-looking tyres, while the Mercedes tyres, even allowing for the usual off-line touring to pick up rubber, looked very badly and unevenly worn and overheated.
The Mercedes race set-up on Sunday was overheating every Pirelli tyre. The race was won on Saturday, when Red Bull, with a better-balanced car, qualified Max in Q2 on the hard tyre.

Even if the mercs qualified on the hards max would’ve won because they had no pace on the hards/meds from last week. The higher tire pressures made everyone struggle besides the Red Bull cars

[aral]

Guys, this is a car thread. The discussion you're having should be going on in the race thread. Thanks.

Yes, Please discuss overall performance on the race thread and keep the debate on this thread to the actual car and its hardware

[zibby43]

The technical explanation/setup change that caused the tire issues:

"Mercedes went into this race more concerned than the outside world might have imagined, given how comfortably it had locked out the front row, Bottas ahead of Hamilton this time.

Its concern was always tyre behaviour in the very high temperatures forecasted for race day. It had struggled in such conditions in the Friday practices of the Styrian and British GP weekends. But this time it had looked very strong in the high temperature race runs of Friday afternoon.

Yes, but the Mercedes were eating through the left-front. So their set-up into Friday sought to protect that tyre – and in so doing transferred more of the load onto the rears. Turns out, there just wasn’t the capacity there for the rears to accept that increased burden."

https://the-race.com/formula-1/the-merc ... defeat-it/

Now, how to solve the problem of making sure the W11 isn't getting blisters on either the front or rear tires is the engineering challenge that the team is going to have to make progress on before Sunday in Barcelona. The re-appearance of the C1 will surely help Mercedes a bit, but they can't always rely on optimum temperatures or the hardest compounds.

[SiLo]

Sounds like they would have been better to just have the issue on the one tyre and adjust accordingly with driving style, still having pace in hand. As soon as the rears went they just went backwards.

[dans79]

Now, how to solve the problem of making sure the W11 isn't getting blisters on either the front or rear tires is the engineering challenge that the team is going to have to make progress on before Sunday in Barcelona. The re-appearance of the C1 will surely help Mercedes a bit, but they can't always rely on optimum temperatures or the hardest compounds.

it's a fairly easy fix in most cases. trim DF (and drag as a side effect). You will go slower in the turns and reduce load and thus heat put into the tires, but you will go faster on the straits because of the lower drag. It looks like that was exactly what Ferrari and Redbull did for the second Silverstone race.

It's a game os small margins, but that's what everything in f1 is.

[selvam_e2002]

Despite the late pit stop, Lewis had no chance of catching Max Verstappen. By the time he passed Valtteri Bottas, his own tyres were already overheating. He took no time out of Verstappen after passing Valtteri.
If you look at the 2 Mercedes cars at the end of the race, they had, once again, acquired the same tyre overheating pattern as on their first set of tyres, with 2 tyres blistered.
Looking at the tyres in parc ferme, the Red Bull of Max Verstappen had very pristine-looking tyres, while the Mercedes tyres, even allowing for the usual off-line touring to pick up rubber, looked very badly and unevenly worn and overheated.
The Mercedes race set-up on Sunday was overheating every Pirelli tyre. The race was won on Saturday, when Red Bull, with a better-balanced car, qualified Max in Q2 on the hard tyre.

Yes. Agree. It seems RB and its sister team are not got affected with tire pressure and tire type change. Let see how they perform in Spain.

[NL_Fer]

Sounds like they would have been better to just have the issue on the one tyre and adjust accordingly with driving style, still having pace in hand. As soon as the rears went they just went backwards.

Tyre life has always been a weak spot of the Mercedes. 2012-2014 were real tyre eaters. It has always been part of the design I guess.

[MtthsMlw]

Love it, can't wait for the interview