Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2013

[diego.liv]

The only exception is when drivers have an opportunity to look inside the cockpit at parc ferme.[/quote]

What sort of things can a driver notice looking in the cockpit?

[Mika1]

Lewis mentioning in an article that he notices features present on Red Bull or Ferrari which he asks his engineers about specifically asking why W04 doesn't have these features. His reply from them as Lewis relayed it is, "oh we're testing that in 2-3 weeks", and of course Lewis asks, "why aren't we testing it now".

I'm not sure if this is a team posting or something specific to W04, but what I gather circumstantially from Lewis' comments is one of two possibilities: W04 may be a difficult car to design upgrades for because of its suspension sensitivity which is of course related to how it treats tires, or MB as a team are in some sort of cost analysis situation where an upgrade must be reviewed and analysed for approval prior to ever being tested let alone built. If the latter is at all true, I cannot imagine a team winning championships with too much of this. I certainly hope that is not the case but from the comments Lewis made I cannot deduce much else other than the slight possibility for not testing an interesting upgrade right away being staffing relating, as in insufficient numbers of staff.

anyone have any other theories as to what goes into the process to review an upgrade and why it might take a while to get it on CFD?

I agree with your views. If you want to win a WDC/WCC in F1, you have to bring more and more updates every race. Last year Red Bull Racing spent a whole night in Korea to put new parts on the RBR car.

[Richard]

Past examples include F-duct and Mclaren's third pedal. http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... 10#p268810

[Ferraripilot]

Lets say Merc have 10 items in development. Nine of them go on the car. Then Hamilton says “why don’t we have x” and the response is “we’re working on that, it’ll be ready 2 weeks”.

Clearly that doesn’t mean Merc are behind in development because they hit success on 9 out of 10 things, but the press pick up on “Hamilton demands part x”. Also part x might make the Merc worse, so they might be better off not adopting it.

Finally, we can’t say this reflects on Merc because Hamilton used to say the same things at McLaren. No offence to Hamilton, but I’d expect teams to have people looking at competitors’ cars who are far more skilled at observing technical details than Hamilton. The only exception is when drivers have an opportunity to look inside the cockpit at parc ferme.

Reasonable enough and very probable. That leads me to believe they probably weigh out the benefits of upgrades hence why testing one may require comparing it to another or 3 others already in the works.... I hope that's the case anyway. The team seems to be making real progress

[snoop1050]

What sort of things can a driver notice looking in the cockpit?

mclarens 3rd pedal =D>
1998 banned not long after

[Mika1]

Mercedes shareholders: 'We should leave F1 if we're punished over Pirelli-gate' - http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor ... relli-gate

[aral]

Mercedes shareholders: 'We should leave F1 if we're punished over Pirelli-gate' - http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor ... relli-gate

Sounds a lot like blackmail! Bernie will be pleased!

[Cam]

Mercedes shareholders: 'We should leave F1 if we're punished over Pirelli-gate' - http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor ... relli-gate

Whatever happened to "if we did the wrong thing, we'll accept the umpires decision"?

[SectorOne]

It´s just air.

Bit like Monte saying he will turn his back on F1 every single year.

[liveforf1]

anyone know what Paddy Lowe is up to, officially, this test nonsense is the media's sole preoccupation right now.

And it will continue to be if Mercedes performs in Silverstone as good(or better) as in Canada.

if you know? how does the 1000km test affect Mercedes in terms of engine life? will they now have 2 motors with potentially 500-1000km on them or did they utilize some other engine that would not fall under the fia's scrutineering for this season?

[diego1960]

Obviously they will have used a set of different engines and gearboxes for the two drivers, not one of the 8 that have been registered.

[marcush.]

the logic is it was a pirelli event ,not MGPs test ..so no engines gearbox or whatever from their seasons allocation,right?

[liveforf1]

the logic is it was a pirelli event ,not MGPs test ..so no egines gearbox or whatever from their seasons allocation,right?

thank you.

[prince]

Now that the controversy is behind them, it's time to show the improvements in tyre management that they learned in the SECRET test. No?

[marcush.]

you´re kidding ..are you ? it may be behind FIA and MGP but rest assured every time a Merc does well we hear the ferrari and REDBull fanfare....and rightly so.
I like RedBulls standpoint of not breaking the rules ...and running a car designed to exploit the grounds on the other side of the fence in terms of spirit of the rules...