Mercedes W11

[Morteza]

Love it, can't wait for the interview

FabreDAS

[holeindalip]

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.

Mercedes didn’t have issues eating tires in 2014 at some races they had issues putting heat into them and were off the pace (Singapore)

[dans79]

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.

Mercedes didn’t have issues eating tires in 2014 at some races they had issues putting heat into them and were off the pace (Singapore)

correct, Merc's tire eating days where 2012 and to a much lesser extent 2013.

[zibby43]

Good news for Merc.

Tire pressures for the Spanish GP go back to normal, in addition to the C1, C2, and C3 returning.

23 psi at the front (+0.5 vs 2019) and 20.5 psi at the rear (same as '19).

[GPR-A]

Good news for Merc.

Tire pressures for the Spanish GP go back to normal, in addition to the C1, C2, and C3 returning.

23 psi at the front (+0.5 vs 2019) and 20.5 psi at the rear (same as '19).

http://www.automobilsport.com/race-cate ... t,news.htm

[zibby43]

Good news for Merc.

Tire pressures for the Spanish GP go back to normal, in addition to the C1, C2, and C3 returning.

23 psi at the front (+0.5 vs 2019) and 20.5 psi at the rear (same as '19).

http://www.automobilsport.com/race-cate ... t,news.htm

http://www.automobilsport.com/uploads/_ ... eview3.JPG

Thanks for posting that! I was looking for that in case anyone wanted some corroboration.

[GPR-A]

Good news for Merc.

Tire pressures for the Spanish GP go back to normal, in addition to the C1, C2, and C3 returning.

23 psi at the front (+0.5 vs 2019) and 20.5 psi at the rear (same as '19).

http://www.automobilsport.com/race-cate ... t,news.htm

http://www.automobilsport.com/uploads/_ ... eview3.JPG

Thanks for posting that! I was looking for that in case anyone wanted some corroboration.

I went hunting after I saw your post.

[bucker]

Any news about flexing rear wing. It looked like wing is flexing inwards in the corners same like Zenvo TSR-S.

[PhillipM]

Suspension moves, car rolls, wing endplate flex a bit - wing ends up pointing into the corner a bit, not really rocket science.

They'd probably prefer it didn't, to be honest. That Zenevo design is worse than the wing just pointing straight down, dumb idea. All show and no go.

[atanatizante]

Did they gone for a more high rake or just RBR went for a lower one?

RBR seems to have had a low downforce setup for the second race in order to compensate for the lack of cornering speed (due to protecting the rear tyres, knowing they will be softer and the tyre pressure will increase and so on ...). Merc just went opposite with a high DF setup and just putting a premium on cornering speed rather than top speed on the straights with disastrous results ...

On the above statements, someone said on another forum that in order to cope with the higher tyre pressure RBR run a very soft suspension setup which is perfectly fine with their rake philosophy but Merc had to compromise their suspension setup thus altering their aero platform which helps them managing tyres degradation ...

One thing is clear: blistering tyres means they were overheating coz it overpassing their operation window due to track temps, higher tyre pressure and yes ... stiff suspension! Other possible reasons for that blistering tyre situation: they set up the car in order to protect the left front tyre hence the right rear tyre was weaker now, then they lack practice in FP2 from both tyres knowing hard is the designated race tyre and medium one is for the qualy and so forth ...

What is more alarming, in my view, is the fact that they don`t have a solution for their tyre struggles coz W11`s philosophy is based on a car with a stiff suspension geometry in order to give them that stable aero downforce.
I don`t think the new rear suspension arrangement now allows them more freedom due to their low rake concept ...

In contrast, RB16 high rake philosophy let them with softer suspension setup overall which protected further the tyres in the race, thus their poor qualy results are based on the fact that the tyres don`t get into their window (hence gives them low grip) but in with a full tank their car hits the operation window thus their better results and closer race pace ...

I think that HAM and BOT knowing they have a race pace advantage is setting their cars more towards the qualy for grabbing the pole, which is the best strategy for winning the race. This time around they went too far and their strategy bites them heavily. Having no qualy pace force VER to always setting his car for race pace hence his far better results in the races than qualy ...

[atanatizante]

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.

I heard they are working on two things: 1. reconfigure the air feeds inside the rear wheel hubs in order to cool down overheated rear tyres and 2. increase the heat sink capacity at the rear wheel rim.
They don't have much room to play regarding rear suspension setup due to their low rake stiff suspension philosophy as I explained at the above post... My two cents

[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.

I heard they are working on two things: 1. reconfigure the air feeds inside the rear wheel hubs in order to cool down overheated rear tyres and 2. increase the heat sink capacity at the rear wheel rim.
They don't have much room to play regarding rear suspension setup due to their low rake stiff suspension philosophy as I explained at the above post... My two cents

Very interesting stuff! Makes perfect sense too, as Merc did have to reconfigure some of the rear brake duct and rear suspension hardware after Red Bull complained in Barcelona testing.



The rear brake duct and suspension upright on the W11 initially featured a design that utilized the suspension upright to create an extra inlet above the main brake duct. That fed airflow into a cavity on the top of the brake duct, which helped cooling/tire management.

Do you have an inside source for your info., or did your read that somewhere?

[F1Krof]

Even though the tires will be harder and the pressures normal, it is evident from Austrian GP on FP1 & FP2 when the hot weather prevails they have struggled. With high-speed corners in Barcelona the picture will be similar to Silverstone 2.

[GPR-A]

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.

I heard they are working on two things: 1. reconfigure the air feeds inside the rear wheel hubs in order to cool down overheated rear tyres and 2. increase the heat sink capacity at the rear wheel rim.
They don't have much room to play regarding rear suspension setup due to their low rake stiff suspension philosophy as I explained at the above post... My two cents

Very interesting stuff! Makes perfect sense too, as Merc did have to reconfigure some of the rear brake duct and rear suspension hardware after Red Bull complained in Barcelona testing.

https://cdn-4.motorsport.com/images/mgl ... duct-1.jpg

The rear brake duct and suspension upright on the W11 initially featured a design that utilized the suspension upright to create an extra inlet above the main brake duct. That fed airflow into a cavity on the top of the brake duct, which helped cooling/tire management.

Do you have an inside source for your info., or did your read that somewhere?

They can rip a bit of downforce off, as their competitors are miles behind and avoid putting so much load in tyres and still be ahead! Induce a bit of understeer and go slightly slower through the corners, but it would allow them a bit more straight line speed, which they would anyway do in Spa and Monza. That is much more easier to do, while they build better solution to better manage the tyres with their full downforce package, if the speculation of that article is indeed true. I have stopped believing some of these hollywood paparazzi guys, masquerading as F1 journalists, long ago.

In the recent debrief, Shovlin just says they were slower as they needed to manage the tyres, but doesn't actually go in detail about what exact car problem made them slower.

[atanatizante]

...

Do you have an inside source for your info., or did you read that somewhere?

Regarding their low rake philosophy I think is old stuff by now ... then, what they are working on comes out from blogger speculation in my country ... the last update says they don`t have enough time to alter the channel inside the wheel hub and instead they`ll increase the rear brake duct area which will lead to increase turbulence & drag with a negative impact of the air above the diffuser hence a small decrease in DF levels ... those 2 solutions his best bet is they were short to medium time projects ...