Mercedes GP W02

[andrew]

Not sure. Can't really see it on these photos. It looks more like a small crease than a wing.

[myurr]

You can see it in the bottom two pictures, it's a ridge at the base of the nose and looks symmetrical in the last picture you posted.

[Leon]

for some reasons there is no cooling gills on top of the sidepods

[raymondu999]

Interesting. So merc are deploying their black camera winglets from the pylons, outwards, rather than inwards

[ringo]

The nature of the regs make it easy for teams to be 1 upping each other as the season progresses.

The only limitation is the quality of the engineers and resources. These cars are all very very similar.

I hope Nico can win in this car before merc gets pulled back into fourth or fifth.
I think williams and torro rosso are a big threat.
Williams is putting in respectable times without kers.

Oh noes, they're right where they left off last year.

What can they do to improve now?

[segedunum]

Oh noes, they're right where they left off last year.

What can they do to improve now?

Well, it shows that their last ditch testing optimism was total nonsense for one thing, but subjectively I do think the exhaust system they have in place has at least allowed them to tread water. Front of the grid? Podiums? I think this team has some pretty strange ideas of what's actually required.

In terms of improvement, I've said it before and I'll say it again, unless they actually do something about that front wing they've faffed around with since the days of Brawn then things are unlikely to get any better at all.

[Joie de vivre]

i bet they'll keep that front wing for at least next three seasons ... its such a shame if you think what potential they could squeeze out of this car with best engine that they have

[ringo]

The radiator has a lot of mass high up in the car, and it's vulnerable to side impacts.

Hmm.. maybe they add some protection to the top radiator.

[PlatinumZealot]

The need to copy RedBull. You pretty much have no other choice when you are 1.5 seconds behind!

[bot6]

Seg, n_smikle -> so for you guys there is only one answer: to copy Red Bull. Great. We got it. Now maybe instead of repeating that every five seconds, you could say something else?

At least the FW on the Merc is legal, unlike RBR's.

Mercedes has some rotten luck this weekend with collisions and a lot of reliability problems with their KERS. Maybe the way to go for them would be to scrap KERS for the next couple of races, which would give them lots of other packaging possibilities like a sidepod undercut or a Renault style exhaust.

[Tim.Wright]

The need to copy RedBull. You pretty much have no other choice when you are 1.5 seconds behind!

*facepalm*

[andrew]

Merc have to be the disappointment of the race. They are basically in the same place, performance wise, as this time last year.

[Morteza]

Merc have to be the disappointment of the race. They are basically in the same place, performance wise, as this time last year.

You are right. Their advantage was only in testing as it seems. W02 may end up where W01 did. It makes me wonder why they claimed they could be the second fastest. They are obviously not unless sth has gone wrong in Australia which I highly doubt about.
Haug stated that they had problems with the car that they had not experienced during testing. Was it KERS problems?

[Mandrake]

I wouldn't write them off too quickly. McLaren have shown lack of speed in Barcelona, a track completely different to Melbourne.

McLaren and Mercedes GP both surprised, only that MGP surprised negatively. Without KERS issues, things could look well different in Malaysia!

Had you judged RedBull on their performance in Monza 2010 only, what would your analysis have been???

[3one]

Sad to see things crumble on MGP at Oz, hopefully they could make up in Malaysia...

Something i would like to ask... What are the benefits on having the exhaust blowing on top of the board as everyone is trying to blow under the car to increase downforce?

I've also read somewhere (most probably scrabs blog) about the merc engine specifically having exhausts (compared to Renault) too hot that it heats up everything else behind it during they tried the BD last year and thus the distance of the exhaust from the rear area in the W02 now... Any ideas on this?