Mercedes AMG F1 W03

[pocketmoon]

I love "if's" and "but's"

If Schumi hadn't been punted off at the start then he could easily have been P4 after the restart - ahead of nico.

That would have put him 7th at the finish

Then, also, if the W03 middle stint had been as good as, for example, Kimi in the Lotus, then Schumi would have been 5th.

all completely useless I know

[Lycoming]

??????
WHY would you want the whole car to rise up?

2 reasons.

1 is that it maintains balance, or at least, reduces the DRS effect on balance.

2 in that it also helps with top speed. Back in the active suspension days, the williams cars had a push to pass button that jacks up the entire car on the straights, dropping drag and increasing top speed. I'm fuzzy on how exactly that works, but presumably it has to do with both the floor and the front wing, both of which lose downforce when ride height is increased, and presumably a drag reduction accompanies this.

Is it normal to see drivers adjusting brake bias between their launch and the first corner? Schuey did, and he spends a lot of his lap fiddling with it. If indeed its brake bias that's being adjusted down by his left knee...

He also definitely deactivates DRS early into mid-speed corners, before the braking point, presumably to re-attach airflow somewhere. This kind of messes with my assumption that the FW stalling is designed solely to allow more progressive and earlier activation of DRS out of corners and suggests it bestows a straight line advantage too, no?

It's a fascinating system, and I'm not convinced its just MB running it already.

Its normal to see them fiddling with brake bias a lot. Between launch and the first corner? a bit odd but I would think not too unusual. you would normally adjust that while you're waiting for the rest of the grid to assemble which can be quite a long time if you're sitting in P3.

Stalling the front wing will definitely give you a straight line advantage, albeit a smaller one than if you were to do it with the rear wing.

[Dragonfly]

Its normal to see them fiddling with brake bias a lot. Between launch and the first corner? a bit odd but I would think not too unusual. you would normally adjust that while you're waiting for the rest of the grid to assemble which can be quite a long time if you're sitting in P3.

What if the start is with a lot of rear wheel spin and the driver thinks stopping for the first corner will not be as expected?

[Lycoming]

well, yea, then in that situation you would change it. you can change it whenever you want and its not terribly difficult to do, so if you need to, you do it when you get a chance, ie on a straight.

[aduka11]

I think this is quite interesting, but at the same time quite a funny thing to happen....

Nico Rosberg baffled by tyre problems in the Malaysian Grand Prix
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/98407

"I was P4 after the red flag and pitstop, and from then on I thought I could do something good this time. But then I started going backwards - and big time.

"[With] the first inters I had to come into the pits because I thought my rear tyre was game over completely. So I come into the pits, put a new set of inters on and the pit crew said to me that my inters were brand new still, so I thought, what is going on? They felt completely destroyed. It was strange.

I know it was mentioned here before
So now we can safely say that its not tyre degradation, The car is under working the tyres
Like ferrari 2011

Shouldnt they then have problems during QF's?

If they cant get their tires work over long distance...how can they do it over 1,2 and 3 laps stint?

[siskue2005]

I think this is quite interesting, but at the same time quite a funny thing to happen....

Nico Rosberg baffled by tyre problems in the Malaysian Grand Prix
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/98407

"I was P4 after the red flag and pitstop, and from then on I thought I could do something good this time. But then I started going backwards - and big time.

"[With] the first inters I had to come into the pits because I thought my rear tyre was game over completely. So I come into the pits, put a new set of inters on and the pit crew said to me that my inters were brand new still, so I thought, what is going on? They felt completely destroyed. It was strange.

I know it was mentioned here before
So now we can safely say that its not tyre degradation, The car is under working the tyres
Like ferrari 2011

Shouldnt they then have problems during QF's?

If they cant get their tires work over long distance...how can they do it over 1,2 and 3 laps stint?

So imagine how much faster times they could do in qualy if they switch it on
Or it could be the fuel weight which is not allowing them switch it on

[1158]

Its normal to see them fiddling with brake bias a lot. Between launch and the first corner? a bit odd but I would think not too unusual. you would normally adjust that while you're waiting for the rest of the grid to assemble which can be quite a long time if you're sitting in P3.

Stalling the front wing will definitely give you a straight line advantage, albeit a smaller one than if you were to do it with the rear wing.

Could it be that the last time he was in the car the track was dry? With a wet track he wanted different bias for the first corner.

Or a combination of slower start/entry speed as was previously suggested and the wet conditions?

[Owen.C93]

Its normal to see them fiddling with brake bias a lot. Between launch and the first corner? a bit odd but I would think not too unusual. you would normally adjust that while you're waiting for the rest of the grid to assemble which can be quite a long time if you're sitting in P3.

Stalling the front wing will definitely give you a straight line advantage, albeit a smaller one than if you were to do it with the rear wing.

Could it be that the last time he was in the car the track was dry? With a wet track he wanted different bias for the first corner.

Or a combination of slower start/entry speed as was previously suggested and the wet conditions?

There's no reason why he couldn't have done that at any point during the lap to the start or in the grid box. It was weird that he only decided to mess about with the brake balance at the most hectic of times possible.

[Crucial_Xtreme]

http://www.formula1.com/news/technical/ ... 5/949.html

[Huntresa]

Nothing new there we didnt alrdy know weeks ago.

[Gridlock]

I think Mercedes are exploiting this specific grey area, in the sporting rather than technical regs: DRS is an aid designed for overtaking, yet its use is unrestricted during qualifying.

You can build the best ever DRS system for the primary purpose, or you can realise that the rules basically now say 'no driver-operated aero changes unless they're routed through the DRS button and mech', and extend this towards building a car that should demolish everything else in Qualy.

Charlie seems to agree, and I wonder if Woking didn't also go this route. With hindsight, it seems obvious.

[aduka11]

Im starting to think that F-duct is not even worth of developing..

It will consume too much time...for not much performance gain.

[Huntresa]

Im starting to think that F-duct is not even worth of developing..

It will consume too much time...for not much performance gain.

Yeah just look at Hamilton, 2 poles, but no wins so far.

[Mestrades]

Probably in China, the top teams will have developed the new FDuck. For this reason, our disadvantage about the other teams will increase. I insist that the situation of Mercedes AMG F1 is very critical now. They have a problem they do not know what exactly it is and the fact of to have run under non-representative conditions (Melbourne & rain) implies that all data collected will be unrepresentative.
For me the problem is not the degradation. The problem is that when the car is loaded, it just does not work (On Friday I put some charts which revealed precisely this)
Obviously, I do not know how to fix an issue that sank an entire team (Ferrari, last year), but the problem looks bad. I do not believe in Mercedes, these two years have shown me that they are not prepared for the fight of the development.
Sorry, but I can not be optimistic. It's impossible!

[ImAnEngineer]

Probably in China, the top teams will have developed the new FDuck. For this reason, our disadvantage about the other teams will increase. I insist that the situation of Mercedes AMG F1 is very critical now. They have a problem they do not know what exactly it is and the fact of to have run under non-representative conditions (Melbourne & rain) implies that all data collected will be unrepresentative.
For me the problem is not the degradation. The problem is that when the car is loaded, it just does not work (On Friday I put some charts which revealed precisely this)
Obviously, I do not know how to fix an issue that sank an entire team (Ferrari, last year), but the problem looks bad. I do not believe in Mercedes, these two years have shown me that they are not prepared for the fight of the development.
Sorry, but I can not be optimistic. It's impossible!

Umm... How about from now on you stop talking complete crap and back up everything you say with facts. They started the season ~1s down (if not more) and ended it ~1s down.

Seriously...