Team: Bob Bell (TD), Norbert Haug (VP of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport), Nick Fry (CEO), Ross Brawn (TP), Geoff Willis (Technology Director), Also Costa (Engineering Director) Drivers: Michael Schumacher (7), Nico Rosberg (8)
A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
what he says certainly seems to make sense. It also backs up what we see in reality regarding Mercedes' drivers' DRS use: when we first saw DDRS, we thought it would mean better balance when coming out of DRS, so drivers could keep DRS open later into a corner than other cars. What we saw was Mercedes disengaging DRS much before other cars into corners. If Gary Anderson's hypothesis about the time lag required to recreate that low pressure region behind the FW, hence lag in creating downforce, then that seems to match observation.
It certainly makes sense and also explains why Merc runs without the cascade.
I can imagine it takes a short while for the DRS effect to be disabled on the front wing, on turn in they would feel an understeering car, but then out of a sudden the front downforce is regained causing a really pointy car out of a sudden. Merc seem to have put a bandaid on that by removing the cascade thus creating a car that is always understeering.
I can understand the problems they have with the car, but what i cant understand is their complete lack of ability to solve the problem.
Interestingly they do not even try their car without the ddrs ...sometimes you need to abandon ideas that simply do not work as intended. Men get stubborn with age ...maybe that´s one of the problems here?
Good point. For example McLaren did a lot of comparative testing with/without the f-duct and ran some races with the duct removed. Does anyone know of any FP sessions where they've done that?
The problem is that it would be a radical change to remove the DDRS, boost the front end and use exhaust on the rear aero. They'd need a lot of testing to find out how to balance the tyres and get the exhaust to work.
This year is lost anyways, come back next year plz It looked promising but yeah maybe just maybe we can get a better car in 2013 that is solely developed by the new guys hired, even if they seem to not do a good job atm.
Dont think that is a problem. It is just a regular problem within the team, have we seen anything else in the Honda days? nope it was always the same thing and it still is. Seemingly completely ignoring everyone around them, and working everything they have into a disadvantage. It has always been the case.
This year they have a pretty decent car and a DDRS that just has his downsides. Instead of solving the DDRS issue they put a bandaid on it by cutting off front downforce, hardly a solution at all since DRS is barely used in the race, so you are just handicapping race pace, nothing more.
The year before they barely seem to have bought any new parts, they were late with the EBD and when it was finally there it was crap and looked like it came straight out of the dumpster from their neighbors. The cooling was also a huge problem and they decided to cut into the whole car placing cooling holes anywhere, only late in the season finally a decent solution came around.
The year before, I dont know what that was but it was crap, and most they did seemed to be contradicting to what the rest of the field did. Their F-Duct, I dont know how I can describe it well. It took them long to get right and when they finally got it right it still was worse compared to the competition.
In 2009 they had a good car, yes I describe it as a good car since they took over a year development time on this one and read every word in the rule book looking for loopholes. When others found these same loopholes in the rules and applied them to their car their advantage was gone very quickly and they were outpaced by Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull at every race.
2008; Well I dont think I need to mention this. It was pretty much a recovery year after 2007, fixing the problems they saw there. The car got a pretty large amount of parts every race, with pretty much no success, the car wasnt good from the beginning and it wouldnt improve. I dont fully take this year into consideration since more time was put in 2009 and fixing Windtunnel issues than the car.
in 2007 they came with a car that looked good to the eye and told everyone how they are the dark horse for the season. When the winter tests started they quickly saw how the car was no where at all and was a constant backmarker. PArts fitted on the car brought them no gain and it took them half a season to find out their windtunnel just wasnt right. A year lost big time as it would take a long time to fix these problems. afaik they did not revert to a different tunnel for the time, which was a stupid move.
For 2006 they had a really good car. It was a quick car but the season was lost mid season as the team seemed to lack updates. When they started bolting on updates to the car later in the season time lost was quickly gained back.
From here on I can go further back but I think I have made my point, Merc is just being haunted by something it was always been. Brawn(no I am not praising him here) just seems to be pointing a team of monkeys in the right direction and expects them to make miracles happen. We all know that is not gonna happen. Somehow I cannot get myself off the feeling that every incompetent engineer that is active in a formula 1 team is housed with Merc. The complete lack of ability to solve a problem, the lack to put in a good amount of development(yeah I know they do mechanical updates but so do others and they bring aerodynamic updates) and the seeming lack of ability to understand the car. These 3 points I named seem to perfectly describe Mercedes and their F1 effort.
I really hope Mercedes starts to fix their F1 effort and I have no doubts they will do soon, or if not they will simply cease their F1 effort. I cant help but imagine the big Mercedes boss walking through the paddock with a glowing red head being ashamed of the team he owns and that represents his company.
Decidedly no.
The car is quite in the ballpark in my view .It´s not leapfrogging the opposition but it certainly is the most competent machine Mercedes has build so far and potentially better that BGP001 was (if we remove the outwash frontwing and the ddd advanatge they had).
The team just completely lacks in terms of analytical capability under pressure .Instead of analysing the situation and developing the car forward -hey you got a horde of people -specialists- in developing a formula 1 car -they come up with a weird claim -our car is good enough -we just need to find the knack of those weird tyres we get from Pirelli.And as soon as we have solved that riddle we will win race after race..
Brawn has aired this analysis in public...telling the world it was a special season were upgrades would not bring the car forward but tyre understanding would.
Four weeks later all teams have completely refurbished cars and dimished tyre issues and Mercedes is still trying to figure out the tyres but is left behind with the same car they ran since Monaco...
Last edited by marcush. on 01 Aug 2012, 23:23, edited 1 time in total.
That is what I am saying. The car is a pretty good one, they had an advantage with the DRS but are now handicapping themselves just because they are too incompetent to actually fix the problem, and if they find a fix it will probably in the end of the season.
They seem to be incompetent in understanding their own car and applying updates to their car.
And about the tires, that that will be the deciding factor? Does that really mean you do not need aerodynamic updates? Sorry that is just stupid. Was the same the case last year? no. The year before that? no. etc. etc. They are not bringing any updates and even if they are one of the last teams to bring an update.
Brawn really needs to quit hiding behind excuses and take some responsibility, after 5 years of pretty much nothing and dissapointment the allmighty Brawn has changed nothing. Seems he isnt as good as people thought he was and it seems he is working with a team of monkeys, maybe he should give out banana's to the crew if they are able to improve the car.
wesley123 wrote:That is what I am saying. The car is a pretty good one, they had an advantage with the DRS but are now handicapping themselves just because they are too incompetent to actually fix the problem, and if they find a fix it will probably in the end of the season.
They seem to be incompetent in understanding their own car and applying updates to their car.
And about the tires, that that will be the deciding factor? Does that really mean you do not need aerodynamic updates? Sorry that is just stupid. Was the same the case last year? no. The year before that? no. etc. etc. They are not bringing any updates and even if they are one of the last teams to bring an update.
Brawn really needs to quit hiding behind excuses and take some responsibility, after 5 years of pretty much nothing and dissapointment the allmighty Brawn has changed nothing. Seems he isnt as good as people thought he was and it seems he is working with a team of monkeys, maybe he should give out banana's to the crew if they are able to improve the car.
Oh my mistake, I thought Ferrari had a dreamteam in that time, pretty much every mastermind in F1 was there together with Schumacher, guess I was wrong.
But all joking aside. I know he was there, and so was Byrne and I know who, like I said Ferrari had a dream team back then and you can hardly praise only Brawn for the successes they had booked then. This actually proves my point even more. He had a whole team of good players around him, and he was oh such a god, but now with lesser people(or really monkeys, who knows) he cant do it? If he is so great he would have achieved great improvement with the team, but no that isnt the case. It is the same bs every year with this team and always Brawn who is hiding behind excuses. The man isnt as great as he looked in his Ferrari days, and no I am not calling him bad either
Didn't Brawn commit the same mistake, trying to "understand the tires", back in 2005?
Back then, Ferrari conducted countless tests in an effort to improve their car and their understanding of the race-durable Bridgestone tires, without much success.
That was PR BS For, "Bridgestone aren't going to invest a dime in a new tyre technology to take the fight to Michelin because Michelin will be bailing soon"
well for the pirelli tyres key to working the tyres are having a softer rear end less stress on the tyres
like gary anderson mentioned mercs ddrs is affecting the way they setup the car and again hurting tyre wear
merc have good traction it seems but maybe to achieve it they sending too much torque to the rear wheels also hurting their tyre deg and final driving style both merc drivers have aggressive driving styles but other drivers in other teams are fine so it's the w03 thats flawed but the lotus E20 is designed around the tyres by being a well balanced car and they also have the simple exhaust layout. i really hope merc they pull their socks up and push to learn for the rest of the season for 2013!
It looked promising but yeah maybe just maybe we can get a better car in 2013 that is solely developed by the new guys hired, even if they seem to not do a good job atm.