Mercedes GP W02

[dren]

I'm going to say Brawn did make the decisions but probaby didn't dedicate enough of his time to look into the data. He probably spread himself thin. That is where I think having Bob Bell there will help wonders. There was a lot of movement and reshaping inside the team over the last few years. That can be to blame as well. Schumacher seems to believe what is needed is now in place organazational wise. He's been through this with two teams already. We'll see if it holds true in the next few years.

[rdr]

I understand that the RB7 is fantastic

Meh, more like Cinderella, whose golden carriage turned into a pumpkin, after midnight (off-throttle ban).

indeed it lost 3 races this year and was in every event on pole this year, the car indeed is only good because of their EBD

Take step back and take a good look at whole picture.

Silverstone was most suitable for RBs. All analytics and experts anticipated huge gap to the rest of the field.

0.1 s in qualy and visibly slower than Ferrari in the race?
You must be joking...

[luca]

(Source: http://en.espnf1.com/mercedes/motorspor ... 54313.html)

[Ferraripilot]

Aside from what we know to of poor design on W02 (SWB, high CG of sidepods etc), what can be carried to W03?

Front nose
rear wing
current diffuser?
suspension
brake ducts
compact KERS packaging?
jury is still out on the front wing. Although it seems a very old design now, MB insists it is just what they need.....

Tough call really. I suppose we will truly know what is good on W02 when we see how many teams copy certain aspects of the design.

[wesley123]

indeed it lost 3 races this year and was in every event on pole this year, the car indeed is only good because of their EBD

Take step back and take a good look at whole picture.

Silverstone was most suitable for RBs. All analytics and experts anticipated huge gap to the rest of the field.

0.1 s in qualy and visibly slower than Ferrari in the race?
You must be joking...

Hmm you have to tell me which 'experts' state that. hmm and maybe it has to do something with the fact that they barely have EBD where they lost quite a lot df where ferrari barely lost df. so is it more likely the RB is crap like you state or that ferrari was made competitive due to a lot of updates and every competitor suffering big time from the ebd ban. I find it pretty obvious it is the latter one, or you want to claim that suddenly they made up 8 tenths to red bull? i dont think so...

[NewtonMeter]

While Merc obviously have a good DRS, I believe the main reason for the good top speeds is a lack of downforce compared to the frontrunning cars. Like the 09 Force India but not quite as bad. It seems to me Merc is MORE worried about doing things their own way than build a fast car. They have many unique features, but the optimum solution to these regs is there for everyone to see. Sitting on pole every other Saturday.

A little late with this reply, but I don't think it's as simple as having a higher top speed because of less downforce.

In that case, they can just add more downforce, be equal on straight line speed and be equal on downforce as well...so what's the problem then?

Not all downforce has an impact on speed (floor design for one can increase downforce significantly while not having that great an impact on top whack). Downforce from a wing perhaps, that's simple enough, but even then a more optimised wing can generate more downforce with less drag. That's were aero efficiency comes in.

[marcush.]

Ross Brawn is one of F1's more fascinating myths. As a matter of fact he's not even an engineer, he started his F1 career as a machine-operator in MrM's old workshop in Bicester in the late 70s. The friendship with his top-boss from that time has served him in good steed over the years, not least when he was allowed to by-pass the diffuser-rules in 2009.

Whatever his contribution at Benetton and Ferrari might have been, it surely had very little to do with car-design, that was Rory Byrne's jurisdiction fair and square.

You have to give it to the man for coming this far though, but no matter how much time I spend at the hospital trying to blend in with the MDs, I will never be a surgeon.

x ,there is a story floating around in german press about a surgeon in germany who actually now is in jail for his not complying to the pass exams and if i remember correctly he did not even hold the necessary school degrees to be allowed to study..He made up his own story with diploma and exams etc and went on to be a respected doctor and surgeon ...never failing in what he actually did in his work..I have to say I prefer someone who NEEDS to do something so bad he is breaking all the laws to someone who was excellent in school enough to be allowed to be studying med ...a school friend of mine is a orthopedist and surgeon today and all I remember of him back then he was really what you´d call a botch or equipped with two left hands or whatever ..I would never allow him to touch anything technical..yet he is "mending" human beings -I´d expect this to
be a bit more deliccate then turning a bolt or fitting a panel..
Coming back to Ross,I think the main point is -you cannot look after everything.He may be capable of overseeing the design and build of a competive car but as team principal -reporting to the board of MB he simply does not have the time to look deeply into everything .He had to accept and react -resulting in Bob Bell now in the position of Tchnical Director.

[marcush.]

Well good topspeeds they have ...so their drag figures must be good .
But just adding wing AoA or wing area will drop their L/d ratio into something less competitive methinks.
So if they increas their df it simply adds too much drag and they would be in total be slower than they are now.
Force India had this trait a few years back when Fisico almost won in Spa.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

I don't mean to party poop x and marcush,

But can we hold this discussion on the mercedes gp thread?

Re the actuall car.
Mercedes are definately bring a refinement of the "test" silverstone spec exhaust to Germany. AMuS are reporting that there will be a "few" tweaks to the system as it was not really fully integrated with the rear of the car, because the team were prioritising the cooling solution. I'm hoping we will see them make a gain once more.

[Pierce89]

While Merc obviously have a good DRS, I believe the main reason for the good top speeds is a lack of downforce compared to the frontrunning cars. Like the 09 Force India but not quite as bad. It seems to me Merc is MORE worried about doing things their own way than build a fast car. They have many unique features, but the optimum solution to these regs is there for everyone to see. Sitting on pole every other Saturday.

A little late with this reply, but I don't think it's as simple as having a higher top speed because of less downforce.

In that case, they can just add more downforce, be equal on straight line speed and be equal on downforce as well...so what's the problem then?

Not all downforce has an impact on speed (floor design for one can increase downforce significantly while not having that great an impact on top whack). Downforce from a wing perhaps, that's simple enough, but even then a more optimised wing can generate more downforce with less drag. That's were aero efficiency comes in.

how do you figure they can "just add more downforce"? Thet's what they spend all of their money and time trying to do. Scince 09 the cars use all the downforce they can get. It's not like the pre 08 era where the regulations allowed all the cool bit's and bobbins, now they don't have near as much potential DF so they use all they can get. While they might not run a Monaco package they will trying to extract the maximum DF from their regular package virtually everywhere but Spa and Monza

[Pierce89]

While Merc obviously have a good DRS, I believe the main reason for the good top speeds is a lack of downforce compared to the frontrunning cars. Like the 09 Force India but not quite as bad. It seems to me Merc is MORE worried about doing things their own way than build a fast car. They have many unique features, but the optimum solution to these regs is there for everyone to see. Sitting on pole every other Saturday.

A little late with this reply, but I don't think it's as simple as having a higher top speed because of less downforce.

In that case, they can just add more downforce, be equal on straight line speed and be equal on downforce as well...so what's the problem then?

Not all downforce has an impact on speed (floor design for one can increase downforce significantly while not having that great an impact on top whack). Downforce from a wing perhaps, that's simple enough, but even then a more optimised wing can generate more downforce with less drag. That's were aero efficiency comes in.

how do you figure they can "just add more downforce"? Thet's what they spend all of their money and time trying to do. Scince 09 the cars use all the downforce they can get. It's not like the pre 08 era where the regulations allowed all the cool bit's and bobbins, now they don't have near as much potential DF so they use all they can get. While they might not run a Monaco package they will trying to extract the maximum DF from their regular package virtually everywhere but Spa and Monza and Canada. Red Bull has shown that under the current regs, the more DF you can get the better.

[shelly]

Agree with Pierce. also think that an engineer in canada told there was much less differnce in aero configuration for canada than in the past

[NewtonMeter]

While Merc obviously have a good DRS, I believe the main reason for the good top speeds is a lack of downforce compared to the frontrunning cars. Like the 09 Force India but not quite as bad. It seems to me Merc is MORE worried about doing things their own way than build a fast car. They have many unique features, but the optimum solution to these regs is there for everyone to see. Sitting on pole every other Saturday.

A little late with this reply, but I don't think it's as simple as having a higher top speed because of less downforce.

In that case, they can just add more downforce, be equal on straight line speed and be equal on downforce as well...so what's the problem then?

Not all downforce has an impact on speed (floor design for one can increase downforce significantly while not having that great an impact on top whack). Downforce from a wing perhaps, that's simple enough, but even then a more optimised wing can generate more downforce with less drag. That's were aero efficiency comes in.

how do you figure they can "just add more downforce"? Thet's what they spend all of their money and time trying to do. Scince 09 the cars use all the downforce they can get. It's not like the pre 08 era where the regulations allowed all the cool bit's and bobbins, now they don't have near as much potential DF so they use all they can get. While they might not run a Monaco package they will trying to extract the maximum DF from their regular package virtually everywhere but Spa and Monza

Add more wing (front and rear) until their topspeed reduces to the level of the other teams. Thus, more downforce, more drag. The wing angles are quite adjustable if I'm not mistaken.

[Byronrhys]

Add more wing (front and rear) until their topspeed reduces to the level of the other teams. Thus, more downforce, more drag. The wing angles are quite adjustable if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah but it would be more ideal to get the top speed along with the d/f and get efficient d/f at it not cheaply with drag.

[yener]

Since they have the shortest wheelbase, does that make the whole car shorter? If so they can produce more downforce with a larger one.

Think they would be better of with slower topspeeds and more angel on the wings.

The front wing looks still like the BPG one. Think thats a signal that they really don't have a clue to develope a better one.