Mercedes AMG F1 Team 2012

[SchuMassa]

You wont see any major upgrades for this car anymore.

They said they keep on working on W03...

Link ? Cause ive read otherwise.

ROSBERG: We're still motivated to try and get some top results this year - we need to make a good end to the season.
But at the same time we're pushing new developments through all the time on the car at the moment.
We have made the most of the upgrade, but on that route of development of the car there is so much more to go before you get the most out of that concept, so we take it step-by-step and we are trying to catch up at the moment.


BRAWN: There are still some things we want to try with the car in the last four races, particularly for next year.

[Shakeman]

The car was built around some ideas that worked, but the potential was limiting. Much like the Lotus of last year.

Absolutely spot-on. I think deeming the W03 a write-off just because they haven't managed to keep pace with McLaren, RBR & Ferrari on the development front is unfair.

When the DDRS seemed to offer a performance gain way back in April/May everybody praised it and lauded it as the 2012 'silver bullet' but, later on in the season, the exact same concept that gave them a performance edge was being blamed for the reason they had no performance Now replace 'DDRS' with 'Side-Exit Exhausts' and adjust the year and you're pretty much golden!

Mercs direction looks out of step due to the inability of the FIA to make stringent enough flexing tests, had the FIA tightened up on that area then Merc would've stolen a march as other teams rushed to copy them.

One has to question why they were late with the coanda exhaust?

[Timstr]

One has to question why they were late with the coanda exhaust?

They did not see the benefits until the 60% model was introduced.

[Dragonfly]

If most of those who beat me are using it, then no tunnel at all is needed for a conclusion.

[elf341]

Bob Bell is at the track:

[Jersey Tom]

JT..seeking a job in F1 where you can make a difference?

It's an interesting posting. Uncannily similar to what I do now. But where would I find a decent slice of pizza or a cheesesteak in the UK?

[FoxHound]

JT..seeking a job in F1 where you can make a difference?

It's an interesting posting. Uncannily similar to what I do now. But where would I find a decent slice of pizza or a cheesesteak in the UK?

If you take the post and make it work I'll personally drive you the finest cheesesteak and Pizza you ever had.
Note, not the biggest...the finest.

[Richard]

They said they keep on working on W03...

First of all no team is going to say "we've given up", hence the quotes from Rosberg and Brawn. Secondly with limited testing of course they'll try a few things out on track that might end up on the 2013 car.

However only teams with a WDC or WCC at stake would bring out major updates at this late stage. The designers for other teams will be thinking about 2013 and doing the bare minimum to customise the 2012 car for the last few tracks.

So, the designer thinks "I better quickly produce that front wing for Interlagos with a bit more x and little less y just like we do every year, then I can get back to the real job designing the 2013 car."

The fans and PR say "wow, they've updated the car"

[Richard]

If most of those who beat me are using it, then no tunnel at all is needed for a conclusion.

They need a wind tunnel to get the configuration correct. A badly functioning coanda could be worse than no coanda.

[Dragonfly]

If most of those who beat me are using it, then no tunnel at all is needed for a conclusion.

They need a wind tunnel to get the configuration correct. A badly functioning coanda could be worse than no coanda.

They did not see the benefits until the 60% model was introduced.

You are right, tunnel is needed for making it work, but benefits can be seen just by analyzing the rivals.
I was replying to Timst's post above.

[Richard]

aha - Perhaps something lost in translation, "could not see the benefits" in my mind says they could not see the results they were expecting in the wind tunnel data.

[Jersey Tom]

As I understand Michelin and Bridgestone engineers were hot property when those went out of formula 1 business..Icannot imagine Honda -brawn MGP have not hired some?

Forgot to address this earlier. Keep in mind that just because someone can engineer a good tire (literally the product) does not necessarily mean they can make heaps of performance from the car side of things. I'd go so far as to say what you don't want is someone who just knows tires, even to the n-th degree. What use is it to the race team if an engineer comes over knowing they use fabric 'X' for plies, an angle of 'Y' for the belt layup, and 'Z' phr filler in the tread cap formulation? Adds no value.

Likewise it's not ideal to have someone who just knows the chassis. To be a good vehicle dynamics engineer you need to have expert level knowledge of both tire and chassis behavior, which is a difficult combination to find. One or the other on their own isn't sufficient. Just my opinion though.

[marcush.]

I can clearly see that you don´t necessarily have to know all the detail and effort behind a product to use it .In certain areas it might help in most areas is does help.
I fail to see how a tyre can be treated as a separate entity in chassis dynamics.In effect it is one -the main incredient -of the chassis side as it is the interface to the road.
In formula (1) the fact that tyres are also an aero theme does not really change this ,it adds a facet to the task -not much more than any suspension has aero impact (or viceversa)

Ther big question I ask myself for years now:how close will all the calcs take you to optimum and how far below will you end with an experienced driver and some eductated guess and some(not excessive) track time and the basic handcalculations ?

As we can see even in formula 1 teams certainly end FAR away from optimum soultions in spite of elaborate tools available.
Teams get it terribly wrong with simple things like pit stop timing ,car out time to make it to the line for a qualy attempt etc.. obviously something not too hard to get spot on for someone well seasoned in racing in the possesion of a decent stopwatch....
I can surely refer to my own experience and have to admit most of the CAD assemblies just don´t fit as intended first time out and simulations rarely beat a guesstimate by an experienced shopfloor worker at he start of a project.

[Vasconia]

As I have seen in Autosport Rosberg has run with the old exhaust and Michael with the new one, now I understand the difference between both in these free practices.

It seems to be clear that the WO3 hates the Coanda exhaust.

[marcush.]

It could be that some engineering staff at MGP just hates W03....
wouldn´t you make the back to back test at the start of your project?
but then even RedBull did fall back to their old exhaaust solution after some races....so apart from being impossibly late there is nothing wrong with that back to back approach.Effectively they fell back a good 6 months due to pursuing stubbornly their petproject ddrs...