Mercedes GP W02

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Ringo,

How can you work out why red Bull are quickest and Mercedes/others cannot? I ask this honestly and without any antagonistic sentiment.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Rosberg lost 0.9 seconds in the final sector alone in Q3.

0.7 seconds down after 1m09 seconds and then a further 0.9 seconds for the prevailing 35 seconds. This tells you everything you need to know of where Mercedes W02 is lacking....Downforce.

I wonder if Bigois' position is under review.....

[ringo]

Ringo,

How can you work out why red Bull are quickest and Mercedes/others cannot? I ask this honestly and without any antagonistic sentiment.

It's the body of the car. Something about it. If you don't have that certain something the body simply cannot have more downforce. All teams this year are disadvantaged by that aspect. If they try to copy it, they may realize what "it" is.

[Lycoming]

We already know generally what things will look like with the EBD ban, we saw that in silverstone. The red bull car is still mighty without it.

The car's main strength though is the rear end aero. they can take high g corners with DRS wide open in qualifying, and that speaks volumes about the rear end aero effiiency. And it isnt just the EBD; webber was flat through the first part of maggotts and becketts with DRS open.

but back to the actual car we're talking about, the mercedes. I'm not sure that downforce is their biggest problem HERE. I do think they generally lack downforce, partly due to the design, partly because they've given up on it and opted to set the car for more straight line. However, what do you use downforce for in singapore? there's only 1 proper high speed corner, most of the gains from downforce come under braking, of which there is quite a lot here. considering the time loss, I'm inclined to think they have issues with chassis as well. If they can't get the power down out of the slow corners, something that has a bit less to do with aero because everybody seems to be struggling with it, they lose pace in qualifying and race. they lose more in race because it wrecks the tyres. I'm inclined to believe the car has more than just aero issues.

[Mr.S]

Ignoring the negative comments, I was dissapointed to see MSC not going out again. MSC's Merc was 1.1s off pole while Rosberg about 1.5s in Q2. MSC looked very good with the super-softs. The top 5 drivers are separated by less than half a second.0.493 infact,

Then you have Massa almost 1.5s off. I think P6 was definitely possibly if MSC tried another run & then he gets good starts & first laps. I hope MSC starts on the softs. W02 is lossing massively on the final sector,massive.Nico's Q2 & Q3 S3 times were not up to the mark. Q1 S3 was good. The car in general,EBD or no EBD,lacks downforce.The chasis is not good enough.

I am still happy though. 1.1s in Q2 is pretty good considering they were 1.2-1.3 off in Hungary & this is supposed to be one of the worst tracks for W02. I am hopeful for next year.Without EBD,W02 was very close to Mclaren in Silverstone.

[mep]

MSc did went out. He either broke up his fast lap or went directly back to pits. However I think thats ok. When we are realistical it is kinda worthles for them to drive in P3 because anyways they can't improve their position and Force India also accepted Mercedes to be in front of them.

[raymondu999]

1. Regarding DF situation, IMHO next year RB will be the biggest loser, because knowing that the most important factor nowadays is the DF, their whole philosophy was down to create the highest DF figures. So they designed a car around the EBD concept which btw. is the best but the most important thing is the fact that is the most effective system on the entire grid because is generating the highest DF of all cars out there! Therefore from all the cars RB is having the highest % of their performance down to EBD so that’s way they will lose the biggest performance next year. MB bet on a midship EBD philosophy and tailored a car with a SWB because this was the optimum configuration for this idea. Unfortunately we know now that it was a wrong bet, but what is making me optimistic for 2012 regarding MB is the fact that they have one of the best rear traction WITHOUT EBD SYSTEM, maybe the best of all. That`s way I think they could be the biggest winner next year because they don`t heavily rely on EBD in their final performance …

Tell that to the British Grand Prix. We saw there that the McLaren was probably the most reliant on EBD downforce. The Red bull lost VERY VERY little. As did Ferrari

[Leon]

MSc did went out. He either broke up his fast lap or went directly back to pits. However I think thats ok. When we are realistical it is kinda worthles for them to drive in P3 because anyways they can't improve their position and Force India also accepted Mercedes to be in front of them.

Yes, but before he started his flying lap the time is over, and he meets chequered flag.

[atanatizante]

1. Regarding DF situation, IMHO next year RB will be the biggest loser, because knowing that the most important factor nowadays is the DF, their whole philosophy was down to create the highest DF figures. So they designed a car around the EBD concept which btw. is the best but the most important thing is the fact that is the most effective system on the entire grid because is generating the highest DF of all cars out there! Therefore from all the cars RB is having the highest % of their performance down to EBD so that’s way they will lose the biggest performance next year. MB bet on a midship EBD philosophy and tailored a car with a SWB because this was the optimum configuration for this idea. Unfortunately we know now that it was a wrong bet, but what is making me optimistic for 2012 regarding MB is the fact that they have one of the best rear traction WITHOUT EBD SYSTEM, maybe the best of all. That`s way I think they could be the biggest winner next year because they don`t heavily rely on EBD in their final performance …

Tell that to the British Grand Prix. We saw there that the McLaren was probably the most reliant on EBD downforce. The Red bull lost VERY VERY little. As did Ferrari

In fact at Silverstone EBD rule was scraped in the race as I recall, just in qualify they had the rule of 10% exhaust ... But in the end what I`m trying to say is the fact that RB got the EBD system work near to perfection, and I mean that they are the only team which has the best EBD working in conjunction with the diffuser. Furthermore, in addition to the above mentioned, due to the rain situation, Silverstone wasn`t the proper race to get an objective judgement regarding the loss of EBD, don`t you think?

[raymondu999]

Everyone was running a maximum of 10% blowing on their diffusers at silverstone in qualifying AND the race. We saw that with that small amount of EBD blowing, McLaren was at sea; qualifying 5th and 10th. Red Bull is NOT the one who will lose the most out of an EBD ban; they still were the fastest overall car (in qualifying). Going flat out + DRS in the first left right at Maggotts; and flat out + DRS at Abbey needs a lot more than just an exhaust blowing over your diffuser.

Also the rain would mean an off-throttle blown diffuser would be even more precious as the slower speeds in the wet means less downforce. Just because RBR have nearly perfected their EBD; that doesn't mean that RBR are using it fully. For example they're not hot blowing like the Mercedes teams are.

[NewtonMeter]

2. Here in Singapore they are bringing big updates (and the last ones for this year) regarding a much more sculpted sidepodes and a tighter rear-end, coupled with a new floor and a modified diffuser. They also have for this event a small alteration to the front wing and a single level radiator system which was run by Rosberg and that`s why he ran with the big bulb on the air box. This is in fact a larger cool duct in order to compensate the deficit in air cooling. These days all the teams are running their updates mostly in FP1 and unfortunately with a shortened session they didn`t run them properly, as Michael confirmed afterwards in the press conference after FP2.

3. It seems that the good results in the last races was due to the new simulator, because now they are more focus on race set-up and the results are accordingly with the simulator runs, as some guys are saying on other forums. Also Michael`s better form is related to this one, don`t you think, because of his last performances and the optimistic statements regarding the future?

Where did you get all this info from? I couldn't find anything about it with a google search...

[atanatizante]

Also the rain would mean an off-throttle blown diffuser would be even more precious as the slower speeds in the wet means less downforce...

... or maybe that you need more DF

There are some additional questions for you mate:
1.Knowing after Silverstone that their EBD didn`t influence to much the car`s performance why they - RB - are bothered to run it?
2.Regarding the car`s performance, how much (in %) do you think is down to their EBD and how much is down to the chassis/rear-end configuration?

[atanatizante]

2. Here in Singapore they are bringing big updates (and the last ones for this year) regarding a much more sculpted sidepodes and a tighter rear-end, coupled with a new floor and a modified diffuser. They also have for this event a small alteration to the front wing and a single level radiator system which was run by Rosberg and that`s why he ran with the big bulb on the air box. This is in fact a larger cool duct in order to compensate the deficit in air cooling. These days all the teams are running their updates mostly in FP1 and unfortunately with a shortened session they didn`t run them properly, as Michael confirmed afterwards in the press conference after FP2.

3. It seems that the good results in the last races was due to the new simulator, because now they are more focus on race set-up and the results are accordingly with the simulator runs, as some guys are saying on other forums. Also Michael`s better form is related to this one, don`t you think, because of his last performances and the optimistic statements regarding the future?

Where did you get all this info from? I couldn't find anything about it with a google search...

You couldn`t because it seems you don`t know Russian language
So there are from a Russian forum mate ...

[Lycoming]

1.Knowing after Silverstone that their EBD didn`t influence to much the car`s performance why they - RB - are bothered to run it?

He didn't say that EBDs dont influence the cars performance much (there are substantial gains under braking and in throttle neutral conditions). What he meant was that the performance loss from not having the EBD was LESS than what others (notably Mclaren) suffered.

besides that, they'll run anything thats legal if it gives them some lap time gain.

[raymondu999]

Yes. That's what I meant. There are other teams where there's an even greater correlation between the "intensity" of their blowing and lap time. McLaren I believe actually used to use theirs to generate downforce, as did most other teams. Red Bull never did (in 2011) Instead they use their exhaust blowing to create air skirts; to then allow them to run more rake. That means their exhausts didn't directly "create" downforce if you get what I'm saying.