Mercedes W15 Speculation Thread

[12.84.F1]

“And if we’re lucky and others cash in the 15mm – and without tools that prove to them everything will be fine, I remain of the view it was a gamble - then they’ll all bounce and we'll be the smart ones for having taken the cautious approach. So that was the route.

You can see it here again. "we'll be the smart ones".

If you conveniently ignore the words "lucky" and "gamble", then yes your view of the team applies. Not ignoring those words shows that they were effectively deciding whether to call "heads" or "tails" on a coin toss approach to which direction to take. Hardly the hubristic position you ascribe to them.

[tok-tokkie]

This picture - although it shows the Aston & not the Mercedes floor - shows the vital difference that Red Bull had. To create the throat of the venturi section of the floor RB contracted the SIDES inwards whereas others contracted the roof downwards. Any variation in ride height (= suspension travel) altered the venturi cross section significantly while on the RB it hardly changed at all. So porpoising resulted - particularly Mercedes & Ferrari.

[Vanja #66]

To me this paragraph captures the problem at Mercedes that has not allowed them to excel under the regulations change like they had in the past. Attempting to be "too smart" for their own good and perhaps lacking some humility.

The logic was it’s very hard to predict because the tools are not especially good for this, anyone’s tools, not just ours.

Clearly that's not true about Red Bull, and perhaps not Mclaren either.

“And if we’re lucky and others cash in the 15mm – and without tools that prove to them everything will be fine, I remain of the view it was a gamble - then they’ll all bounce and we'll be the smart ones for having taken the cautious approach. So that was the route.

You can see it here again. "we'll be the smart ones".

When Perez crashed his cars in Monaco, Allison was on record saying he was "not that impressed" by Red Bull's floor. We also know that the team couldn't be bothered to listen to Hamilton's input. It seems like they are suffering from arrogance, and it comes from the very top as well (both Elliot and Allison).

A year ago I was posting how the floor edge rule change will help Mercedes a lot considering their low-ride approach with suspension and setup window. I fully expected them to be no more than 2-3 tenths off in Bahrain Q and was ahocked to see them 6+ tenths behind. It was clear as day the low-ride approach is the way to go and we've seen both RB and Ferrari got their cars lower (at speed) than last year, especially RB. To have them admit to their excpetionally poor understanding even after working on W13 the entire season is beyond words... I do not have big expectations of W15 at all anymore.

[OnEcRiTiCaL]

Everybody knows, that Redbull secret is not the floor, but the rear suspension.You can have the best floor if you cannot keep it ALWAYS at optimal ride height and working window regardless of full or empty tank brake or acceleration. And we talking about millimeters. We seen in USA Hamilton how fast was just a bit lower plank and floor but he got disqualified.

[hollus]

Everybody knows that it is almost never a single factor in isolation that creates an advantage. It is not this or that, it can and often is combinations.

[organic]

Everybody knows that it is almost never a single factor in isolation that creates an advantage. It is not this or that, it can and often is combinations.

[Venturiation]

The biggest factor according to Allison is what we don't see, aero is easy to copy and everyone here is focusing on sidepods

[maygun]

From a read of that interview - it seemed they took a while to understand that the lower the floor - the more DF you get.
-----
Seems they are admitting their models - even at this stage in the era of regulations are struggling. (And apparently everyone else’s - however they know that)

To me, it is bizarre that the team did not invest in a good tool to overcome this problem in the first season. 2 pre-season tests, 20+ races, and after the half-season they knew that they could not win anything, With that amount of data, it should be pretty straightforward to design a model to predict porpoising and find optimal ride height. Maybe I should shoot an email to the team

[DoctorRadio]

Ferrari is perfectly able to predict why and when porpoising occurs.

[Venturiation]

According to this sidepods change won't bring much performance for 2024? why not stick with zeropods then


“The laptime that came with the Monaco update was not remotely from the things that were visually different, apart from the wishbones,” says Allison. “The change to the sidepod fronts were [a case of] ‘let’s just not have that as a thing to worry about for the future’.

“Actually, the decision to go to that new sidepod front probably took about two tenths of a second off the update package we put on the car. From a pretty torrid 14 months, we took that off the table as a variable, but actually that particular change on that particular day was slower than what preceded it.

"The things which brought performance were all underneath the car, and rear brake drums and ducts, front wing. Subsequently, you work with what you’ve got then and just iterate from that point. This car long ago left that 0.2s deficit behind it and away we go.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/jame ... de-on-w14/

[K1Plus]

According to this sidepods change won't bring much performance for 2024? why not stick with zeropods then


“The laptime that came with the Monaco update was not remotely from the things that were visually different, apart from the wishbones,” says Allison. “The change to the sidepod fronts were [a case of] ‘let’s just not have that as a thing to worry about for the future’.

“Actually, the decision to go to that new sidepod front probably took about two tenths of a second off the update package we put on the car. From a pretty torrid 14 months, we took that off the table as a variable, but actually that particular change on that particular day was slower than what preceded it.

"The things which brought performance were all underneath the car, and rear brake drums and ducts, front wing. Subsequently, you work with what you’ve got then and just iterate from that point. This car long ago left that 0.2s deficit behind it and away we go.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/jame ... de-on-w14/

Because zeropods require a different chassis design and internals layout.
The W14 in its final iteration showed glimps of amazing downforce in slow corners but still having its main weaknesses unsolved and not a consistently good car due to it being a "Frankenstein" of a car.

[Venturiation]

According to this sidepods change won't bring much performance for 2024? why not stick with zeropods then


“The laptime that came with the Monaco update was not remotely from the things that were visually different, apart from the wishbones,” says Allison. “The change to the sidepod fronts were [a case of] ‘let’s just not have that as a thing to worry about for the future’.

“Actually, the decision to go to that new sidepod front probably took about two tenths of a second off the update package we put on the car. From a pretty torrid 14 months, we took that off the table as a variable, but actually that particular change on that particular day was slower than what preceded it.

"The things which brought performance were all underneath the car, and rear brake drums and ducts, front wing. Subsequently, you work with what you’ve got then and just iterate from that point. This car long ago left that 0.2s deficit behind it and away we go.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/jame ... de-on-w14/

Because zeropods require a different chassis design and internals layout.

But they must've learned to keep something from the zeropods without compromising the chassis

[K1Plus]

According to this sidepods change won't bring much performance for 2024? why not stick with zeropods then


“The laptime that came with the Monaco update was not remotely from the things that were visually different, apart from the wishbones,” says Allison. “The change to the sidepod fronts were [a case of] ‘let’s just not have that as a thing to worry about for the future’.

“Actually, the decision to go to that new sidepod front probably took about two tenths of a second off the update package we put on the car. From a pretty torrid 14 months, we took that off the table as a variable, but actually that particular change on that particular day was slower than what preceded it.

"The things which brought performance were all underneath the car, and rear brake drums and ducts, front wing. Subsequently, you work with what you’ve got then and just iterate from that point. This car long ago left that 0.2s deficit behind it and away we go.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/jame ... de-on-w14/

Because zeropods require a different chassis design and internals layout.

But they must've learned to keep something from the zeropods without compromising the chassis

The zeropod needs a specific chassis and layout due to it being such a tight packaging. It also requires that bulky big gearbox. What Mercedes has done to try and at least tame the W14 has been okay in late 2024. I hope for a good W15 with a redesigned chassis. Mercedes still has good aero, but chassis design and suspension + the budget cap hold the team back.

[chrisc90]

Why did the zeropods need a bulky gearbox? They could have slimmed it down pretty easily.

[mendis]

Why did the zeropods need a bulky gearbox? They could have slimmed it down pretty easily.

Speculations. Other than a few people inside the team, nobody would really know the exact issues. Can't even speculate it. Bulky gear box makes zero sense to me. To build a zero pod, everything had to shrink and the gear box would have too if possible. They compromised cooling for that zero pod, which took a while to find a breather. In time, we would hear from authorised people from the team about the areas where they have struggled.