2023 car speculation

[chrisc90]

This change was well known since July I think. Teams most in trouble are RB and Ferrari as they exttacted the most from their floors this season. Mercedes can only benefit from this change, as they complained all year on bouncing and flexing floors... When something you struggled to master is restricted, you can only benefit, not get hurt

Will that not depend on how RB and Ferrari operate their floors though? We have seen stays on the Merc and Ferrari - but not something we have ever seen on the RB externally. Do you think that RB will have a stiffer floor thats not likely to flex with the new test for flex they are introducing?

It will be interesting to see who is affected by this. I know im a RB fan, but I dont see them suffering, mainly due to their aero packages over previous seasons with the higher rear (compared to other teams who ran without rake) and the lack of external stays to support the rear floor edge. Whether their flor flexes to seal to floor, or whether its all done with vortices is beyond my knowledge

[AR3-GP]

This change was well known since July I think. Teams most in trouble are RB and Ferrari as they exttacted the most from their floors this season. Mercedes can only benefit from this change, as they complained all year on bouncing and flexing floors... When something you struggled to master is restricted, you can only benefit, not get hurt

Mercedes was the only floor that was flexing visibly though. That was by design if you ask me.

[carisi2k]

This change was well known since July I think. Teams most in trouble are RB and Ferrari as they exttacted the most from their floors this season. Mercedes can only benefit from this change, as they complained all year on bouncing and flexing floors... When something you struggled to master is restricted, you can only benefit, not get hurt

You wish Vanja. This rule change affects those who ran low and flexing floors the most during the year. Mercedes therefore will suffer the most as they have always preferred the low floor route even with the old rules. It is a 15mm raise to the floor and guess who was probably already running that height most of the year.

Mercedes and a lot of teams have other things they need to look at other then just the floor. Will they stick with the pullrod rear or go to pushrods like red bull for instance. Mercedes also have to do something with their sidepod to help the air flow to the rear and sealing the floor. That front winglet will have to join to the sidepod somehow to help guide air rather then the downforce generator it currently is.

Red Bull will be looking to get weight out of the car for a start as that could probably get them a second a lap in performance. Fine tune the sidepods and maybe as scarbs mentioned they might do something about the intercooler and radiators. The Red Bull floor was probably the closest to the 23 regs then any other design out there and they were already running rake and sealing the floor with aero rather then with the actual floor.

[jordanb]

This change was well known since July I think. Teams most in trouble are RB and Ferrari as they exttacted the most from their floors this season. Mercedes can only benefit from this change, as they complained all year on bouncing and flexing floors... When something you struggled to master is restricted, you can only benefit, not get hurt

Mercedes was the only floor that was flexing visibly though. That was by design if you ask me.

Mercedes had to use floor stays, unlike Redbull to control the outer part of floor hitting the track surface.

The image from Scarbs is slightly older, at the point when it was a proposal. The final change was 15mm. But it gives a good representation of the 2023 changes.

In addition to the floor edges being raised by 15mm, the overlapping section of the diffuser and Venturi channels will see a height increase of 10mm. [Referred as diffuser throat in the image].
Dan Fallows said, this change would cost them half a second. AM was one of those teams that didn't have porpoising after early races.

https://racingnews365.com/why-f1s-2023- ... king-order



If Redbull were running progressively increased rake with RB18 through the second half, they potentially would have taken care of 2023 changes.

[Vanja #66]

Will that not depend on how RB and Ferrari operate their floors though? We have seen stays on the Merc and Ferrari - but not something we have ever seen on the RB externally. Do you think that RB will have a stiffer floor thats not likely to flex with the new test for flex they are introducing?

It will be interesting to see who is affected by this. I know im a RB fan, but I dont see them suffering, mainly due to their aero packages over previous seasons with the higher rear (compared to other teams who ran without rake) and the lack of external stays to support the rear floor edge. Whether their flor flexes to seal to floor, or whether its all done with vortices is beyond my knowledge

There were stays on RB later in the season as well, but it was used to have better control over floor flexing, very likely also to lose some weight with lighter struts within bodywork. Not sure if the stays will be allowed next year as well, it was a quick-n-dirty fix agreed in this year's preseason.

I don't expect RB to be too affected, but overall they will lose more than Mercedes in relative (percentage) terms for sure, since their starting point was significantly better than Merc. Similar for Ferrari. As I said - Merc had the least floor downforce of 3 cars and will definitely cut some of the deficit to RB and Ferrari with these changes.

Mercedes was the only floor that was flexing visibly though. That was by design if you ask me.

Yes, they had the biggest overhang and it hurt them a lot, caused uncontrollable and unpredictable sealing and "desealing" and even with Barca floor they had to raise the car later to get the car to predictable set-up.

You wish Vanja. This rule change affects those who ran low and flexing floors the most during the year. Mercedes therefore will suffer the most as they have always preferred the low floor route even with the old rules.
***

Its not 2021 anymore, its 2022-2023 and new rules got us cars that all prefer to be as low as possible for aero reasons. RB was factually set-up the lowest this season, it was always scraping the track, Mercedes was nowhere near that low. As I said above, they raised the car even after Barca floor upgrade.

[FDD]

This change was well known since July I think. Teams most in trouble are RB and Ferrari as they exttacted the most from their floors this season. Mercedes can only benefit from this change, as they complained all year on bouncing and flexing floors... When something you struggled to master is restricted, you can only benefit, not get hurt

I am not an aero expert but you are absolutely right since MERC insisted for a bigger increasing the distance of floor edges, but FER & RB protested.
"The purpose is to reduce teams' ability to run the edge of the floor closer to the surface of the track, and thus inheriting better aero performance. It was initially an increase of 25mm, but the FIA compromised to 15mm after backlash from the teams."

[jordanb]

RB was factually set-up the lowest this season, it was always scraping the track,

Isn't it the titanium skid block that produces the sparks, which is what you are referring to as scraping? If the rake is higher, it puts the skid block futher closer to the ground under motion.

[AR3-GP]

Its not 2021 anymore, its 2022-2023 and new rules got us cars that all prefer to be as low as possible for aero reasons. RB was factually set-up the lowest this season, it was always scraping the track, Mercedes was nowhere near that low. As I said above, they raised the car even after Barca floor upgrade.

The proof is in the pudding really. Spa. Everyone raises their car for the compression in Eau Rouge and RB leap to another plane of existence.

[Vanja #66]

Isn't it the titanium skid block that produces the sparks, which is what you are referring to as scraping? If the rake is higher, it puts the skid block futher closer to the ground under motion.

Skid blocks sparking can happen as you describe it, but I was referring to general scraping of the plank on RB18 in full length. Every low photo and video shot of RB18 at speed showed it was dead flat and on the ground at all times.

The proof is in the pudding really. Spa. Everyone raises their car for the compression in Eau Rouge and RB leap to another plane of existence.

Indeed

[carisi2k]

It is interesting to go back and read some of the comments of certain posters on here from the early pages of those car threads saying how the Mercedes solution is superior and how it is this and that. They were making the same statements then as they are now about how the Mercedes design is better for the new regulations. They pointed out things and said it will fail and how this new red bull will be the new mp4-18a. Some of those statement really haven't aged very well at all.

[f1jcw]

They were making the same statements then as they are now about how the Mercedes design is better for the new regulations. They pointed out things and said it will fail and how this new red bull will be the new mp4-18a. Some of those statement really haven't aged very well at all.

I can't recall anything of the sort.
I remember Vanja saying the merc had the most drag of any car.
Plus I don't think Vanja is in particular a Merc fanboy

[SirBastianVettel]

It is interesting to go back and read some of the comments of certain posters on here from the early pages of those car threads saying how the Mercedes solution is superior and how it is this and that. They were making the same statements then as they are now about how the Mercedes design is better for the new regulations. They pointed out things and said it will fail and how this new red bull will be the new mp4-18a. Some of those statement really haven't aged very well at all.

At least it gives us plenty of entertainment during the off-season

[Henk_v]

The New regs can be viewed a bit differently; if you look at the main stuff of the floor, one can say they lowered the plank in respect to the floor.

In 21 there were a few reasons to lift the floor. Now the key setup question might become how much bottoming out risk teams are prepared to take.

How will the rulemakers react if we see multiple crashes in Saudi-Arabia from bottoming out on kerbs?

Meticulous and consistent drivers may cope, but how many new Latifis will be born in 23?

[carisi2k]

The plank is still in the same spot. The throat and the floor edge have been raised 15mm and so when the cars bottom out the difference will be that the raised throat and floor edge shouldn't allow the floor to stall and induce porpoising.

[Cs98]

The plank is still in the same spot. The throat and the floor edge have been raised 15mm and so when the cars bottom out the difference will be that the raised throat and floor edge shouldn't allow the floor to stall and induce porpoising.

This is why I expect Merc to benefit. RB mastered the difficult bit which was preventing porpoising whilst the plank and floor edge were scraping on the ground at high speed. That was the great engineering task of 2022.

With the 2023 regulations the floor has been altered so the edge will not be on the ground when the plank bottoms out, meaning you won’t porpoise nearly as bad. This puts everyone in the same boat where it will just be a question of running the car as low as you can get away with without having too much plank wear. Whereas last season the main limitation for a team like Merc was they couldn’t lower the car because of porpoising.

The new regulations have essentially solved porpoising, and the teams who struggled the most with porpoising and finding the right ride-height last season will benefit.