Mercedes W14

[mantikos]

Did anyone @ MB explain what happen in the second day of testing ? Why they spent almost all night rebuilding the chassis after day 2 ?

Or a reason why the W14 lost all the front downforce and was almost undriveable on day 2 ?

Not really, but reading between the lines, they must have lowered the car when the issues occurred.

Very plausible

[Vanja #66]

Mercedes - Side pods wing pulls air down, but slim body brings in clean in-wash The large side pod wing, also makes a large vortex that is not possible with other designs. Result - Strong performance in yaw and lower speed turns.

It's only a hypothesis of course.

What would be the interaction in yaw between mid wing vortex and rear tyre squirt? What would happen if it has bad behaviour in yaw? I heard this weekend Mercedes has a certain limit of yaw angles in their wind tunnel, 33% less than Red Bull, could this behaviour in yaw angles above their limit produce correlation issues?

[Henk_v]

I'm sure the interaction is less controlled without the sidepod volume curating the airflows back.

If they have 33% less yaw, that may be insignificant. If RB can get 90 and MB can get 60 degrees, I'd say that extra 33% is quite irrelevant. If RB can get 30 and MB can get 20 degrees of yaw, then maybe...

Large yaw angles are only a factor in slow corners with lots of wind. To get 30 degrees of maximum yaw, you'd need the wind to blow at least ~1/2 the minimum corner speed. So around 50km/h, 28 knots, 14m/s, "Near Gale", bft7. And that is a very short peak yaw.

[Vanja #66]

Yaw angles for F1 car WT testing don't go above 20 degrees as far as I know...

[Henk_v]

Any high yaw situations will be rare and short. I cant imagine a baseline design concession for anything above 15 degrees yaw. You may want to test and know, but I just doubt they'll design for it compromising low yaw performance.

[Vanja #66]

Right, so if yaw limit is 10° and 15° may be needed for proper correlation in all car attitudes... What then?

[Henk_v]

Then I don't want to be the guy that ordered the tunnel...

[stonehenge]

Does anyone have a clue how much the impact of the rear wing on top speed is? Red Bull was running the optimal rear wing for Bahrain and got to a top speed of 326.9 km/h. Mercedes, with the barn door, got to 321.1 km/h. Obviously, we don't know what the fuel loads and engine modes were and so on, but I was still curious if, in theory, the new rear wing that Mercedes will bring next week could make up that difference or if the rear wing can only make up 1-2 km/h. If anyone has an idea I'd be very interested to know!

[atanatizante]

Sorry if it was posted before but this video explains what W14 front wing tips are working:



and regarding the floor edge is trying to do (and resemble with RB19):

[torpor]

Does anyone have a clue how much the impact of the rear wing on top speed is? Red Bull was running the optimal rear wing for Bahrain and got to a top speed of 326.9 km/h. Mercedes, with the barn door, got to 321.1 km/h. Obviously, we don't know what the fuel loads and engine modes were and so on, but I was still curious if, in theory, the new rear wing that Mercedes will bring next week could make up that difference or if the rear wing can only make up 1-2 km/h. If anyone has an idea I'd be very interested to know!

2022 it was reported that Hamilton gained 12 km/h top speed using a low-downforce wing in Canada.

[mantikos]

Then I don't want to be the guy that ordered the tunnel...

IIRC it was Geoff Willis who spec'd the BAR tunnel that Merc uses and is still with the team
I don't recall what specifically, but it was a unique open sided tunnel which made it iirc but I am sure some guru knows better

[stonehenge]

Does anyone have a clue how much the impact of the rear wing on top speed is? Red Bull was running the optimal rear wing for Bahrain and got to a top speed of 326.9 km/h. Mercedes, with the barn door, got to 321.1 km/h. Obviously, we don't know what the fuel loads and engine modes were and so on, but I was still curious if, in theory, the new rear wing that Mercedes will bring next week could make up that difference or if the rear wing can only make up 1-2 km/h. If anyone has an idea I'd be very interested to know!

2022 it was reported that Hamilton gained 12 km/h top speed using a low-downforce wing in Canada.

Thanks! That's quite interesting. I suspect the difference won't be quite that much, but who knows. Mike Elliott said that they focused a lot of their development time over the winter improving the efficiency, so I do expect them to gain quite a bit on top speed next weekend. Efficiency seems a fairly reliable thing to develop and probably doesn't involve the same sim-to-track correlation issues as other areas. So it was a little strange to see Mercedes seem to lack so much top speed in testing. Could be some evidence of them holding back quite a bit. But really, we just need to wait and see, don't we?

[Venturiation]

AMuS reports that apparently the ground clearance of the RB19 is at least 10 millimetres below everyone else. Toto Wolff says their floor would break if they would do the same. Also Mercedes engineers claim to have noticed that the AMR23 drives at a lower ride height too, and despite that, gets over the bumps well. It is also strong on corner exit. The comparison with Aston Martin is interesting for Mercedes because they supply Aston Martin with the engine, gearbox and rear suspension.

https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... rain-2023/

Can someone explain what else affects the ride height and how is Mercedes is limited while using the same suspension as amr23?
Could it be just setup of the rear suspension or more the floor shape and front suspension

[F1Krof]

AMuS reports that apparently the ground clearance of the RB19 is at least 10 millimetres below everyone else. Toto Wolff says their floor would break if they would do the same. Also Mercedes engineers claim to have noticed that the AMR23 drives at a lower ride height too, and despite that, gets over the bumps well. It is also strong on corner exit. The comparison with Aston Martin is interesting for Mercedes because they supply Aston Martin with the engine, gearbox and rear suspension.

https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... rain-2023/

Can someone explain what else affects the ride height and how is Mercedes is limited while using the same suspension as amr23?
Could it be just setup of the rear suspension or more the floor shape and front suspension

I believe its due to the whole aero-mechanics concept and aero maps. I don't want to pretend I know exactly how it works, but my guess is that, if they run the car that low, the way they generate downforce would be uncontrollable and my guess is that when Wolf says 'our floor would break' he means bouncing or porpoising uncontrollably to the point that the floor has not been designed to sustain that force tolerance.

[mkay]

That means Merc still has a lot of wood to chop on floor optimisation. Would it be related to the Venturi, or sealing the floor improperly?