Mercedes AMG F1 W06

[LookBackTime]

[JDC123]

Is anyone else surprised Merc haven't gone with the swan neck rear wing support as all of their updates at the moment look very small, and fine detailed to get that little bit extra. I imagine the swan neck doesn't produce that much better performance but when you are mercedes you are looking at every little area.

[l4mbch0ps]

Often teams that are ahead will focus more on refining what they have while they continue to work on their next big step in the shop. When they feel their competitors breathing down their neck, they will drop the next big upgrade. Time in development usually means performance, so the longer you can keep it off the car and being developed, the better it will be when it does hit the car. Most teams are constantly racing with close competitors for tenths and so they have to rush things onto the car for immediate effect. Mercedes have substantially more than a tenth in hand and so have the freedom to play the long game.

[Just_a_fan]

Is anyone else surprised Merc haven't gone with the swan neck rear wing support as all of their updates at the moment look very small, and fine detailed to get that little bit extra. I imagine the swan neck doesn't produce that much better performance but when you are mercedes you are looking at every little area.

I think the idea of the swan neck is to maximise the area of the lower side of the wing to generate downforce - you gain a few square centimetres of surface that would otherwise be taken by the support. However, to do it you need to move the wing support forward so that the swan neck can be formed to arch over the wing - if you don't then the support will still be below the wing. Moving the support forward would change the way their monkey seat is mounted and perhaps the monkey seat is a bigger net performance gain than a swan neck would be.

Sometimes in F1 (and racing aero generally) an idea becomes very trendy and everyone uses it. However, not everyone will necessarily assess whether the idea works for them in the way that they should. Perhaps Mercedes are bucking the swan neck trend precisely because it wouldn't work for them as well as their current design does. Perhaps Mercedes are right and everyone else is wrong...

[n4rf]

Is anyone else surprised Merc haven't gone with the swan neck rear wing support as all of their updates at the moment look very small, and fine detailed to get that little bit extra. I imagine the swan neck doesn't produce that much better performance but when you are mercedes you are looking at every little area.

I think the idea of the swan neck is to maximise the area of the lower side of the wing to generate downforce - you gain a few square centimetres of surface that would otherwise be taken by the support. However, to do it you need to move the wing support forward so that the swan neck can be formed to arch over the wing - if you don't then the support will still be below the wing. Moving the support forward would change the way their monkey seat is mounted and perhaps the monkey seat is a bigger net performance gain than a swan neck would be.

Sometimes in F1 (and racing aero generally) an idea becomes very trendy and everyone uses it. However, not everyone will necessarily assess whether the idea works for them in the way that they should. Perhaps Mercedes are bucking the swan neck trend precisely because it wouldn't work for them as well as their current design does. Perhaps Mercedes are right and everyone else is wrong...

The swan neck's real advantage is that there's no flow seperation on the underside of the wing. The underside is much more prone for flow seperation than the upper side of the wing. Also it's critical for the generated downforce. Essentially the flow get's seperated in a v-shape after any obstruction on the underside of the wing.
That's why everyone in every racing series there is tries to use swan neck supports for the wings (or endplates if feasible).
In F1 there's one more aspect to it: Due to the DRS actuator that sits on top of the wing anyway there's no additional aero deficit on the top of the wing if the pillar is designed properly. In case of the Mercedes the hydraulics line runs through one of the endplates as far as i know. Thus their pillar is much much slimmer than the one of the teams running the hydraulic line through it. So it's certainly not a quick fix on the Merc. I still think that it would be somewhat beneficial, but then again I'm not an aerodynamicist or even in an F1 team, so what do I know.

[BlackSwan]

[Just_a_fan]

Thus their pillar is much much slimmer than the one of the teams running the hydraulic line through it. So it's certainly not a quick fix on the Merc. I still think that it would be somewhat beneficial, but then again I'm not an aerodynamicist or even in an F1 team, so what do I know.

All of the teams run a rib in line with the support post so the whole thing is a bit moot in my view. The Mercedes support post, as you say, is slimmer than the other teams and no worse than the rib. On that basis, I would say that the swan neck would provide little benefit to the Mercedes and that, presumably, is why they don't run it. They are the pace of the field so I say again, perhaps Mercedes have it right and everyone else is wrong...

[JDC123]

Thus their pillar is much much slimmer than the one of the teams running the hydraulic line through it. So it's certainly not a quick fix on the Merc. I still think that it would be somewhat beneficial, but then again I'm not an aerodynamicist or even in an F1 team, so what do I know.

All of the teams run a rib in line with the support post so the whole thing is a bit moot in my view. The Mercedes support post, as you say, is slimmer than the other teams and no worse than the rib. On that basis, I would say that the swan neck would provide little benefit to the Mercedes and that, presumably, is why they don't run it. They are the pace of the field so I say again, perhaps Mercedes have it right and everyone else is wrong...

But the swan neck support WILL give a performance boost, so considering mercedes have such a detailed car does it not surprise you they haven't gone down this avenue? The comment about the positioning of the monkey seat is irrelevant I think as it can be moved further under the wing with the current rules.

[Just_a_fan]

But the swan neck support WILL give a performance boost, so considering mercedes have such a detailed car does it not surprise you they haven't gone down this avenue? The comment about the positioning of the monkey seat is irrelevant I think as it can be moved further under the wing with the current rules.

You don't know that it will give a boost. As I said, I think we can be assured that Mercedes will have looked at the options available and have come to the best package for them. If it made the car quicker then they'd do it.

As for the monkey seat, it's not about where the rules allow it to be positioned, it's about where it gives the best performance within those allowed positions. The whole rear of the car has been designed to work as a unit - the position and the design of the monkey seat will have been optimised to work with the bodywork, the exhaust, the rear wing and the diffuser. Look at how complex the Mercedes monkey seat is compared to other teams such as Ferrari. Does it look like something that hasn't been carefully thought about and optimised? Moving it in order to fit a trendy part elsewhere would mean possibly compromising the interaction of the parts that make up the rear downforce package. Maybe they gain 0.5% downforce from a swan neck but lose 1.5% downforce from the rest of the package by doing so. In that case, what would you do? Go trendy or go effective?

[PlatinumZealot]

Thus their pillar is much much slimmer than the one of the teams running the hydraulic line through it. So it's certainly not a quick fix on the Merc. I still think that it would be somewhat beneficial, but then again I'm not an aerodynamicist or even in an F1 team, so what do I know.

All of the teams run a rib in line with the support post so the whole thing is a bit moot in my view. The Mercedes support post, as you say, is slimmer than the other teams and no worse than the rib. On that basis, I would say that the swan neck would provide little benefit to the Mercedes and that, presumably, is why they don't run it. They are the pace of the field so I say again, perhaps Mercedes have it right and everyone else is wrong...

But the swan neck support WILL give a performance boost, so considering mercedes have such a detailed car does it not surprise you they haven't gone down this avenue? The comment about the positioning of the monkey seat is irrelevant I think as it can be moved further under the wing with the current rules.

Maybe not. It is not so simple. As a previous poster mentioned above, the swan neck has to be an appropriate distance in front of the leading edge of the wing for it's benefits to come through. If it is too close the pylon will still obstruct the flow under the wing.
The problem is making the swan neck far out enough without making it too big and bulky and Merc saw that the compromise was not worth it and I agree.

Effective swan neck is still bulky....note the distance from the wing.

[Moose]

Awesome picture from the BBC sport web page - you can really see how good a job Merc are doing of getting rid of the dirty air from the front wheels.

[Jolle]

Looking at the FIA reports, it looks like the Mercedes teams are still running their first PU this weekend.... With a bit of luck they can run the whole season on 3 engines.

[OO7]

Looking at the FIA reports, it looks like the Mercedes teams are still running their first PU this weekend.... With a bit of luck they can run the whole season on 3 engines.

My understanding is that they planned to introduce engine upgrades for the Canadian GP. Using 3 engines for the season would be detrimental performance wise, so they may as well use their full quota.

[chuckdanny]

Awesome picture from the BBC sport web page - you can really see how good a job Merc are doing of getting rid of the dirty air from the front wheels.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/f.cl.ly/items/ ... 20p.m..png

Very good, i found the full res version :
http://i.imgur.com/Z7q9nE0.jpg

From this album
http://imgur.com/a/dcLtw

[Jolle]

Looking at the FIA reports, it looks like the Mercedes teams are still running their first PU this weekend.... With a bit of luck they can run the whole season on 3 engines.

My understanding is that they planned to introduce engine upgrades for the Canadian GP. Using 3 engines for the season would be detrimental performance wise, so they may as well use their full quota.

Not saying that they will, only surprised that they could.... They are not far of les mans durability