Mercedes W13

[dans79]

A nice video talking about the organisational spec/design philosophy!

[mkay]

I'll believe it when I see it. People have a tendency to say "they came with a b-spec car for the second test a couple years ago, so they could do that again" and then that's just what people want to see.
But they completely disregard the fact that Mercedes this time have to develop their car under a budget cap, and with the least amount of CFD runs of any team.

Red Bull had the least amount of CFD from July-December 2021, FYI.

[KeiKo403]

I feel like scarabs isn’t the type of guy to throw drawings out to the internet just for the sake of it.

If it’s true I’m expecting protests, I wonder on what grounds the protests will be though, maybe safety if the car was to be T-boned?

Obviously Mercedes would’ve consulted with the FIA throughout the design process and it would’ve surely passed the crash tests. If the new ‘CCS’ (chemical cooling system, I believe it’s being referred to as) is integrated into the PU too then copying the concept won’t be easy, especially in a cost cap era.

Mercedes have a big partner (and co-owner!) in INEOS too, looking at patents, they previously filed for a thermally conductive polymer (TCP) which was granted last year, given how an F1 car likes to have air hug and flow over its bodywork could the body become a massive heat sink? Chemistry isn’t my forte and I won’t pretend to understand half the words in the linked patent but INEOS are heavily invested in Mercedes and any R&D done on cooling the car this way would fall outside of the cost cap.
https://patents.justia.com/patent/10920037

Regardless of the above patent being relevant to F1 or not my point about INEOS being invested in Mercedes remains true and they could end up being very important when it comes to R&D.

[Just_a_fan]

Really looking forward to tomorrow now. Got the day off work, will be watching all day. Lets see some silver monster.

After the let downs of the early "not car" launches etc., and testing behind semi-closed doors, this is the first time I've been excited this season. Hoping the revised W13 is a proper revision and not just tweaks to bits and bobs.

But if they do come with something revolutionary, the previous launch will be just another ‘not car launch’, and half of the forum will feel compelled to pile-on and give Mercedes as much of a kicking as the other half did with Red Bull (after their livery launch).

Batten down the hatches!!!

But unlike Red Bull's fake car launch, the Mercedes did actually work and did do 3 whole days of testing. It's a real car even if they don't end up using it for the season.

So those that want to give Mercedes a kicking for a "not car" launch would be, er, wrong.

[Just_a_fan]

I had a fun thought - what if the changes to the Mercedes are actually not very small sidepods but actually a ramped type like those on the Red Bull. I remember one of the Merc team being quoted as saying that the Red Bull's side pods would be interesting for the guys back at the factory, almost as if they might consider it. Maybe they've actually independently come up with a similar, but perhaps more extreme, approach.

The mods shouldn't have killed the speculation thread so soon!

[vorticism]

Are there photos of this? Most of the radiator is beside the survival cell/cockpit, which is a spec dimension. They can't cut into it to make space for radiators.

They can. There are plenty of pics in the previous pages.

Thank you for the pics. No, what you're showing is a change in the fuel tank shape. The cockpit is off limits but they can step in toward the fuel tank. The cockpit wall thickness isn't that great anyway, you'd be hitting drivers' elbows if it weren't a spec dimension.

[Hoffman900]

I thought it was interesting they had their Barcelona test car (or at least one with the same body work) at Harvard a couple weeks ago. You’d think they would be at the factory working on it…

I'm with you on the 'I'll believe it when I see it' but the cost cap and limitations in number of CFD runs doesn't rule out a dramatic change in a perverse it might mean a dramatic change is more likely.

As a former engineer who worked in a cash and resource strapped organisation it did teach us to think outside the box a lot and get creative and I've seen brilliant engineers come up with great ideas in a mature project that just takes it in a completely different direction.

This.

I’d rather have less money / time with smarter / more talented engineers than try to iterate myself to a solution with a less talented group. I’ve said this all along, you cannot unlearn what you know and talent always wins. I’ve seen this play out again and again in other racing series, and even in spec series from amateur to pro, the same people / teams are at the front.

I’d argue these rule sets even favor a Mercedes or RedBull because they’ll always be more efficient with their time than a team who may have more wind tunnel time / cfd time but are struggling with correlation issues or were super far off the mark to begin with. We could have a billion dollars with every tool at our disposal, hire all the regular forum posters, and we’d be lucky to design a mid pack amateur field Formula Atlantic.

[mantikos]

I had a fun thought - what if the changes to the Mercedes are actually not very small sidepods but actually a ramped type like those on the Red Bull. I remember one of the Merc team being quoted as saying that the Red Bull's side pods would be interesting for the guys back at the factory, almost as if they might consider it. Maybe they've actually independently come up with a similar, but perhaps more extreme, approach.

The mods shouldn't have killed the speculation thread so soon!

You misremember, when prodded and asked multiple times about if he (the TD) saw anything interesting on any other car, he essentially said if I MUST pick one, I'd go with the RBR sidepod but we have our own philosophy and we don't have time to be deviating from that.

[mantikos]

I thought it was interesting they had their Barcelona test car (or at least one with the same body work) at Harvard a couple weeks ago. You’d think they would be at the factory working on it…

I'm with you on the 'I'll believe it when I see it' but the cost cap and limitations in number of CFD runs doesn't rule out a dramatic change in a perverse it might mean a dramatic change is more likely.

As a former engineer who worked in a cash and resource strapped organisation it did teach us to think outside the box a lot and get creative and I've seen brilliant engineers come up with great ideas in a mature project that just takes it in a completely different direction.

This.

I’d rather have less money / time with smarter / more talented engineers than try to iterate myself to a solution with a less talented group. I’ve said this all along, you cannot unlearn what you know and talent always wins. I’ve seen this play out again and again in other racing series, and even in spec series from amateur to pro, the same people / teams are at the front.

I’d argue these rule sets even favor a Mercedes or RedBull because they’ll always be more efficient with their time than a team who may have more wind tunnel time / cfd time but are struggling with correlation issues or were super far off the mark to begin with. We could have a billion dollars with every tool at our disposal, hire all the regular forum posters, and we’d be lucky to design a mid pack amateur field Formula Atlantic.

That wasn't the real car, it was a mule - discussed on Reddit

[Hoffman900]

I don’t look at reddit. It has a collective IQ of like 95.

But, link?

[Marty_Y]

Has anyone else heard or know anything about this revolutionary cooling system?

[Just_a_fan]

I had a fun thought - what if the changes to the Mercedes are actually not very small sidepods but actually a ramped type like those on the Red Bull. I remember one of the Merc team being quoted as saying that the Red Bull's side pods would be interesting for the guys back at the factory, almost as if they might consider it. Maybe they've actually independently come up with a similar, but perhaps more extreme, approach.

The mods shouldn't have killed the speculation thread so soon!

You misremember, when prodded and asked multiple times about if he (the TD) saw anything interesting on any other car, he essentially said if I MUST pick one, I'd go with the RBR sidepod but we have our own philosophy and we don't have time to be deviating from that.

“The most visually different [thing] I think are the sidepods that Red Bull Racing have come up with,” Mercedes technical director Mike Elliott said on a video released on the official Formula 1 YouTube channel.

“[It] looks interesting, so we’ll go and have a think about that.”

[Just_a_fan]

I don’t look at reddit. It has a collective IQ of like 95.

Only at weekends when they're all on it!

[Mattchu]

A nice video talking about the organisational spec/design philosophy!

Check out from 2.01 -> 2.07 to see the Mercedes porpoising, albeit not as bad as we`ve seen occasionaly in these new cars. Just shows it`s not a new phenomenon like the press are making out!

[Big Tea]

I thought it was interesting they had their Barcelona test car (or at least one with the same body work) at Harvard a couple weeks ago. You’d think they would be at the factory working on it…

I'm with you on the 'I'll believe it when I see it' but the cost cap and limitations in number of CFD runs doesn't rule out a dramatic change in a perverse it might mean a dramatic change is more likely.

As a former engineer who worked in a cash and resource strapped organisation it did teach us to think outside the box a lot and get creative and I've seen brilliant engineers come up with great ideas in a mature project that just takes it in a completely different direction.

This.

I’d rather have less money / time with smarter / more talented engineers than try to iterate myself to a solution with a less talented group. I’ve said this all along, you cannot unlearn what you know and talent always wins. I’ve seen this play out again and again in other racing series, and even in spec series from amateur to pro, the same people / teams are at the front.

I’d argue these rule sets even favor a Mercedes or RedBull because they’ll always be more efficient with their time than a team who may have more wind tunnel time / cfd time but are struggling with correlation issues or were super far off the mark to begin with. We could have a billion dollars with every tool at our disposal, hire all the regular forum posters, and we’d be lucky to design a mid pack amateur field Formula Atlantic.

There is also the deadline concentrator.
Teams can keep improving and adapting right up to the point where everyone is fighting for the last signature and no one is completely happy when the job goes to production. The later this deadline the bigger the rush to decide what goes into the project and what only gets added later if possible.
Having an actual article to make improvements on should be better than improving an untried model.

(all relevant of course)