Mercedes W13

[amarques]

Do you think if Mercedes can improve as McLaren did, they can start fighting with Ferrari and Red Bull?

[mclaren_mircea]

Was is just my impression or the W13 had the best tyre degradation today from all the cars? At least on par with Leclerc and better than everyone else. What do you think?

[zubster]

Is it looking better compared to ferrari though or were red bull just worse in this race? Must have been close to 1 second a lap to Charles after the safety car

RedBull were in big trouble this race with difficulty in getting tyre temperature in the front. VER was getting 1s a lap towards the end of his first stint, Perez as well ran out of tyres on both stints. This race was dominant for Ferrari more because RBR was in trouble IMHO. Pace difference from W13 is still there.

Yep exactly what i was getting at.

Yeah your right, I was just getting my hopes up a bit too much!

[bonjon1979]

Track temps have been pretty low at races so far, I wonder if merc might fair better once we get to hotter tracks in the summer

[NicoS]

Track temps have been pretty low at races so far, I wonder if merc might fair better once we get to hotter tracks in the summer

yes, night races seems to be the thing now. glittering night light adding to the "glitz and glamour" bestowed upon the "spectacle" know as F1

[KiLLu12258]

Do you think if Mercedes can improve as McLaren did, they can start fighting with Ferrari and Red Bull?

Maybe they would, but we should wait if mclaren really improved that much or melbourne was better for their car.
pace wise i do not think that mercedes will come close to redbull and especially ferrari this year, IF they both do not develop their car in the wrong direction.

Besides the many issues mercedes has they are also looking underdeveloped part wise on the one hand thats a great thing as they have maybe the most potential on the table to find, but its also alarming as it feels they are really slow with everything right now. Still no upgrades and driving with a too big rear wing because the other wasnt ready on time is kinda weird for a team like this.

[murphy]

In my humble opinion it smells of correlation problems, if so then they are in trouble.

It is definitely related to the fact that they cannot simulate or replicate in the wind tunnel the phenomenon, but this is true for all teams. I think they just have a car which is more susceptible to poropising and they are having an hard time in figuring it out.
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Just look at how much the Ferrari proposes, yet they have the fastest car on the grid.

[murphy]

In my humble opinion it smells of correlation problems, if so then they are in trouble.

How can it be correlation problems when porpoising cant be recreated in cfd or the wind tunnel?

Its not about porpoising , its the whole concept of their car.

[jurinius]

Was is just my impression or the W13 had the best tyre degradation today from all the cars? At least on par with Leclerc and better than everyone else. What do you think?

For me even in the last race, Lewis was doing very well with the hard compound tyre before Mister Latifi crashed again. The W13 is very good on that tyre, they will probably go for less stops strategy in many races, but this can also be a consequence of their car's problem.

[Big Tea]

Do you think if Mercedes can improve as McLaren did, they can start fighting with Ferrari and Red Bull?

I can see them getting nose to nose with Red Bull, but I think Ferrari will be way don the road by the time (if) they are ready to take them on.

One thing here too, Merc want the manufacturers more than they want the drivers, so they would prefer to be fighting Red Bull, who want drivers crown, and Ferrari want both and look like being out of sight by the time the other two come good.

[BaSubScribe]

People earlier were posting pics of Mercs floor and comparing it to Red Bull's. Can someone post a pic of Red Bull's floor for the side by side comparison?

[mclaren_mircea]

What about Imola? I found very different reports about posible upgrades? Most of them are saying that at Imola we will see the first bites of an upgrade package that will come in steps until Barcelona. But another one is terrifying. That they wont have updates at all not just at Imola but neither at the next couple of races until they will understand the porpoising. I know that it may be confussing with the wings, but some sort of new floor should definately come. Worse it cant be. A new floor has to be the first step of solving this damn bouncing.

[Zynerji]

What about Imola? I found very different reports about posible upgrades? Most of them are saying that at Imola we will see the first bites of an upgrade package that will come in steps until Barcelona. But another one is terrifying. That they wont have updates at all not just at Imola but neither at the next couple of races until they will understand the porpoising. I know that it may be confussing with the wings, but some sort of new floor should definately come. Worse it cant be. A new floor has to be the first step of solving this damn bouncing.

I believe Merc had a planned Barcelona upgrade working, but upon having the current troubles, several parts would be expedited to fix these issues. It would make sense to see a small, but big-bang update at Imola (priority 1's) with further small updates in Miami (priority 2's) and then the rest in Barcelona (priority 3's) I feel that it really depends on if/when they found the solution in the problem/fix cycle.

[chrisc90]

Wonder why they dont look at what the Barcelona 'full' side pods can do?

I mean they could run 1 car in practice with them on. Providing its just a engine cover / possible floor to swap over.....that takes very little time.

They could get quite a bit of realistic data without 'showing their card' too much like they would have in testing. Granted you would lose a session of FP but copying the setup off one car and putting it onto another wouldnt be hard.

[AR3-GP]

The car was porpoising in Barcelona. I don't think the sidepod itself is the solution to their porpoising. Cars of any sidepod design can porpoise.