Mercedes W13

[Vanja #66]

I think Vanja you will have to to adjust your Mercedes chassismodel a bit based on the new evidence we have that the Mercedes chassis is not that draggy, nor remarkably draggy compared to Ferrari or RedBull.

What evidence would that be? Being slower on straights with DRS off in the race? Both Ferrari (Barca RW) and Mercedes (Barca RW, among other novelties) demonstrated how easy it is to miss a DRS design for optimal speed boost, unlike RB. With a simple RW swap, they are all there or thereabout...

I asked dialtone for some data about top speeds, this was very detailed work and meticulous approach to exclude other factors from top speed comparison. Here they are

with lap number:

LEC 17: 305 (haas in front)
VER 42: 305 (alpha tauri in front)
HAM 21: 304 (zhou in front)
PER 26: 307 (1-2s behind russel and verstappen)
RUS 24: 302 (fighting with Verstappen no tow)
SAI 39: 308 (I think he had bottas in front)

I don't know exactly the distance in front, I would need to write a more complicated script to deal with potential tow.

Also not sure if you care about this, but this is 90%ile lap between 2-49 (which contains all the fastest laps found earlier):

https://i.imgur.com/LNYPbMH.jpeg

So 6 laps are going to be faster than this out of 66 and 60 laps are slower than this, I figure it's the easiest way to remove tow somehow although VER and PER spent many laps behind Russell.

LEC: 304
VER: 303
HAM: 301
PER: 305
RUS: 300
SAI: 307

While I had my suspicions about drag reduction of Bahrain vs launch spec sidepods, this comparison simply cements it - nothing suggests that this is a low-drag chassis. With different floor and minimized bouncing, unlike Bahrain, having a better car and less drag on RW and still a bit slower in race clears things up completely.

Not that I would choose launch spec sidepods if I was Mercedes, those wing mirrors are brilliant and they are certainly enhancing floor performance, maybe even RW as well. I've used this kind of stubby wing design (although around front wheels, so slightly different angles) to allow aggressive front wing use in some trials and experiments and it was a brilliant addition.

[RZS10]

So we can safely say the Barcelona wing was a high downforce wing then.

I'm very sure the wing used in Barcelona was their launch spec wing just without any paint apart from the Petronas logo area (no black, no red, no silver), a wing which according to the team (source: Michael Schmidt who talked to Merc engineers) had high drag.

[PlatinumZealot]

So we can safely say the Barcelona wing was a high downforce wing then.

I'm very sure the wing used in Barcelona was their launch spec wing just without any paint apart from the Petronas logo area (no black, no red, no silver), a wing which according to the team (source: Michael Schmidt who talked to Merc engineers) had high drag.
https://i.imgur.com/LVjAl7P.png

Yup. I was alluding to the Monaco setup using that same wing as Barcelona. So since you mention now that the same wing was used at those tracks then yup, Mercedes was indeed running a higher rear DF setting at those tracks too. Probably to offset the loss of raising the car up in those races..

[AeroDynamic]

[michl420]

Looks like their sidepod cooler pass through under the fuel tank/monocoque. Bring COG vs. aero on the radar again.

[pursue_one's]

[SiLo]

So we can safely say the Barcelona wing was a high downforce wing then.

I'm very sure the wing used in Barcelona was their launch spec wing just without any paint apart from the Petronas logo area (no black, no red, no silver), a wing which according to the team (source: Michael Schmidt who talked to Merc engineers) had high drag.
https://i.imgur.com/LVjAl7P.png

It's the same except the edges of the top plane at the corners are a different shape.

[mantikos]

So we can safely say the Barcelona wing was a high downforce wing then.

I'm very sure the wing used in Barcelona was their launch spec wing just without any paint apart from the Petronas logo area (no black, no red, no silver), a wing which according to the team (source: Michael Schmidt who talked to Merc engineers) had high drag.
https://i.imgur.com/LVjAl7P.png

Yup. I was alluding to the Monaco setup using that same wing as Barcelona. So since you mention now that the same wing was used at those tracks then yup, Mercedes was indeed running a higher rear DF setting at those tracks too. Probably to offset the loss of raising the car up in those races..

And still somehow fastest in the speedtrap during quali iirc

[restless]

Severe bouncing in first training. In Monaco where speeds are not so high?!

[Quantum]

Severe bouncing in first training. In Monaco where speeds are not so high?!

It was front suspension related, from both drivers. So not the same problem of porpoising.
The heave spring was changed on George's car during FP1, so might be a case of running too stiff.

[zioture]

[ringo]

https://cdn-1.motorsport.com/images/mgl ... tail-1.jpg

why does it look like one of the exhaust pipes from the left cylinder bank swings over to the right manifold collector?
And possible one of the left ssings ovrr to the right?

[Stu]

https://cdn-1.motorsport.com/images/mgl ... tail-1.jpg

why does it look like one of the exhaust pipes from the left cylinder bank swings over to the right manifold collector?
And possible one of the left ssings ovrr to the right?

There were some other shots earlier in the year where it looks as though the exhaust turbine has at least three (but possibly up to six) entry ports into the turbo body.

[PlatinumZealot]

Hamiltonsay front downforce is great, but resr downforce is lacking in Monaco.

Could be that the side pod wing does not work well at low speeds? Or maybe the floor just needs more tweaking?

[zibby43]

Hamiltonsay front downforce is great, but resr downforce is lacking in Monaco.

Could be that the side pod wing does not work well at low speeds? Or maybe the floor just needs more tweaking?

It’s all the suspension, per Merc engineers. Gary Anderson agrees. I agree with him, which is scary.