Mercedes W13

[Andi76]

Revisit it now, a few races later? Unfortunately i was obviously right by saying Barcelona sucess was track dependant etc. And as Aston Martin seems to improve, while Mercedes still is in a lot of trouble and the gap seems to get even bigger instead of smaller, with porpoising(more or less) solved - it seems to prove what i said since the very beginning of the season - that the Zero-Pod concept is just wrong, for reasons already explained.

If the zero-pod was wrong Barcelona wouldn't have been a success. If there is one track on the calendar that is heavily aero-dependent it is Barcelona.

Like i said - Barcelona is a well known track. As one of the two or three best teams Mercedes knows exactly what to do there, thats the reason why they were so good there. When the zero-pod concept is such a great concept - why did they have problems on any other track? And why got all the teams with similar concepts got worse and all teams with other concepts did improve? And why do all the micro/zeropod concept cars have drag problems?

[deadhead]

I think Montreal will be much better than Baku, less low speed corners.

Silverstone is going to be a good indicator.

[organic]

Posting retrospective articles that use car data to illustrate how the FIA designed this change to specifically hurt low rake is not bolstering your case.

Mercedes didn't use a mock 2021 floor at the tyre test in 2020 when all of the other teams brought a mock floor, to get an idea of how the floor change might effect the performance of their car. They also worked on designing a new nose cone for the 2021 season if rumours are to be believed rather than anything to do with significant floor changes. They also claimed on one of the James Allison talks on their YouTube channel that they'd recovered all of the lost time from the 2021 rule changes prior to the season. It then took them half a season to get the new floor remotely working efficiently again. To me that doesn't sound like a team that knew its concept was being targeted by this rule change.

Given not even Mercedes understood that the floor cutouts might hurt their concept a lot, and seemed to underestimate the damage it would do to their aero platform.. how in that case did the FIA know that the low rake philosophy would be hurt more? If the 100 boffins whose job it is to understand the car's aerodynamics didn't... Why would the FIA ?

You could point to both Aston Martin and Mercedes being the 2 teams against changing the regulations to the cut floor. However if you consider that Mercedes had at that point one of the most dominant cars ever in the W11 and AMR were achieving their best ever results, why would they want any reg change? Those at the top never want things to change

This is all off topic. Move it to a relevant thread or delete

[Zynerji]

With Lewis being willing to try "experimental" setups, I'd love 8 hours in the Merc sim to spin some up!

[cplchanb]

It's a great shame how the mighty have fallen. Chances are last season was hams last chance at getting wdc #8. With the current car troubles and upshot young blood, he may very well hang up his helmet after next year.

[mkay]

Can we go back to discussing the W13?

Car seems like it needs a new rear suspension, and shed more drag. The amount of time they are losing in S1 and S3 is simply staggering.

[Ozan]

as far as I remember, W13 and Aston Martin shares the same rear suspension. I watched FP3 and on the main straight Vettel's car was bouncing less than w13. This may show that the floor and sidepod design may cause the bad porpoising.

[214270]

For what it’s worth.

[pursue_one's]

[wesley123]

Like i said - Barcelona is a well known track. As one of the two or three best teams Mercedes knows exactly what to do there, thats the reason why they were so good there.

This is the case for every team, which cancels it out.

When the zero-pod concept is such a great concept - why did they have problems on any other track?

This can be due to a variety of things.

This argumentation is also incredibly flawed when you consider that they released the big update in Barcelona. So you have exactly one reference to draw your conclusion, and this conclusion even contradicts what actually happened.

You conclude that the zeropod design is flawed, yet at THE aero-dependent track on the calendar, the car has performed best thus far. It doesn't really take much to realize how that makes no sense. If the zeropod was flawed and the cause of all problems, they would have fared worse at Barcelona.

And why got all the teams with similar concepts got worse and all teams with other concepts did improve?

Is that actually the case to begin with?

And why do all the micro/zeropod concept cars have drag problems?

How can you ever conclude that to begin with? Apart from "drag problems" not really being a thing in F1 due to the power these cars have and it being a downforce-dominated formula, there is little evidence to suggest it being the case.

[Shrieker]

The car is too stiffly set up now to dial out bouncing, and that in turn reduces grip in the slow, tight corners ?

[siskue2005]

One word Tombazis..

Wow what a great argument
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The car is too stiffly set up now to dial out bouncing, and that in turn reduces grip in the slow, tight corners ?

Its their issue since the first race. It's not improved and cannot be dialled out until they get a suspension change

[Ozan]

can they switch to rear push-rod suspension quickly?

[Vanja #66]

I honestly hope Mercedes already had some alternative designs in the works even before launch, as zero-pods have more than a few problems. Suspension is probably the biggest problem of the car, but zero-pods reducing floor-edge vortices (with intakes going all the way to the floor) and leaving such a massive floor area as a cantilever will always make more trouble with bouncing and overall performance.

In this regard alone, it looks like RB/AT/Alpine solution is the best for both floor stifness and performance.

[siskue2005]

I honestly hope Mercedes already had some alternative designs in the works even before launch, as zero-pods have more than a few problems. Suspension is probably the biggest problem of the car, but zero-pods reducing floor-edge vortices (with intakes going all the way to the floor) and leaving such a massive floor area as a cantilever will always make more trouble with bouncing and overall performance.

In this regard alone, it looks like RB/AT/Alpine solution is the best for both floor stifness and performance.

Agree, they should look into this concept if their silverstone update doesn't work