2022 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[mstar]

Experiments that never work, seem like just guess work and waste time in set up etc.

[saviour stivala]

Car looks like a pig today.

A pig would have done much better.

[ringo]

As for budget cap. Maybe the engineers are getting more pay than they deserve for their level of creativity.
The other teams probably have people getting paid half as much and have equal talent.

This car has barely changed since the season started.

Question.. What happens with ground effect cars when the ride height increases?
Do the drag reduce as well?

A new speculation that came to mind just now about ferrari and redbull is that they could be stalling the floor at high speed by pitching the front up relative to the rear.

This is done by the rear suspension being softer than the front after a certain loading and speed. The rear falls faster than the front and the front stays higher creating a " > " open wedge shape.

This assumes that a pitched up ground effect floor that is stalled is less draggy.

Just another idea to look into. And could explain redbull's front suspension.

[Andi76]

what baffles me more than the w13 is how Haas is bring new upgrades to the body and merc cant. Where did the money go, into the high salaries?

Anyhow the issues as zealot says is the floor. The wheels and sidepods are easy to undersrand. The car's performance wouldnt be so unpredictable if it were those things.
The issue is something very detail and very dynamic and that's floor and suspension.
Possibly front wing as well.

Drag about the wheels and engine cover is the easiest thing to simulate compared to the floor and the wings.

This is NOT what caught Mercedes off gaurd.

It's the floor and the movement of it while the car is suspended. Time and time again we hear that this is not easy to simulate and not easy to test.

The floor and the movement of it may be a problem(Mercedes definetely has more than one problem and its a combination of things that makes them slower than Ferrari and Red Bull). But i hardly doubt that it is their main problem(and that its harder to simulate and test the movement of the floor than the whole rear aerodynamics. Lotus already put a lot of effort in this more than 40 years ago, so...)and their main problem in relation to drag. The floor is not responsible for a lot of the cars drag, while the front wheel wake contributes massively to that. It also can make a mess with the aero of a car. As it is well known that one of the main reasons for "big"-sidepods was exactly the management of the front-wheel wake, i think that being one of the main problems(it definetely is more than just one area Mercedes has problems compared to Ferrari/Red Bull) is far more likely. Also the other teams improving after using "big"-sidepods , points more into that direction.

The reason why Haas can bring updates to the body and Mercedes can't, in my opinion, also has a relation to that. For Mercedes it would be complete change of the aero-philosophy and to bring an update thats really worth it - this probably would require to many changes(not only bodywork but also under the bodywork). In the era of budget cap and windtunnel restrictions, it is probably the better option to spend this time on your new car. Especially when there is not a lot to gain(with or without these changes - they would probably be P3 in the championship anyway). But thats only my thought, but its reasonable i think and one of a few things that makes sense.

[Andi76]

http://www.gptoday.com/full_story/view/ ... ccusation/

Man, this guy cracks me up: they cheated with their engine in 2019 and claim they lost with dignity. What a joke!

Remember that was never proven and they were never caught. The FIA just changed how they were monitoring the fuel and then poof Ferrari's PU performance disappeared. From that stand point, they just accepted it and had a slow car for 2 years.

They were caught and the FIA did a dodgy deal with them. They even admitted as much in the statement they issued:
"The FIA announces that, after thorough technical investigations, it has concluded its analysis of the operation of the Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1 power unit and reached a settlement with the team. The specifics of the agreement will remain between the parties."
You don't reach a settlement with the regulatory body unless you've done some naughty. If Ferrari had been innocent, the statement would have said "The FIA has carried out a thorough investigation and are happy that Ferrari have done nothing wrong".

So, yes, they were cheating and, yes, they were caught.

Not really. Again we are talking about Interpretation. If memory serves this was about the flow rate. Rules said that is had to be x(do not remember the numbers) in a specific time frame. Ferrari did comply with this and they used x in y time, but not ALL the time. So they exploited a loophole in the regulations. This loophole was then closed by the FIA. And even if it was borderline - thats F1 and all the teams are constantly trying to find such loopholes and try to exploit them. And its indeed hypocrisy when teams are complaining about this as every single one in F1 is constantly trying to exploit loopholes. One is more borderline the other one less. But at the end of the day this does not matter, as its exactly the same motivation - to gain a competitive advantage by exploiting grey areas. And its not a secret that every F1 engineer is doing this and every F1 engineer admits that. Discussion and cheating allegations are just politics with a similar motivation - to take a competitive advantage away from your competitor and gain an advantage yourself. At the end of the day no championship in F1 was won by a car that was completely within the spirit of the technical regulations. If a car is designed that way - it would not even be able to compete with a Williams.

And Piero is totally right with what he is saying. Mercedes is trying to change the rules politically to get a set of regulations that favores them. But thats also F1. Teams are constantly trying to influence the governing body to get a set of regulations that they think is favoring them. One team is doing it this way, one team is doing it that way. But at the end of the day every team is doing this constantly. And also teams are fighting each other politically because of that. And this is what Piero does here. And thats F1, too and also something thats happening all the time.

In my opinion, especially since porpoising and bouncing is not a problem any more, i think its wrong to change the regulations. It would be much better for Mercedes if they win again with this set of regulations than after a regulation change in their favor. But like i said - thats F1, and nothing that has not happened many times before.

[Shrieker]

Car looks like a pig today.

A pig would have done much better.

I was expecting to get roasted for saying that. And then i saw this

[aleks_ader]

Car looks like a pig today.

A pig would have done much better.

I was expecting to get roasted for saying that. And then i saw this

Roasted pork yummy. LOL car is really enigma. Will see if there is any way to get back to top3 today. TBH i was expecting them at least be competitive with Bulls. IDK we will see.

[saviour stivala]

Car looks like a pig today.

A pig would have done much better.

Cheers Shrieker.



I was expecting to get roasted for saying that. And then i saw this

Cheers Shrieker. As for today, unfortunately at least up to now "these tyres have no grip man''. so as you said, we will see what comes next at qualifying.

[saviour stivala]

As for budget cap. Maybe the engineers are getting more pay than they deserve for their level of creativity.
The other teams probably have people getting paid half as much and have equal talent.

This car has barely changed since the season started.

Question.. What happens with ground effect cars when the ride height increases?
Do the drag reduce as well?

A new speculation that came to mind just now about ferrari and redbull is that they could be stalling the floor at high speed by pitching the front up relative to the rear.

This is done by the rear suspension being softer than the front after a certain loading and speed. The rear falls faster than the front and the front stays higher creating a " > " open wedge shape.

This assumes that a pitched up ground effect floor that is stalled is less draggy.

Just another idea to look into. And could explain redbull's front suspension.

Logic says that if and when the ‘under the car down force’ stalls the car jumps up off the ground. And if the car rises at the front while the back stays down “creating a wedge” the car for sure will act more like a cowboys bronco horse and will jump even higher.

[PlatinumZealot]

what baffles me more than the w13 is how Haas is bring new upgrades to the body and merc cant. Where did the money go, into the high salaries?

Anyhow the issues as zealot says is the floor. The wheels and sidepods are easy to undersrand. The car's performance wouldnt be so unpredictable if it were those things.
The issue is something very detail and very dynamic and that's floor and suspension.
Possibly front wing as well.

Drag about the wheels and engine cover is the easiest thing to simulate compared to the floor and the wings.

This is NOT what caught Mercedes off gaurd.

It's the floor and the movement of it while the car is suspended. Time and time again we hear that this is not easy to simulate and not easy to test.

The floor and the movement of it may be a problem(Mercedes definetely has more than one problem and its a combination of things that makes them slower than Ferrari and Red Bull). But i hardly doubt that it is their main problem(and that its harder to simulate and test the movement of the floor than the whole rear aerodynamics. Lotus already put a lot of effort in this more than 40 years ago, so...)and their main problem in relation to drag. The floor is not responsible for a lot of the cars drag, while the front wheel wake contributes massively to that. It also can make a mess with the aero of a car. As it is well known that one of the main reasons for "big"-sidepods was exactly the management of the front-wheel wake, i think that being one of the main problems(it definetely is more than just one area Mercedes has problems compared to Ferrari/Red Bull) is far more likely. Also the other teams improving after using "big"-sidepods , points more into that direction.

Totally disagree when you say the floor is not responsible for drag. If you pitch the floor in a way that does not agree with the way the upper body was made to work then you will surely get more drag.

The most apparent cause of drag on the Mercedes were the big wings and the canard thingy and the vortex drag it produces but the rear wings were fixed. The canard thing has to do with helping the floor work by downwashing near the eadge of the floor. If the floor is pitched suboptimally then it would change the angle if attack of this canard and also the vortices it makes will likely go somewhere suboptimal too. It is easy for Mercedes to change the angle of attack of it and the size of it but they haven't. They aren't stupid so we have to trust their plan.

[214270]

Lol, couch experts need to stop.

[Shrieker]

Hamilton so unlucky. DRS problem.

[PlatinumZealot]

Lol at people saying the side pods are why Mercedes will be slow in Hungary!

[2thefront]

maybe we can quit pretending Merc is so far off the pace.

[214270]

On cue, media are suddenly back with the Mr Saturday crud