Mercedes W13

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theWPTformula
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Re: Mercedes W13

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Lewis_Hamilton wrote:
13 Oct 2022, 03:05
“Getting to the desired aero shapes has meant a complete internal repackaging, right down to the electrical layout and where we fit things like the ECU. The suspension has been redesigned to account for the loss of hydraulics and remote springs, now banned in the new regulations. Hopefully, you will also see that we have taken another step with how tightly packaged the sidepods and engine cover are. To get to this is not just a shrink-wrapping exercise but requires a huge amount of redesign and simulation to make it work,” continued Mike Elliott.

Mike let on at the beginning that the sidepod layout was not the fundamental aero shape we baked into the car with our packaging decisions.I think some bright minds will be able to guess where we went wrong when they finally get to see the changes that are coming for next year.
Intriguing...

If you piece together evidence and comments throughout the year, I can't help but feel that the answers can almost be found in Mike Elliott's interview on Beyond The Grid podcast.

At around 03:05 he talks about an almost singular decision made during the car development process where the team may have made a mistake. He talks about the performance swings of the car and also implies that during the team's transition to the new car they carried over learnings and methodologies from 2021 that weren't quite applicable to 2022. He also talks about how they have managed to fix things a bit, but the issue won't be fully resolved till next year.

Singular decisions in engineering typically involve defining a specific parameter of the design that builds in a desirable characteristic. I have no first hand experience of the racing car design process, but given the available evidence I wonder whether he is referring to defining the car's nominal ride height window.

Once the porpoising was resolved with the Barcelona update, bumpy circuits remained a huge challenge for the car and maybe it was discovered that the nominal window was set too low... GE cars being extremely ride height sensitive, in order to sacrifice as little performance as possible they opted to tackle the problem primarily by increasing spring rates, and then raise the ride height as a last resort to satisfy ride quality, driver comfort, and, later on, the bouncing metric. Maybe the performance swings can be attributed to how far the ride height strayed away from the nominal for a given circuit. (Mercedes' typically high wing angle settings are possibly an indicator of having to sacrifice floor performance.)

Perhaps they envisaged this window as a place that would bear more and more fruit; a sustainable development path. But having discovered the problem, and with the mechanical architecture locked in, it left only a certain amount of scope in aerodynamic developments to widen - or move - the window. I think the direction they took with the floor edge geometry is indicative of this. (NB: The car was 'missing' floor edge detail at the start of the season.) Recently the car seems to be behaving more desirably.

Where my theory falls flat is how they did not anticipate the chosen ride height window being an issue on bumpy circuits, given the sophisticated suspension modelling and testing tools at their disposal to check wheel displacement under loads.
Last edited by theWPTformula on 13 Oct 2022, 23:46, edited 1 time in total.

AR3-GP
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Re: Mercedes W13

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theWPTformula wrote:
13 Oct 2022, 22:59
Lewis_Hamilton wrote:
13 Oct 2022, 03:05

Where my theory falls flat is how they did not anticipate the chosen ride height window being an issue on bumpy circuits, given the sophisticated suspension modelling and testing tools at their disposal to check wheel displacement under loads.
It seems like an oversight. A vehicle dynamics model would predict the vertical accelerations that the driver is subject to even in a car that doesnt have any aero model on it. As it turns out, the drivers basically refused to drive such a stiff car. I wonder why this wasn't caught sooner. It's a massive oversight to have all the numbers in front of you, and only realize halfway through the season that the stiffness became so much of a health issue that the drivers implied they didn't want to drive the car the way the engineers intended because the ride was too harsh.
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PlatinumZealot
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Re: Mercedes W13

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Designing the car at higher ride hieght would have forced them to ustilize vortices more in the tunnels and around the edge of the floor.

Granted this might influence the side-pod shape but only Mercedes can say for sure.
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ringo
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Re: Mercedes W13

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Just_a_fan wrote:
12 Oct 2022, 20:28
El_KaPpa wrote:
12 Oct 2022, 20:14
PlatinumZealot wrote:
12 Oct 2022, 09:45
I know my deductions were correct. Here confirmed by Mike Elliot that the issue with the car is aerodynamic:

A. Shovlin: "Fundamentally one of the things that we need to improve on the car for next year is get the car to have more downforce at the low drag levels and then we can race those lighter wings and still be competitive in the corners"
Isn't that basic downforce racing 101? All racing cars that use downforce want to have more downforce with less drag.
Well its not very basic.
He is implying less downforce from wings and more from the floor and diffuser.
The side pods optimize beamwing flow. So the beam wing is maximized in terms of airflow.. however it's still draggy relative to the floor of the car and diffuser.
Not enough focus was placed on floor and managing the floor with the suspension.
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organic
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Re: Mercedes W13

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ringo wrote:
14 Oct 2022, 02:29
Just_a_fan wrote:
12 Oct 2022, 20:28
El_KaPpa wrote:
12 Oct 2022, 20:14


A. Shovlin: "Fundamentally one of the things that we need to improve on the car for next year is get the car to have more downforce at the low drag levels and then we can race those lighter wings and still be competitive in the corners"
Isn't that basic downforce racing 101? All racing cars that use downforce want to have more downforce with less drag.
Well its not very basic.
He is implying less downforce from wings and more from the floor and diffuser.
The side pods optimize beamwing flow. So the beam wing is maximized in terms of airflow.. however it's still draggy relative to the floor of the car and diffuser.
Not enough focus was placed on floor and managing the floor with the suspension.
I was under the impression that almost all of the W13's concept was focused around extracting the maximum performance from the floor and hence that's where a lot of their focus went..

The issue, to me, seems to be a lack of correlation: at every step Mercedes are confused by their lack of performance or excellent performance. It's a game of known unknowns. And they're still struggling with that now. Sort out the correlation and they can deliver updates that they can be confident about

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ringo
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Re: Mercedes W13

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I think they got carried away with the raw ground effect of riding as close to the ground as possible, but didnt consider what redbull did which was optimizing performance of the floor at what would be considered less optimal ride heights. My opinion anyway. But as it relates to drag, most of it is coming from their wings and dependency on wing downforce because they couldnt run the car ridiculously close to the ground.
I remember the earlier parts of the season, especially albert park and how violent and hap hazard the car was riding. It was basically undrivable and the concept of riding sucked onto the floor could not be applied in reality.
I think after that realization they had to back off the ride height losing downforce and having to suplement it with wing downforce.
It's possible also that without the zero pods they may have needed to put even more wing in the car.

What i find interesting however is the Alpine. I think it's a faster car than the W13. They just dont have the drivers and the team to extract more out of it in the race. Mercedes is analyzing the tyres, data and strategy better.

But yes that Apline has a much better concept than the W13. Merc have a way to go make a good W14 but i think the last set of races will bring good learnings since they have come to accept the weaknesses they will stop trying desperately to win and may just focus on trying out setups and parts for next year.
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Evo2racer
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Re: Mercedes W13

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Very interesting!

https://www.grandprix247.com/2022/10/14 ... or-austin/

Let’s hope the upgrades work so we can FINALLY win a race this year!

OO7
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Re: Mercedes W13

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Evo2racer wrote:
15 Oct 2022, 17:00
Is it me or in this video there are 2 modified W13 with side-pods 🙈🙊?

On the left RB /AM style and on the right just a w13 with side-pods ?
The car on the left is the F.I.A model, whilst the car on the right is the launch spec W13.

matteosc
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Re: Mercedes W13

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AR3-GP wrote:
13 Oct 2022, 23:27
theWPTformula wrote:
13 Oct 2022, 22:59
Lewis_Hamilton wrote:
13 Oct 2022, 03:05

Where my theory falls flat is how they did not anticipate the chosen ride height window being an issue on bumpy circuits, given the sophisticated suspension modelling and testing tools at their disposal to check wheel displacement under loads.
It seems like an oversight. A vehicle dynamics model would predict the vertical accelerations that the driver is subject to even in a car that doesnt have any aero model on it. As it turns out, the drivers basically refused to drive such a stiff car. I wonder why this wasn't caught sooner. It's a massive oversight to have all the numbers in front of you, and only realize halfway through the season that the stiffness became so much of a health issue that the drivers implied they didn't want to drive the car the way the engineers intended because the ride was too harsh.
I do not think it is that simple. The vertical accelerations depend on both stiffness and loads (plus obviously the mass, but that is very well known). For the loads we are talking about aerodynamic loads, which have a behavior (i.e. "time history") difficult to predict in GE cars, as the porpoising phenomenon taught us.

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organic
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Re: Mercedes W13

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https://www.formu1a.uno/mercedes-f1-202 ... heres-how/
But Mercedes’ 2023 season will start this upcoming weekend on the Circuit of the Americas. More than a month ago the team decided that every race and session would be used as a trial: tests and new solutions for next year’s car. In Austin the team from Brackley will bring ahead another crucial stage of this program.

Toto Wolff’s team will bring a number of solutions designed in order to transform the W13 into a faster and more stable benchmark to begin with in the process to become competitive again. This process will involve a completely new air flow around the car, which should give a fully different setup window.
The changes will give more freedom to the height of the rear suspension
Such a big change requires equally important modifications to the car from the front wing to the rear, and we expect to see some significant updates to the car already on track at Austin.
According to information obtained exclusively by Formu1a.uno we should expect small changes in the nose cone, front wing and the new floor. Furthermore, Mercedes will complete another step towards the weight limit.

New lighter components should guarantee a weight reduction of around (but less than) 5kg, and bring the car closer to the well known 798kg minimum weight. Talking about the weight only, this should ensure an improvement of around 1 tenth per lap.
The article is by Duchessa so I consider it somewhat reliable

Henri
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Re: Mercedes W13

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organic wrote:
18 Oct 2022, 11:22
https://www.formu1a.uno/mercedes-f1-202 ... heres-how/
But Mercedes’ 2023 season will start this upcoming weekend on the Circuit of the Americas. More than a month ago the team decided that every race and session would be used as a trial: tests and new solutions for next year’s car. In Austin the team from Brackley will bring ahead another crucial stage of this program.

Toto Wolff’s team will bring a number of solutions designed in order to transform the W13 into a faster and more stable benchmark to begin with in the process to become competitive again. This process will involve a completely new air flow around the car, which should give a fully different setup window.
The changes will give more freedom to the height of the rear suspension
Such a big change requires equally important modifications to the car from the front wing to the rear, and we expect to see some significant updates to the car already on track at Austin.
According to information obtained exclusively by Formu1a.uno we should expect small changes in the nose cone, front wing and the new floor. Furthermore, Mercedes will complete another step towards the weight limit.

New lighter components should guarantee a weight reduction of around (but less than) 5kg, and bring the car closer to the well known 798kg minimum weight. Talking about the weight only, this should ensure an improvement of around 1 tenth per lap.
The article is by Duchessa so I consider it somewhat reliable
Lets hope they have less drag with this update

Just_a_fan
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Re: Mercedes W13

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organic wrote:
18 Oct 2022, 11:22
According to information obtained exclusively by Formu1a.uno we should expect small changes in the nose cone, front wing and the new floor. Furthermore, Mercedes will complete another step towards the weight limit.
The article is by Duchessa so I consider it somewhat reliable
The front wing will have to change anyway as the FIA doesn't want the clever endplate connection next year. So changes will be needed to compensate for that change alone.
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organic
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Re: Mercedes W13

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Interesting... Another interpretation at the front wing that goes against the intentions of the regs. Surely this will be outlawed for next season just as their cutout endplates have been? These would serve similar purpose to how the flap adjustors have been exploited but taking it to the extreme I think

Are they claiming the VGs are the uppermost FW flap supports (like the metal rings used elsewhere)? Is that how it's potentially legal?
Last edited by organic on 20 Oct 2022, 18:55, edited 3 times in total.

AR3-GP
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Re: Mercedes W13

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organic wrote:
20 Oct 2022, 18:36


Interesting... Another interpretation at the front wing that goes against the intentions of the regs.. surely it'll just get outlawed for the next year just as the endplate cutouts?
This will get the firing squad at the technical advisory committee.
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organic
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Re: Mercedes W13

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Also reshaping around the endplate slot. Why invest into this area if the interpretation is gone next season?