Mercedes W14

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PlatinumZealot
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Re: Mercedes W14

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carisi2k wrote:
04 Mar 2023, 01:41
I don't think the floor aside from not being optimised or as efficient as Red Bull or Aston Martin is the main problem. The main problem I believe is that they aren't controlling the wheel wake because they don't have a proper side pod. We have proof in images from this very thread showing the dirty air going in to places it shouldn't be. Without barge boards the sidepod is needed to keep control the air to the rear. The mid wing is not capable of doing this.
If it were that easy Mercedes would have fixed that from 2020! Can't really confirm smoke from low down as dirty air. You can't tell from a still image. Wheel wake is much higher than that. Look where RedBull pokes its side pods out, that the level where the really bad wheel wake is.
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SmallSoldier
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Re: Mercedes W14

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Different rear wing configurations for Hamilton and Russell, Hamilton with a lower DF Rear Wing

Image

Vía: Luisfef1

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organic
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Re: Mercedes W14

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I was wrong, low downforce chosen

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Vanja #66
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Re: Mercedes W14

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Every team actually chose lower df wings than last year. Some a bit lower, some a lot lower. Will be interesting to finally see Merc race with a third wing level and how the car will treat the tyres, it will tell us a lot.
And they call it a stall. A STALL!

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AR3-GP
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Re: Mercedes W14

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I think at this point Mercedes just want a car that's raceable.
A lion must kill its prey.

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atanatizante
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Re: Mercedes W14

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ringo wrote:
04 Mar 2023, 04:11
It's not totally the wheel wake. Wheel wake maybe more to do with drag reduction and some impact on the floor efficiency but not tottally.
If it were just the wheel wake it would be an easy fix. You would only have to worry about the sidepods.
Reason i say this is the other teams like willaims and mclaren and alpine arent doing so great.

I am starting to wonder if mercedes underestimated how much progress the other teams could make over 2022. Because if you have targets and you feel those were acheived over the winter.. why would it be a shock that the car is at best front of midfeild?
Did they fail to meet targets with w14 or was W14 simply set at a lower target?
The top speed is not an issue it seems, but it comes at a cost with grip at the rear. Downforce lacking at the rear, or balance.
I second that regarding the front tyre wake!
On another forum, someone is quoting an undisclosed team engineer saying they also solved this issue coz the rear tyres are less affected and thus the car is not more draggy anymore. And the proof is in the speed traps even with the old barn door rear wing...

Unfortunately, now their problem is that due to the 2023 regs with the raised floor, they are losing some downforce but overall they are faster than last year, according to the tests and both FPs. What caught them up was that RB and AMR have been able to run their cars lower than they and the regs are allowing them to do that and that's why Toto was moaning about it...

We have to face it that last year AMR22 wasn't doing much better even if they were copping RB18`s aero so the dominating factors should be the floor and the suspension, particularly the rear one. This year it has the same rear suspension as W14 has but it seems that they could change some of it with their own damping system and also have other geometry setup compared to the works team. These things and the know-how are common factors with RB19 regarding their ability to run lower the car ...
Last edited by atanatizante on 06 Mar 2023, 15:10, edited 1 time in total.
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ringo
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Re: Mercedes W14

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W14 seems just like its predecessors and I am talking about W01, W04 etc etc. It just is a diva.
From the first Qualifyings it seems the car has pace but just needs the right stroking in terms of setup.
The concept doesnt seem so wrong. Maybe it's not as easy to get the best out of. Or is sensitive to track conditions.
The aston martin seems the least sensitive as we suspected because of the water slides, but peak performance doesnt seem beyond the merc or ferrari.
So looking like suspension and floor is the W14 headache.
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Re: Mercedes W14

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AA_2019 wrote:
04 Mar 2023, 18:32
The gap between the W14 and RB19 is the same as the W13 and RB18 :(
True, but the W14 doesn't bounce. I'm not saying they are going to close the gap easily, but they can now focus on development like the others. They have a better chance than if the car was still bouncing.
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Andi76
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Re: Mercedes W14

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ringo wrote:
04 Mar 2023, 19:10
Zero pod issue is the least. Look where Alonso is with a Dan Fallows car and Mercedes engine and suspension.
The issue is Adrian Newey. His cars are just by default better, especially when engines are similar.
Even with similar concepts, a Newey lead design will be super refined.

Russel's feedback seems like the W14 isn't bad. But he has never driven a top car enough to have the best perspective.
Hamilton doesn't say much on the car as well, but you would be lead to believe that it takes a lot of tinkering to get pace out of it.
I am hoping the upgrade is a big step. Both in terms of sidpods, floor and suspension. It can even be the ERS and deployment. The AMR seemed ordinary in qauly compared to RB19 and SF23.
Toto Wolff just said on Sky Germany after qualifying - we're just as far away as last year. Now it's time to take a new direction. So the entire concept of the car will change.


<10 removed lines of Newey. Newey is not in the W14>

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ringo
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Re: Mercedes W14

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Agreed Andi76 hence why I used the word "lead". There are other talented people doing the work, but maybe his direction or critique is crtical in getting the best from the team.
Looking on the W14

Image
Image

I am starting to see why the Zero-pod is so different. Look on the floor treatment between the two cars.
W14 has a very steep drop off to the edge of the floor at the base of the sidepod.
RB19 relatively flat going outwards from the undercut to the edge of the floor.

W14 is heavily dependent on the mid wing, compared to RB19 that uses that whole funnel underneath the sidepod to push higher volumes of air outward. Some it jets and squirt between the undercut. And above the sidepod, at the lump behind the opening, more air is pushed outward at mid height of the car.
The squirt between the narrow point of the undercut goes to the diffuser mouse hole and also sheilds the floor and provide out wash, and the rest of the flow at mid-rift is dealing with tyre wake. Then you have above the sidepod that is doing pressure recovery.
The Zero-pod just has less surfaces to play around with. It has a low drag advantage, but it seems to not be able to enhance the floor and diffuser performance as much as the other cars. The mid-wing is left to do all of that.
Zero-pod is heavily dependent on a super effective floor and diffuser to take advantage of it's facilitation of high energy flow past the side of the car.

Another thing, why does the floor seem so thick with W14 and not the other cars? It's almost seems to be deeper and skirted.
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hollus
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Re: Mercedes W14

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I know there are races and that F1 is about the races, but NOT IN THIS THREAD!

If your post contains the words "gap", "faster", "slower", "ahead" or "behind", it probably does not belong in a car thread.
Consistent offenders with too many deleted posts might attract official warnings.

Those are "Sesame Street" words. Elmo never said vortex or venturi AFAIK. Don't use Sesame Street words in the car threads. Simple.

Gazillions of posts have been deleted, they would have been just fine in the TEAM thread.
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De Jokke
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Re: Mercedes W14

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https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/wolf ... /10439712/

is this allowed in this thread or not as it gets confusing which is allowed and which isn't. :(
Is about the car, so I would assume so.



I don't get Merc, they had a whole year and even needed another winter to come to this conclusion. What on earth has happened, are they on crack or something?
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Ozan
Ozan
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Re: Mercedes W14

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the only concept different on the w14 is the sidepods. IMO they're gonna change it to one on the aston,ramped waterfall solution. clearly it's the right one as we can see from their results.

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De Jokke
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Re: Mercedes W14

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the whole floor will need adaptation and you remain behind the trendsetter RBR, so it's like an antivirus, always one step behind before the definitions are updated :?
Mercedes AMG + Hamilton => dreamteam!
If you can't beat'em, call Masi!

Venturiation
Venturiation
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Re: Mercedes W14

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It seems like they really used all 2022 to collect data to understand the bouncing but didn’t think about performance

They could have started big performance upgrades during the winter but what if they are not ready in time? What takes the most of time is producing the parts not the CFD and wind tunnel evaluations

This car for the moment might be just W13 without bouncing with reduced drag
Let’s see if they bring a floor powerful enough to make it start porpoising again

I wouldn’t focus on toto and elliott talks about changing concept or not