Mercedes W15

[SiLo]

Forgive me for what might appear a sillly question, but is that because the cooling config packaging enables better aero/efficiency, or do you mean the engine cooling enables higher engine mode?

I believe the previous two years they ran slightly compromised cooling packages for aero reasons, so a more traditional sidepod allows them to cool more effectively and run the engine at higher modes for longer.

Thanks, Silo- how interesting! Any ideas if the customer PUs were running slightly compromised too, or would their cooling solutions have potentially allowed them an advantage over the works team?

I would assume works teams could run the engines at whatever state they wanted, within the realms of what embedded Mercedes engineers suggest. It is my understanding that customer teams do not buy the cooling solutions.

[Venturiation]

[organic]

Russell: Main issue with W15 is bouncing

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/russe ... /10580793/

[vorticism]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GHb9DIrXgAA ... name=large

Looking at the divergence of the radiator inlet here... do we have another chevron radiator contender here? Or is this merely a shaped bracket.

[Gabriox]

Russell: Main issue with W15 is bouncing

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/russe ... /10580793/

On the second day At the bahrain testing, the w15 was bottoming and creating a lot of sparks when lewis drove it. I don't think mercedes fully understand this regs fully yet.

[dans79]

Russell: Main issue with W15 is bouncing

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/russe ... /10580793/

On the second day At the bahrain testing, the w15 was bottoming and creating a lot of sparks when lewis drove it. I don't think mercedes fully understand this regs fully yet.

Context is important!

“But the one area that we need to continue to work on is probably the bouncing that we're seeing. We got caught up with a bit of bouncing [in testing] last week.

“We were pushing the car really aggressively. But as I said, we're dealing with a totally different beast this year, whereas 2022, 2023 they were both cut from the same cloth.”

Russell said Mercedes is “still pushing the boundaries” and “exploiting the limitations of the car”.

He added: “That's what testing is for. I'd like to think you'll be seeing much less of that this weekend.

“So, three years on [from the start of the new ground-effect era], I think a lot of teams can still enter this circuit and set the car up in a too low and aggressive manner.

“But it's always a fine line because that's where the downforce is.”

[organic]

Haven't seen other teams running up to that limit quite as much as Merc. If they had good correlation with as they claim I don't understand why they would need to do so much limit testing at testing compared to other teams

[Luscion]

Haven't seen other teams running up to that limit quite as much as Merc. If they had good correlation with as they claim I don't understand why they would need to do so much limit testing at testing compared to other teams

Could see it being that its a brand new concept so just wanting to learn as much as possible about its limits, they went pretty conservative last year with their ride height according to Allison, so most likely seeing how this car reacts to being slammed to the ground compared to the W14 and how much they can get away compared with before.

[organic]

Haven't seen other teams running up to that limit quite as much as Merc. If they had good correlation with as they claim I don't understand why they would need to do so much limit testing at testing compared to other teams

Could see it being that its a brand new concept so just wanting to learn as much as possible about its limits, they went pretty conservative last year with their ride height according to Allison, so most likely seeing how this car reacts to being slammed to the ground compared to the W14 and how much they can get away compared with before.

That makes sense to me. That they're talking about it being a limitation is still mildly concerning as I haven't really heard others talking about it as much. But we'll see

[dans79]

Haven't seen other teams running up to that limit quite as much as Merc. If they had good correlation with as they claim I don't understand why they would need to do so much limit testing at testing compared to other teams

If I had to guess, I'd say they were testing the outer bounds of their simulation/model. I've seen lots of engineers fall flat on their face over the years, because they only validated their system within the realm of "normal" operation.

[abhi1200]

[Mattchu]

Looks like Merc have changed something at the back. This could just be fading eyes/the light/the angle/the stay not properly attached yet, but it looks like there`s now an opening at the back of the ramp, also the stay isn`t on an angle but goes straight up...

[Rootsap]

Looks like Merc have changed something at the back. This could just be fading eyes/the light/the angle/the stay not properly attached yet, but it looks like there`s now an opening at the back of the ramp, also the stay isn`t on an angle but goes straight up...

https://i.postimg.cc/hG0WfJxS/st.png

It does seem that way, look at the wobble on the floor on the old pic, it's not there on the new one

[mantikos]

Looks like Merc have changed something at the back. This could just be fading eyes/the light/the angle/the stay not properly attached yet, but it looks like there`s now an opening at the back of the ramp, also the stay isn`t on an angle but goes straight up...

https://i.postimg.cc/hG0WfJxS/st.png

The number of notches in the side wing area has also changed

[El_KaPpa]