Mercedes W15

[Vanja #66]

DAS alive and kicking

[organic]

DAS alive and kicking

This would be very illegal if that's actually what's happening. But it's hard to explain what I'm seeing other than some form of das..

Gone back and watched some quali onboards from mercedes in the last few years. Seeing this steering wheel behaviour on George's car frequently.. could just be a loose steering column? Or something for driver preference as Lewis seems to experience it less?

[Vappy]

DAS alive and kicking

From the video, it appears that when the steering wheel lowers, the front left and front right wheel gain negative camber

[AR3-GP]

DAS alive and kicking

The steering column deflects due to braking (this was already there on the W13). The wheel brow returns to a normal position when the aerodynamic forces reduce (you can see this on any other car). The tire doesn't move.

Nonsense.

[Cs98]

DAS alive and kicking

The steering column deflects due to braking (this was already there on the W13). The wheel brow returns to a normal position when the aerodynamic forces reduce (you can see this on any other car). The tire doesn't move.

Nonsense.

Yup, haven't noticed before but it's definitely there on W13 onboards. Weird though, why would you want the steering column to move under braking? Annoying for the drivers.

[tiredboromir]

Doesnt a toe in during corner entry lead to understeer

[Farnborough]

@Farnborough

I think you have to rephrase 'carcass temp generation' to a more layman friendly 'sidewall flex heat generation' and then it will be better understood.

I'm guessing that your point is -

despite the cold track/air and despite the higher min filling pressure (all of which make the tyre hardened and stiff) , the Mercedes with it's stiffer-than-others rear suspension, low ride AND 'whatever is the aero shortcoming that doesn't keep the rear planted in typical temp tarmac ' (their perennial problem) was helping the car have enough slippage (that would have been a disaster on a hot track) maintain a perfect heat exchange equilibrium with brakes, tarmac and even the passing air of the straights. The other teams, who are far kinder to their rear tyres, kept losing rubber temperature whenever the long straight was involved.

Did I guess your point correctly ?

I think we'd probably need to discuss this in dedicated thread, as it will likely not fit in with forum rules in here specifically.

I'll make something later to hopefully draw a little more in depth discussion/debate in the topic.

[Farnborough]

From my albeit limited understanding of the black art of tyre warming, the teams are looking for a uniform to depth core temperature of the tyres so it doesn`t lose too much heat on the straights.
That being the surface temp of most of the tyre being pretty much the same (in the optimum band) and the base layer of the rubber down to the bead wire being just a few degrees cooler (uniform).
What Mercedes have really suffered with is the surface temperature of the compound has at most tracks been totally out of kilter.
The rears have sometimes been getting much too hot at the surface (in relation to the carcass) compared to the fronts which means the car isn`t predictable or the rear just slides, which makes it worse again!
For me, Red Bull had the opposite several races ago (when Max complained of understeer) and the fronts where getting out of range compared to the rears.
Mercedes don`t seem to have a car that has a setup window of anything other than a certain set of circumstances. i.e. very smooth track surface with minimal bumps (nice low car) and a pretty cool ambient temperature.
When the conditions are right (like Vegas), the car looks on rails, although we`ve seen the same on the Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari at various times during the season...

Thanks for the contribution, some interesting points there.

See my post above.

[Alan Dove]

I am first in line to investigate any oddities and won't dismiss anything, because it is motorsport.

However in this case we have a number of factors that suggest it's a consequence of Russell. You can see here in 2019 that George's wheel moves down in the Williams



We also have video of Lewis and there doesn't appear to be any movement.

I suspect it's just George being tall, gripping the wheel hard and it flexing under load.

That being said, I am sure a few engineers will look at it and think "hmm... what can we hide with this?".