Mercedes GP MGP W01

[delacf]

The shape of the Mercedes "shark fin" is curious:



Greetings

[mith]

I'm not very sure about it, but I think that shape of that 'fin' is set to meet minimum size rules.

[ringo]

better view

[raymondu999]

What's with the tumor it has in the bum?

[bonjon1979]

What's with the tumor it has in the bum?

I'm guessing the hole you can see is where one of the suspension arms goes through the body work and the bump is where it attaches to the chassis.

[ArchAngel]

...Want to see how much mods they effected to the side pods and if they have altered the nose cone as some have asserted they would...

I hope they can tweak & optimize the original concept to make it work, rather than give up on it and just settle for copying the opponents' designs. I'd like to think that Ross Brawn & co. have enough tech smarts & professional pride to not so easily concede this early that they've got an inferior aero solution to Newey, Whitmarsh, and his former underlings at Ferrari.

...at the moment Schumacher is not happy with the understeery nature of the car while rosberg is happy as a pig in sh*t about that. Will be interesting to see how the design team have merged the differing needs to create a development path that suits both drivers. at the moment the car favours rosberg

Maybe that's just as well, so Rosberg can gain more confidence early in the season and stay closer to Schumacher. But clearly the initial behaviour of the car is unintended, as I'm certain Ross Brawn prefers the car to be as neutral as possible yet very responsive to setup changes that would make the car conform to either driver's handling preference.

If nothing else, this'll be an opportunity to see if Schumacher can indeed easily adapt to a car, drive around its inherent weaknesses, and still extract the most out of it.

[ArchAngel]

...I heard there is an imbalance in the car, With full load its understeery as you suggest, and as the load lightens it veers toward oversteer...

Won't they also be using an adjustable front wing to help "trim" the car as the fuel load goes down? Or won't that be of too much help against the inherent imbalance?

[raceman]

searched everywhere, still waiting for the "super diffuser" pic

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

So am I correct in saying that Mercedes were testing with the rear suspension exposed to air flow, but have now smoothed over this with carbon-fibre as per the picture?

Does anyone know how this will translate in terms of time? Negligible no doubt....

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Archangel

I understand that the wing can help with balance, but I think the problem needs solving rather than correcting everytime time it rears its imbalanced head!

I dont think Mercedes will advertise its super-diffuser until the very last minute.
FP1 to be exact, expect Darth vader to be on sentry duty.

[dren]

The new car has the vortex generators moved to along the chassis just infront of the side pods. I expect the nose vortex generators to be removed which suggests a higher nose will debut.

[dren]

[djones]

Loads of car pictures now but only a couple for the merc and no difuser yet.

Its starting to annoy me, I really want to see it

Unless its just me that cant find any online pics of it?

[Yerman]

[RacingManiac]

doesn't look that different, though it seems to have a hint of extra volume on the side...