Mercedes GP MGP W01

[autogyro]

Marcush

One thing you can toy with is the camber.

I have notice the Mercedes lifting its unloaded front tyre too, indicating seriously stiff front suspension set up.

The two are linked but what difference will it make?
Mercedes have already made mention of the contact patch being smaller at the front, but part of this is also due to the extreme camber they are running at the front. This means the contact patch is smaller right?

The whole front end of the car does not "look" right. It appears too bulky and hasnt the same developed look as that of the Red Bull or Ferrari. There were rumours prior to Bahrain that they were going to use a new nose design but so far that has failed to materialise.
Does anyone know if there are updates for Oz?

If not another lower end points finsih is all Mercedes can realistically expect...

you can toy with a lot of things to help make the tyres work.Weight distribution is
A STRONG MEANS of changing tyre behaviour for the lower and medium speeds
Downforce is a strong means for the upper end of the speed envelope.

with camber you will of course alter contact patch shape but i can´t see how theres much to gain in actual size of the patch ..you will have work to get the contact patches to the max ..that is the objective...it is rather easy to get the outside correct but for the inside tyre you need to play ackerman ,kingpin inclination ,toe and cambercurves as well as roll ..be it body or tyre roll..but trying to get something from there when something else is fundamentally wrong..will not give you the desrired results...see :hard springs ...hopping cars...

+1

[marcush.]

Marcush

One thing you can toy with is the camber.

I have notice the Mercedes lifting its unloaded front tyre too, indicating seriously stiff front suspension set up.

The two are linked but what difference will it make?
Mercedes have already made mention of the contact patch being smaller at the front, but part of this is also due to the extreme camber they are running at the front. This means the contact patch is smaller right?

The whole front end of the car does not "look" right. It appears too bulky and hasnt the same developed look as that of the Red Bull or Ferrari. There were rumours prior to Bahrain that they were going to use a new nose design but so far that has failed to materialise.
Does anyone know if there are updates for Oz?

If not another lower end points finsih is all Mercedes can realistically expect...

you can toy with a lot of things to help make the tyres work.Weight distribution is
A STRONG MEANS of changing tyre behaviour for the lower and medium speeds
Downforce is a strong means for the upper end of the speed envelope.

with camber you will of course alter contact patch shape but i can´t see how theres much to gain in actual size of the patch ..you will have work to get the contact patches to the max ..that is the objective...it is rather easy to get the outside correct but for the inside tyre you need to play ackerman ,kingpin inclination ,toe and cambercurves as well as roll ..be it body or tyre roll..but trying to get something from there when something else is fundamentally wrong..will not give you the desrired results...see :hard springs ...hopping cars...

+1

one thing springs to my mind though:

with all the ballast on the move backwards ,the teams suddenly face a dramatic move of the front CG upwards...so in effect,everything around the front axle now above wheelaxle height ,the CG height at the rear very very low and the CG height in front jumping upwards ...we may see an interesting effect there on these cars:
they need to be incredibly stiff to avoid roll ...this of course leeds to unloading of the inner wheel and less total grip available..maybe the solution at the front is less clearcut than one might think if you have not a lot of ballast
to start with at the front...e.g. the front of the car is not as light as it should
be to allow for some unobtanium still in the splitter area and shifting the weight bias to the rear.. this might be the reason why they cannot fix this in short time...

[djones]

This whole understeer thing...

Is it simply a case of the back end is a lot better than the front and therefore has more grip causing understeer?

[marcush.]

This whole understeer thing...

Is it simply a case of the back end is a lot better than the front and therefore has more grip causing understeer?

yes

the axle that has more grip will tend to stick whereas the axle with less grip will tend to slide .In case of understeer the fraont axle has less lateral grip.

what you do not know is :is the less grip coming from verworking the front tyres ,tyres getting hotter than rears loosing grip (due to chemcal reactions etc + gaining internal pressure reducing contact patch size leading to more loss of grip)
or is it underworking of the tyres ,no grip due to cold tyres. if this is happening very soon the case will swap around as the front tyres will sometime get hotter build up grip but at this time the rears which had already reached their working window inevitably will overheat and you will be stuck with oversteer...

Plus: a car with 7hundred something horsepower will always be poweron oversteer ,it should be possible to break traction with overenthusiastic throttle squeeze...
so for early throttle on corner exit you NEED some understeer or you will have to wait until the car is straight.

so what we are talking is Corner entry behaviour really .the car should be very responsive and willing on the verge of being eager to change direction, whereas a understeering car on corner entry will not change direction before slowing down sufficiently.(Because the rear has so much more grip ,you are on the brakes anyways ,so you have to wait for the speed to come down to be able to turn ...so the guy who does trailbrake -turnand brake is really at a loss with this behaviour
of the car.Of course you make up ground as you can instantly floor the throttle when you have turned the truck into its new direction ,so the time lost is not as dramatic as it seems but if its not your style you can´t do much with the car in terms of manipulating it .
and of course killing the rear grip is easy but then you are on the right balance but on a lower level of speed..not good.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

The problem is of balance. I dont think a fully fuelled WO1 will have the same bias as one that is half full or nearly empty.
The problem seems to be inherent of the design. I dont like the nose, and do not know why they persist to have a nose with a higher drag profile than the rest when it does nothing to solve their problem. It also penalises them in a straight line.
Merc have a concept and want to stick to it, fair enough, but when do they call a halt to it when its obviously not working.

Brawn did say he thought he had the basics of a very good car, but it had balnce problems. I had hoped the front wing would solve this issue or at least help, but again it appears that it hasnt improved.

Marcush proposed a more rearward biased merc(for schumi) that would suit him and allow him to "hustle". Schumcacher and Brawn both know what the issues at hand are.
Its up to Loic Bigois and his team to come up with somthing sharpish.

I suggest less steeply cambered front tyres, revise the front nose concept, address the balnce issue to get the car neutral at least.

[marcush.]

as I stated before ..I´m almost sure now they just have not enough ballst in the front of the car to be able to afford something to move to the back of the car at this time.
It is for sure not easy to save another 5 or 10 kilos on the front of the car...just to be able to have more ballast on the rear AND not raising the CG in the front.
The drooping nose maybe one hint there..
unfortunatelly with the vshape tub they forced themselves to rise the steeringrack around 150mm and I guess there is not much you could possibly relocate to lower the CG ..so the scope has to be make it all lighter and add ballast...not an easy task...

[autogyro]

I still believe it is the need to maintain a decent ride height which is forcing a way to hard spring rate.
Sort that and the balance will be available.

[marcush.]

I still believe it is the need to maintain a decent ride height which is forcing a way to hard spring rate.
Sort that and the balance will be available.

I think you are right to an extend ,inevitably a 5mm rideheight discrepancy will have an effect.
Lets assume they got that very problem.
So they had to allow for the car to be ok at the start of the race with full fuelload.
It would compromise their performance mainly in qualyfying as they have too much static rideheight with low fuellevels
Plus it would amount to a derating in performance towrds the end of the race when agian they ´d be too stiff /too high for the loads they carry.
also with the downforce at high speed the rideheight settings static do not really affect high speed cornering too much ,it will of course affect low and medium speed cornering as you will stay in a less preferable part of the aeromap for a longer time.
Unfortunatelly I cannot read this out of the times Rosberg or Schumacher did.If this theory was completely valid the car should be very competitive with full tank
and not so much at the end of the race ,or am I missing the boat here somewhere?

to me the car simply is too slow at this time ,and this is not a minor tweak it is one major flaw that is understood but cannot be corrected in short time.

[F1_eng]

JohnsonsEvilTwin, why would anyone choose any part with more drag unless it gives a load more downforce?

You honestly don't have any idea what you're on about. A high nose like other teams can be analysed in a few minutes in the wind-tunnel so if it was better, it would have been implemented.
What is people's obsession with the nose design?

Why do you suggest the Merc nose creates more drag?
How about the McLaren front? What about the area under their nose that tries to replicate the effect of the Merc nose?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

JohnsonsEvilTwin, why would anyone choose any part with more drag unless it gives a load more downforce?

You honestly don't have any idea what you're on about. A high nose like other teams can be analysed in a few minutes in the wind-tunnel so if it was better, it would have been implemented.
What is people's obsession with the nose design?

Why do you suggest the Merc nose creates more drag?
How about the McLaren front? What about the area under their nose that tries to replicate the effect of the Merc nose?

F1 ENG

Thanks for the understanding you demonstrated in your post.

[marcush.]

I´m surprised to not have earned me some major flak today with my CG height vs ballast placement ideas..

[F1_eng]

I am not going to comment on things so close im afraid, no chance.

[marcush.]

I am not going to comment on things so close im afraid, no chance.

thats enough for me thanks !

[F1_eng]

Haha, I don't mean so close to the truth, just delicate information for any team.

If you've noticed, I don't post anything specific on here, just a little general theory/ideas. I'd love to shut some people up with my real findings but it's not how I work.

I guess I post on here just to see how things are percieved from the out-set, and what people can come up with.

[marcush.]

Haha, I don't mean so close to the truth, just delicate information for any team.

If you've noticed, I don't post anything specific on here, just a little general theory/ideas. I'd love to shut some people up with my real findings but it's not how I work.

I guess I post on here just to see how things are percieved from the out-set, and what people can come up with.

at least the delicate area of knowledge and real finding was brushed a bit. Fair enough ...believe me I´d come up with the solution to Schumachers issue... but then
I am quite sure RBs boys are already at work to put the solution on the car.. or am I too optimistic?.