Mercedes GP MGP W01

[mx_tifoso]

The one question that I will have is: what will it take to change the car to Schumi's liking?
....

Make it a Ferrari.

[outer_bongolia]

The one question that I will have is: what will it take to change the car to Schumi's liking?
....

Make it a Ferrari.

=D> =D>

[timd]

redesigned front / rear suspension would do it to get middle settings back to neutral again. I get the feeling the aero is not so bad if they can be up there a little with balance off.

[ringo]

The car is designed neutral and is neutral at it's designed limit. The problem is it has to perform at a higher standard than it was designed for, hence why it seems unbalanced when pushed.
I still feel shumacher is just too old. Whatever the case may be with understeer or oversteer, his teammate should not be able to drive it 0.5 seconds faster than him, if he is the best.
Saying Shumacher likes this and is alergic to that only makes him look weaker.
Put Alonso or Hamilton on a unicylce and they are going drive it faster than their teammates all the time even if it's not their preffered setup. They will be faster just because they are top class drivers.

Shumacher was the best in his prime, and he will forever be the one of the greats, but as it is now, he seems lazy to string up a few hot laps and he seems to drop the intensity very early. He drives very well when he is fresh, as can be seen when he was battling in China and even in Malaysian q2. But as soon as 5 laps pass he dozes off.
When he is on, the W01 looks very competent. Rosberg is just better able to use the car and that means he is wrestling with the car's handicaps better.

Brawn should install an oxygen tank in the W01 spec B, so grandpa shumi can shoot up and keep his pace.

[segedunum]

The car is designed neutral and is neutral at it's designed limit. The problem is it has to perform at a higher standard than it was designed for, hence why it seems unbalanced when pushed.

Yes certainly, but any car no matter how neutral at design time can be more easily pushed towards oversteer or understeer once a driver gets his hands on it and starts pushing it to the limits of its performance. I don't want to reprise that whole 'car favouring' thing particularly, but things aren't as simple as saying 'it's neutral' once the theory is out of the window and the car is on the track.

I still feel shumacher is just too old. Whatever the case may be with understeer or oversteer, his teammate should not be able to drive it 0.5 seconds faster than him, if he is the best. Saying Shumacher likes this and is alergic to that only makes him look weaker.

That said, I have to agree in Schumacher's case. Veering off-topic slightly, but to give examples, Alonso apparently had a Renault with what seemed like undrivable amounts of understeer, moved to McLaren that was at the opposite end of the scale in terms of bias and still won races. Hamilton just seemed to like the car better. Raikkonen allegedly had an understeering car he didn't like and couldn't qualify well with in 2008, but he still won races, was still third in the championship and set ten fastest laps to prove the speed was there.....somewhere. Kubica and Heidfeld allegedly liked the BMW at different times and thus one had better results than the other at various times.

However, none of those drivers were the thick-end of a second away from their team mates at any time. That's an unspeakable amount of time in the same car.

He drives very well when he is fresh, as can be seen when he was battling in China and even in Malaysian q2. But as soon as 5 laps pass he dozes off.

I think that's the thing. He simply seems too relaxed, and I'm not seeing his car twitch and shimmy to find the limit of adhesion as it once did.

To get back to the subject of the Mercedes, I don't think there is anything that can be done for Schumacher with it. In the hands of Rosberg it is looking better than we perhaps thought, and with all the telemetry available now Michael and his engineers should be able to see immediately where, how and why Rosberg is faster, even if it means changing his driving style which allegedly was one of his strong points.

[Aryoh]

That said, I have to agree in Schumacher's case. Veering off-topic slightly, but to give examples, Alonso apparently had a Renault with what seemed like undrivable amounts of understeer, moved to McLaren that was at the opposite end of the scale in terms of bias and still won races. Hamilton just seemed to like the car better. Raikkonen allegedly had an understeering car he didn't like and couldn't qualify well with in 2008, but he still won races, was still third in the championship and set ten fastest laps to prove the speed was there.....somewhere. Kubica and Heidfeld allegedly liked the BMW at different times and thus one had better results than the other at various times.

However, none of those drivers were the thick-end of a second away from their team mates at any time. That's an unspeakable amount of time in the same car..

None of this drivers was 3 year away from F1, and all have opportunity to test the car how many time they need.

[marcush.]

memory is short ,especially in F1...

Heidfeld was blown away fair and squre in ..was it 2008 by Kubica..the pressure was incredible towards him with Kubica always getting into Q3 and Nick almost everytime struggling .
Incredibly this was the only season when he struggled that much compared to his teammate ..so i would let this example count towards Schumacher.
I rememember Heidfeld alsways beeing at a loss just why he was unable to make the tyres work for him.and the gaps were big ,very big at times.

the term understeer does not really say much ,we do not have a scale of just how much of this characteristic is built in the car by design and how much they could mask it by setup.If you start to compensate a design flaw by compromised damper settings or try to cure mechanical issues with aero ...you soon reach a point where
the compromise is just so big that first you cannot improve the car anymore ...as everything you gain somewhere will result in losses somewhere else and you will loose the feeling for the whole thing because you try to force something on the machine which is not really in it.

so,of course you can get the balance to neutral with setup.But you will never reach
the point of being neutral AND maximising tyre potential of the four tyres with the basics of the car not correct.and of course the window in which the car will be neutral will be smaller ,be it track temps ,ambient temps ,track layout,tyre compounds tyre age ,car weight etc..

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Ringo

Please excuse me for disagreeing but the Alonso Hamilton McLaren of 2007 was an Animal! Yes there were contrasting styles of Lewis and Fernando, but so good was the base of the MP4-22 that it could offer good set ups for both.
I remember well how Lewis and Alonso traded(in the first half of the season anyway) setups when the other was faster. Funny given that they are very different drivers.

With the Renault of Alonso and its very sticky front end thats also explainable. Michelin and Mass dampers

As for Kubica/Heidfeld well there were many a time that either was 0.5 to 1 second behind the other, almost more often than not really.

I feel Schuey just needs to get a car that he can feel 100% confident in. Someone rightly pointed out that Schumacher outpointed all the other F1 drivers at the race of champions. Not bad for an old fogey really.
All things taken into consideration I think its very unfair to dismiss Schumacher when in the first 3 races he was literally on Rosbergs arse only to have a disappointing weekend in China.
Lest we forget also he got tagged in Oz and a wheel fell off in Malaysia.

Give the guys some breathing room and a bit of time, I bet he will come good. Perhaps not in Spain, although I wouldnt bet against it.

He's wounded expect an emphatic response I say.

[Aryoh]

Ringo

Please excuse me for disagreeing but the Alonso Hamilton McLaren of 2007 was an Animal! Yes there were contrasting styles of Lewis and Fernando, but so good was the base of the MP4-22 that it could offer good set ups for both.
I remember well how Lewis and Alonso traded(in the first half of the season anyway) setups when the other was faster. Funny given that they are very different drivers.

With the Renault of Alonso and its very sticky front end thats also explainable. Michelin and Mass dampers

As for Kubica/Heidfeld well there were many a time that either was 0.5 to 1 second behind the other, almost more often than not really.

I feel Schuey just needs to get a car that he can feel 100% confident in. Someone rightly pointed out that Schumacher outpointed all the other F1 drivers at the race of champions. Not bad for an old fogey really.
All things taken into consideration I think its very unfair to dismiss Schumacher when in the first 3 races he was literally on Rosbergs arse only to have a disappointing weekend in China.
Lest we forget also he got tagged in Oz and a wheel fell off in Malaysia.

Give the guys some breathing room and a bit of time, I bet he will come good. Perhaps not in Spain, although I wouldnt bet against it.

He's wounded expect an emphatic response I say.

+1
Totaly agree with you.

[marcush.]

Ringo

Please excuse me for disagreeing but the Alonso Hamilton McLaren of 2007 was an Animal! Yes there were contrasting styles of Lewis and Fernando, but so good was the base of the MP4-22 that it could offer good set ups for both.
I remember well how Lewis and Alonso traded(in the first half of the season anyway) setups when the other was faster. Funny given that they are very different drivers.

With the Renault of Alonso and its very sticky front end thats also explainable. Michelin and Mass dampers

As for Kubica/Heidfeld well there were many a time that either was 0.5 to 1 second behind the other, almost more often than not really.

I feel Schuey just needs to get a car that he can feel 100% confident in. Someone rightly pointed out that Schumacher outpointed all the other F1 drivers at the race of champions. Not bad for an old fogey really.
All things taken into consideration I think its very unfair to dismiss Schumacher when in the first 3 races he was literally on Rosbergs arse only to have a disappointing weekend in China.
Lest we forget also he got tagged in Oz and a wheel fell off in Malaysia.

Give the guys some breathing room and a bit of time, I bet he will come good. Perhaps not in Spain, although I wouldnt bet against it.

He's wounded expect an emphatic response I say.

+1 as we could see in the first three races Schu was very relaxed with himself and looked in no ways bothered by his status compared to Nico .The China weekend
rattled him considerably as the coolness was gone ,simply because he had no real explanation for what was going on.If he was a journeyman ,he would not bother if it were 2 tenths or one second he misses to his teammate..but the guy wants to be first and has shown againand again that he´s competitive be it karting or race of champions.

[dren]

Any word on updates for the car? I've heard the front suspension and possibly nose will be reworked. Also I expect to see some aero tweaks.

I figure most of the updates will be in the parts we don't see to be reworked for weight distribution.

[marcush.]

Any word on updates for the car? I've heard the front suspension and possibly nose will be reworked. Also I expect to see some aero tweaks.

I have heard about 2 inches forward movement of front tyres with all the necessary work to accomodate this change +a redesigned gearbox casing to accomodate new suspension pickups(and wishbones) to allow for a more extreme interpretation and exploitation of difusser
+ weight reduction programm
so pretty much a b-spec car or better -L spec.

I doubt they will have all this already on the barcelona car.. so my guess is they will have the wheelbase and front sorted + more ballast due to weight savings in Barcelona .
so this would be :new front wishbones,new nosecone/wingstays new elongated floor and plank to meet flat bottom requirements between tyres .
surely toelinks and pushrods need to be longer as well ,doubt the range of adjustment will suffice.Maybe new angularity of pushrod to upright could make a version of upright /pushrod mount necessary.
Possibly new front wing /endplates turning vanes to cater for new front wheel position?

[segedunum]

None of this drivers was 3 year away from F1, and all have opportunity to test the car how many time they need.

Whether Michael Schumacher has spent three years away from Formula 1 or not is irrelevant. He is expected to perform. It's a nothing excuse.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Segedunum

The whole world and its dog knows schuey struggled in China. Perhaps its more constructive to opine why rather than shoot down those that do?

[basrawi]

Mercedes to increase W01 wheelbase http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/83112