Mercedes GP MGP W01

[nacho]

The way Mercedes extended the wheelbase makes it quite hard to even make special parts to make it fit to Monaco.

If you look at how close the driver's side of the front wishbones are to the rims:

[autogyro]

I said weeks ago that the teams would have a job getting this years Forth bridges around Loew hairpin without bending them in the middle.
Seems I was right.

[aral]

and also it is kind of opposite of what you want at monaco, you want lot of weight on the back, guess what the LWB car did? The reason it wasnt run was simply because of the lack of parts.

Mercedes had plenty of parts, but they elected to alter their car back to SWB, as it made turning on the sharp corners, easier. This was stated about six days ago.

And like also stated it doesnt matter at all. If the car has twice as long wheelbase with the B spec okay, then it would make a difference, but it isnt, it is just a general misconception as they can simply increase the turning circle to overcome this drawback.
In monaco you want balance to the rear to increase rear wheel traction, guess what it is what the LWB car does? Thats right, move the CofG backwards, then going back to the SWB car is simply stupid and completely opposite. The lack of rear balance cannot be overcome like the turning circle, so the onnly reason that makes sense to go back to the SWB car is because of part shortage.

The wheelbase was lengthened so as to bring the centre of polar inertia FORWARD. The car needed more weight to the front, so as to sharpen response of the front wheels. The SWB set up moved weight to the rear, providing better weight transfer to the rear wheels, and thus, better traction

[BorisTheBlade]

No offense, but I'm sure, that you're the only one in the world with that "opinion".

[wesley123]

Mercedes had plenty of parts, but they elected to alter their car back to SWB, as it made turning on the sharp corners, easier. This was stated about six days ago.

And like also stated it doesnt matter at all. If the car has twice as long wheelbase with the B spec okay, then it would make a difference, but it isnt, it is just a general misconception as they can simply increase the turning circle to overcome this drawback.
In monaco you want balance to the rear to increase rear wheel traction, guess what it is what the LWB car does? Thats right, move the CofG backwards, then going back to the SWB car is simply stupid and completely opposite. The lack of rear balance cannot be overcome like the turning circle, so the onnly reason that makes sense to go back to the SWB car is because of part shortage.

The wheelbase was lengthened so as to bring the centre of polar inertia FORWARD. The car needed more weight to the front, so as to sharpen response of the front wheels. The SWB set up moved weight to the rear, providing better weight transfer to the rear wheels, and thus, better traction

Yep, the wheels are bought forward. But lets take it simple, you have 4 lines, placed like wheels. Then yo have a dot in the center of these 4 lines. If you move the right 2 lines further to the right, guess what happens with this Dot, it is effictively placed more to the left lines. So it is same with the ballast placement.

[marcush.]

they run a truckload of caster and caster trail..that calms the car and you need a good servo or strong arms...

[PlatinumZealot]

I don't really buy the lack of parts for some reason. I mean they could have made all those parts from before Barcelona right? It's Ross Brawn! he wouldn't be so shortsighted to not make parts for the upcoming race.

I think they used the short wheel-base to give the drivers more room for error simply because the car is slightly smaller. I can not say for sure if the short wheel-base car is faster or not for Monaco. (Again look on the long RedBull and the Renault). Some might say the short car can turn tighter, but then the other fact is that the longer car has better weight distribution. Another fact is that Monaco is a seen as relatively tight turn track but it is not that tight when you look on the top down photos of the track. I mean It's not like an autocross track; I don't think any of the cars had any under steering complaints, I only have read about down-force complaints; the drivers just want to go through the turns faster. So my reasoning is leading me to believe they went with the SWB car just because it's shorter so the drivers have more room.

*If the car is not actually shorter then forget what I just said

[autogyro]

If you look at a plan view of the LWB car you will see that the front wishbones attach to the hubs towards the rear of the wheel and close to the rim.
This is because the tub was not altered for the LWB upgrade and moving the mounting points on the front hubs was the only way to increase the wheelbase at the front of the car.
The result is that it now impossible to fit a steering rack that would give sufficient steering lock for Loews hairpin at Monaco, because the front wheel rims would foul on the wishbones.
This is why they went back to a SWB configuration.
Like I said before, they should have designed the cars to bend in the middle.

[marcush.]

hehehe
they calmed the silver machine down for the ol man with this ...the thing will straighten itself out when he happens to fall asleep during the race...

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

I wonder how Mercedes F-duct will look like when it appears in Turkey.

Will they have a shark style fin as McLaren, Red Bull, Ferrari etc to channel the air flow to the rear wing? Or will it be round the sides?
Schumi reckons its worth 0.3 seconds...cant be bad!

[aral]

I wonder how Mercedes F-duct will look like when it appears in Turkey.

Will they have a shark style fin as McLaren, Red Bull, Ferrari etc to channel the air flow to the rear wing? Or will it be round the sides?
Schumi reckons its worth 0.3 seconds...cant be bad!

Schumacher certainly needs to find far more that 0.3 secs. But don't forget, Red Bull and Ferrari will also have their wing-stalling devices, which may give them an even greater advantage.

[marcush.]

using the calculator reducing the cd by .05 will raise top speed by around 10kmh so
if thats the deal and downforce was not compromised by the blown wings unblown performance ,the potential for laptime in Turkey is staggering with all those straights ...0.3 s seems not too far fetched ,the calculator pops out half a second...
sure its generic ..and not everything may stack up in real world ,for example you cannot take the kink with the f duct in action...but then there is lap time in this.

[ffangio]

Wow! Guess that's why Ferrari are saying they want to get theirs to work better!

[WhiteBlue]

Unless my memory of the analysis after Australia is wrong they said at the time that the W01 needed more ballast through lighter parts. The LWB wishbones were only a short term fix for this. Lighter parts were due for Turkey together with the active blown wing. Hopefully it will give Merc a much needed shot in the arm. Unfortunately it is now much too late for Michael to get into the WDC race but he may get on the podium or even win a race this year. That would be nice for a change.

[marcush.]

Unless my memory of the analysis after Australia is wrong they said at the time that the W01 needed more ballast through lighter parts. The LWB wishbones were only a short term fix for this. Lighter parts were due for Turkey together with the active blown wing. Hopefully it will give Merc a much needed shot in the arm. Unfortunately it is now much too late for Michael to get into the WDC race but he may get on the podium or even win a race this year. That would be nice for a change.

logic tells us they would not have much ballast to play with.
if they feel 3inches of wheelbase change would do the trick to solve their problem the problem could not be a very big one if it was just dry weight weight distribution.The wheelbase change certainly could be made to help the CHANGE in weight distribution over changing fuel loads ,but for the actual change in CofG front rear it is not a big step, nathing a say 20Kg chunk of ballast could not do.
In face of the increased minimum dry weight it keeps me scratching my head how much ballast they really carry.Can´t be much or they have a really heavy front end of the car (till 2009 no need to focus on ultra lightweight front end ,you put all the ballast forward anyways..).