Team: Ross Brawn (TP), Nick Fry (CEO), Norbert Haug (VP, Mercedes Motorsport), Thomas Fuhr (MD, engines), Loïc Bigois (HA)
Drivers: Michael Schumacher (3), Nico Rosberg (4), Nick Heidfeld (Test)
A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
I don't think it's similar to the aeroplane wing if that was the implication with Angle of attack, because as we know these F1 wings are stalling at 100mph 200mph with no AoA change at all. That will not happen at high speed with regards to "normal" wing.
So when he said all wings stall eventually I take eventually to mean as the car goes faster and faster the wing eventually stalls which is not right. Also any normal rules cannot apply when that F-duct is engaged because what we have is an unnatural corruption of the air speed on either side of the wing.
a wing is still a wing, so how does a wing creates lift? (downforce = negative lift)
AFAIK due to a pressure difference on both sides (above and below).
in simple terms total lift/downforce = pressue x area of the wing
In a race car you would have high pressure above the wing and a lower pressure below the wing - resulting in a net pressure above -> downward force
As far as I understand the F-Duct concept, they blow air into the low pressure region under/behind the wing, this will lead to an reduced pressure difference = less downforce
And thereby also reducing the induced drag of the wing (this is the net effect they want to achieve).
A similar pinciple is used by at least one manufacturer in Touring and LMP cars, with their "flow through" concept, to fill the low pressure zone behind the car with air that passes through the inside of the car -> reducing drag
I´m not sure, that "stalling the wing" is the correct term to be used in this context.
Stalling would mean flow separation at the wing, not sure that this is happen with the F-Duct.
But I could be wrong - just my 2c
"Make the suspension adjustable and they will adjust it wrong ......
look what they can do to a carburetor in just a few moments of stupidity with a screwdriver." - Colin Chapman
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” - Leonardo da Vinci
as for the exchange between Marcus & Johnson
I see both of your sides, and there is merrit to both.
At one point they, need to cut their loses and stop spending money and resources on a car,
which will (in all likelyhood) not turn into a rocket ship this season.
On the other hand I see and agree with Marcus reasoning that you need to understand where and when you went wrong, so you can prevent the error in the future.
There are some things looking a bit odd to me as well.
Sure if you got your weight distribution fundamentaly wrong, this will hunt you untill the end of the year, but you should be still able to make some gains/improvements over the season.
I doubt that they suffer from a too much forward CoG.
If that was the case, you should be able to compensate for it, and you would IMHO not struggle with front tire temp in this situation. (but I could be wrong)
They have probably more flaws in this car, and got a little bit lost on the way, by taking the shoot gun approach, working at too many different things at the same time (F-Duct,EBD, Engine Map), without knowing exactly what is causing them grief.
If nothing works, in my expirience, it could be a stiffness issue somewhere in the chassis, but I will admitt that this is a bit hard to believe, as it is not too difficult to measure.
But I´m sure, that it is not "just" CoG position and agree with Marcus in general
"Make the suspension adjustable and they will adjust it wrong ......
look what they can do to a carburetor in just a few moments of stupidity with a screwdriver." - Colin Chapman
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” - Leonardo da Vinci
Personally, I think if you look at the side profile of the W01 compared to all the others you see that it looks "heavy" at the front and very lithe at the the rear.
The drivers also appears to sit further forward and slightly higher than in other cars.
I havent exact measurements, so my surmisation is based purley on the naked eye it must be said.
However Brawn has spoken of issues which "cannot be solved this year".
He wont come out and say it because Mercedes-Benz wont have it.
They screwed somthing basic up, and the solutions cannot be made easy because of the homologation rules.
While its not 2 hands tied behind their back, its certainly 1.
fact is ,Brawn had stated with the longwheelbase they had opened up the window for the necessary ballst shifts they might want do have .I rmemeber him stating that they will not necessarily use this to the full everywhere but the possibilities for adjustment where now available ,when they where not before.
i buy the bulkyness as an aero deficit.and i also buy the stiffness issue(with all that chassis swapping going on...it seems they loose stiffness pretty rapidly..
But on the other hand their updates do not work as good as they should.They face
basic teething trouble ,heat etc ,and this is not helpful when you are weak in terms of understanding the cars needs anyways...so instead of using 100% of these steps they seem to almost loose more than half of it due to setup issues ...assuming RB has found 1.5s in the season ...they did not find the same as the gap opens out .
They have failed to understand the front wing possibilities as well.
marcush. wrote:fact is ,Brawn had stated with the longwheelbase they had opened up the window for the necessary ballst shifts they might want do have .I rmemeber him stating that they will not necessarily use this to the full everywhere but the possibilities for adjustment where now available ,when they where not before.
i buy the bulkyness as an aero deficit.and i also buy the stiffness issue(with all that chassis swapping going on...it seems they loose stiffness pretty rapidly..
But on the other hand their updates do not work as good as they should.They face
basic teething trouble ,heat etc ,and this is not helpful when you are weak in terms of understanding the cars needs anyways...so instead of using 100% of these steps they seem to almost loose more than half of it due to setup issues ...assuming RB has found 1.5s in the season ...they did not find the same as the gap opens out .
They have failed to understand the front wing possibilities as well.
Its a moving target marcush.
They have a different direction that is obviously not working. On top of this they have inherrent balance/CoG/weight distribution issues. And I remember Brawn saying the LWB car wasnt solving the issue at all, just as you say, allows them a bigger window of setups.
So the problem is still there and will still be there at the endd of the season.
Last edited by JohnsonsEvilTwin on 30 Jul 2010, 12:38, edited 1 time in total.
n smikle wrote:I don't think it's similar to the aeroplane wing if that was the implication with Angle of attack, because as we know these F1 wings are stalling at 100mph 200mph with no AoA change at all. That will not happen at high speed with regards to "normal" wing.
So when he said all wings stall eventually I take eventually to mean as the car goes faster and faster the wing eventually stalls which is not right. Also any normal rules cannot apply when that F-duct is engaged because what we have is an unnatural corruption of the air speed on either side of the wing.
An F1 wing will stall eventually with an increase in airspeed, it's just an airspeed that's not achieveable in F1. An F1 rear wing at 500mph will surely stall?
Schumacher and Rosberg must have driven different configurations:
Michael is complaining of the car being not up to his expections although the configuration was a bit more advanced than Hockenheim
rosberg is quoted for having gone a step back with the config compared to hockenheim ... http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/85677
But reading the german comments i´d say they are completely at sea and don´t even what parts are on the car...
Can they not revert back to Hock chassis for FP3????
WTF are these guys doing, seriously. They can be lucky I'm not the boss, the sheer lunacy of this gets worse.
Williams, with a Cosworth donkey in the back, is looking a faster car, and Renault are way ahead here at Hungary.
There are grounds for Gross misconduct here...perhaps I'm just venting frustration built up over 5 months.
But if next year is half as bad as this, Mercedes Benz should just ditch now and save themselves a bit of cash and go to Le Mans.
These engineers need to look at themselves in the mirror, the badge isnt there for show...it demands more!
JET my friend, calm down! I agree with everything you have written. The problem is the car is slow at every single track it has raced in. It looks like that Mercedes made a mistake when they bought Brawn GP and sticking with McLaren would produce much better results. Every update they brought to their car hasn't worked as it seems. Even SWB car was producing the same results as LWB car is doing and it is sometimes worse with this long wheelbase!!! It seems to me that this car was built somewhere else and now is given to this team and they have no idea about its characteristics!!! I hope we will see them quite different next year but I still doubt about it a lot! We see there's no circuit at which W01 can perform well so far, It has a problem they haven't solved or they haven't figured out yet.
Last edited by Morteza on 31 Jul 2010, 01:22, edited 2 times in total.
"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."~William Shakespeare
I'm pinning my hopes on 2011, but I can see this whole thing reoccuring.
5 things are in Mercedes favour:
1. The engine
2. The Resource restriction
3. The standard weight distribution(no more excuses)
4. Ross Brawn
5. The draw of the badge
2 critical things that arent however are:
1. The current staff
2. The factories facilities(unknown quantity)
I really hope this winter will be a productive one in Brackley, lets see. As for 2010, that is no merc....
They seem to be going backwards, perhaps just others are going forward. They were on par or faster than McLaren, Ferrari and Renault at some races, especially before Spain, in Monaco they were really fast. They did their best with the short wheelbased car and Rosberg.
Diesel wrote:An F1 wing will stall eventually with an increase in airspeed, it's just an airspeed that's not achieveable in F1. An F1 rear wing at 500mph will surely stall?
If you were able to get an F1 rear wing going 500 mph, the flow characteristics wouldn't change significantly, but you'd have (500/200)^2 more downforce than they currently produce at max speed (~200 mph).
Morteza AMG wrote:JET my friend, calm down! I agree with everything you have written. The problem is the car is slow at every single track it has raced in. It looks like that Mercedes made a mistake when they bought Brawn GP and sticking with McLaren would produce much better results. Every update they brought to their car hasn't worked as it seems. Even SWB car was producing the same results as LWB car is doing and it is sometimes worse with this long wheelbase!!! It seems to me that this car was built somewhere else and now is given to this team and they have no idea about its characteristics!!! I hope we will see them quite different next year but I still doubt about it a lot! We see there's no circuit at which W01 can perform well so far, It has a problem they haven't solved or they haven't figured out yet.
exactly.the guys at track seem constantly surprised by the new car they receive on thursday and they struggle all along to try and understand...
seriously .The issue is clearly that Mercedes is king in terms of announcing updates but obviously their new bits do not translate into a closing of performance gap .
The clear pattern is :Ferrari started second best in terms of car speed losing the plot ,then Mclaren taking over as the second force with now Ferrari finding back on track in the last races (speedwise).
The real issue is RedBull have improved in the same time considerably as well so
the usual steps will not be enough..
As far as I know its the Silverstone car again becasue the EBD got wavy under heat. Rosberg and Schumacher obviously use different setups now but just to learn how the car performs. Sounds like at least Schumacher is not keen to get best positions but rather test the car.
