Mercedes AMG F1 W03 (pre-launch speculation)

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

I think it's probable that they are waiting for Costa and Willis to implement any ideas they may have at this late stage.
Entirely plausible given the circumstances at mercedes.

[dren]

I can see Willis having quite a bit of input, but Costa I don't think will. Maybe a few thoughts here and there on the direction of the car when they met early on?

[elf341]

I agree with JohnsonsEvilTwin + dren.

I think it highly likely that MGP were missing a few tricks that Willis was aware of from his RB days, and they were deemed good enough to alter the original schedule.

[Javert]

So, does that mean they will turn up @ the 1st test with a modified W02? or they won't bother to show up at all?

Word is most teams will turn up with 2011 cars specced to to 2012 regs to test tyres and exhaust configurations.

I'm not sure this year you can throw away 1 test, if the total number will be 3 (preseason) + 1 (in season).
Also, if you have 3 tests, the first one would be later, when you should have already finished your car ... And tires would not change dramatically this year so time spent with old cars could be ... useless

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

There are many reasons to run a car later. It gives you an extra week or 2 development.
And you can reference performance of the old to the new. Valuable info when trying to find your feet.

Add to that the new people mercedes have brought on board, and it's easy to see why.

[yener]

There are many reasons to run a car later. It gives you an extra week or 2 development.
And you can reference performance of the old to the new. Valuable info when trying to find your feet.

Add to that the new people mercedes have brought on board, and it's easy to see why.

Another reason could be that they have something going on the car which they don't want to show the other teams in an early stage.
Either way I don't think it's smart because they should use all the testing miles they can. What if something went rerribly wrong? They would find out 2 weeks too late...

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

@yener

The problem wouldnt solve itself in an extra 3 day test. Look at the W02 for ab example if what a big issue can do.

There is only so much you can change on the car if it has an intrinsic flaw. The W03 will hopefully not have a flaw that will be a hinderance throughout the season. Who knows, but Sam Bird did allude to the car having a very novel radiator layout. Let's see first before we jump to conclusions.

[NewtonMeter]

@yener

The problem wouldnt solve itself in an extra 3 day test. Look at the W02 for ab example if what a big issue can do.

There is only so much you can change on the car if it has an intrinsic flaw. The W03 will hopefully not have a flaw that will be a hinderance throughout the season. Who knows, but Sam Bird did allude to the car having a very novel radiator layout. Let's see first before we jump to conclusions.

I remember some baulking at the Sam Bird tweet. But I think it's premature to dismiss the double radiator. If that logic was followed, the MP4-18 (-19A) would have been discarded as they were the first zero-keel cars. Instead Mclaren stuck to their guns and were rewarded with the MP4-20 and set a trend from there.

If they go for double radiators again, I think they'd have a damn good reason. Though I can already hear the melodramatic calls from forumers to sack haug, brawn, his dog and while at it his preacher and doctor as well. So predictable...

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Very true Nm!

At the very least we can expect the names involved to be professional and work towards a goal.

[blokkie]

Mercedes delay 2012 car's track debut , let's hope it's not the wrong bet !

Maybe choosing for a longer wheel base requiers more devel time ?

[ edit : thx JohnsonsEvilTwin for the heads up ! ]

[dren]

Several race winning cars in recent years have not shown up at the first test. This does not mean that Mercedes screwed up and needs more time. The actual W02 didn't show up until the last winter test this past season, so it is an improvement. If the double radiators return, they have already run a full season with them and likely improved their cooling issues over the season. KERS has been run for one full season. They ran their DRS for one full season. So all of the key reliability issues the team had last year should not show up this year. The team can concentrate on performance: tires (a big area they have struggled with),aero, and car suspension set-up. The first test with a known base, W02, on new tires will help the team better understand them. I expect the W03 to be very developed when it debuts. If the W03 hits the ground running with few reliability issues, it will be a good season.

[Mr.S]

My personal opinion is this is another setback. Not a very good idea & that they are probably sure that they will come 4th again. I think they watch & check out the basic ideas of everyone's car & try & copy the best. Or Willis or Costa have some big ideas which requite a VAST VAST amount of resource to implement.

The tyres issue personally is pure Bullshit IMO. They already tested 2 of the new compounds. The Hard in Bralian Free Practice & they even raced 1 God-damn full race with THE NEW Soft which will become the Medium Next year. The only change is more rear grip,greater thermal resitance(no blistering) & squarer tyres with more linear/uniform wear rates. Very Very minor along with small Grip Changes.

Last year it was a massive change from Bridgestones to Pirellis,ranging in everything from tyre profile to wear rates.IMO it is a complete wastage of 3 VERY VERY pre-cious days of pre-season testing.


This year we have only 3 Pre-Season tests & that's it. Straight into Bahrain. No full month in between like last year. You cant miss a test. The exhaust rules are a big change. You can actually have like 7-8 or perhaps even more exhaust positions(Scarbs article says the same). By position I mean angle & how it goes out,wether it blows the rear wing or below. With the modified W02 it's pretty much a big compromise & they should tried the exhaust ideas with W03.

You are wasting days of crucial mileage. Possibly 300 laps+ a day which is like 1500 km+ a day. That really helps people to try out different baseline set-ups with the car as well.

[Mr.S]

I kind of fear the worst. Call me pessimistic but I see a repeat of the last 2 years,progressively bad like from W01 to W02. Atleast with W01 they got beaten by Renault at the 1st part & Williams & Renault in the last half. With W03 they got beatn by everyone from Renault to Sauber,from Torro Rosso to Force India. It was a truly Mid-field car & I hope we wont see a re-run.

There was 0 in-season development. ABSOLUTE 0. The front wing was already tested in Barca which they applied in Hungary. Half of the year they spend in sorting out the over-heating issues,cooling problems,KERS & DRS fix.

The only major upgrade was the rear-ward exhaust introduced in Britain which took them half a season to put,something Mclaren did in 7 days & they did it before the 1st race. You dont need half a season to realize your exhaust system sucks. Putting the best possible exhaust which almost everyone changed to is not even much of an upgrade anyway. Rest of the season they spend in preparing for W03.

Yet they cant get the car ready in time.

[Richard]

Gosh, what happened to you Mr S? Hearing about Merc is bad for your health!

Teams have run a modified old car at the first test to get benchmark data in previous years and still done rather well. RB6 and MP4-26 are the two recent examples.

[yener]

@JohnsonsEvilTwin

I understand your opinion. But IMO the only advantage they get from this is that the other teams cant see what they are doing.

I mean.. if the development or finetuning takes so much time... they still can work on the development and test and the same time.

On the other hand.. they know exactly where it went wrong last year.. so i think they now know what they are doing. They don't need much testmiles to fix the problems they had which will gain them at least 0,5s.

From now on I won't speculate anything because we all predict and don't know what the people behind te MGP doors are really up to.

See you in februari!