Mercedes AMG F1 W03 (pre-launch speculation)

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

I'm fully aware that I could be wrong, but I have been wrong many many times.

At this stage of a season, it's smoke and mirrors. To draw any conclusion from the delay, other than the team wanted more time to develop the car, is foolish. The stand out reason for me is they have 2 new very talented people in Willis and Costa, who will want to know this car inside out.
Before Costa can implement anything he needs to understand the W03. This will take time. And he started in December.

Maybe he was privy to something Ferrari were attempting, and it was possible to do the same on the merc? Maybe.
Maybe there was an intrinsic flaw he noticed, and he ordered a change? Maybe.

From the news I received a few days ago, we will see the fduct front wing. I understand scarbs has been tipped off that it will not be on the car due to it being a specific solution to a specific problem that the w03 will not have.
My question there is everyone on the grid looked at this design with great interest as there is good potential from the idea.

[MercAMGF1Fans]

I'm fully aware that I could be wrong, but I have been wrong many many times.

At this stage of a season, it's smoke and mirrors. To draw any conclusion from the delay, other than the team wanted more time to develop the car, is foolish. The stand out reason for me is they have 2 new very talented people in Willis and Costa, who will want to know this car inside out.
Before Costa can implement anything he needs to understand the W03. This will take time. And he started in December.

Maybe he was privy to something Ferrari were attempting, and it was possible to do the same on the merc? Maybe.
Maybe there was an intrinsic flaw he noticed, and he ordered a change? Maybe.

From the news I received a few days ago, we will see the fduct front wing. I understand scarbs has been tipped off that it will not be on the car due to it being a specific solution to a specific problem that the w03 will not have.
My question there is everyone on the grid looked at this design with great interest as there is good potential from the idea.

No one's wrong about the "DELAY" Nick Fry announced it straight after the season ended back in November, that they're "Deliberately" Delaying the launch as they want to maximise the use of all resources back at the factory. and hit the ground running

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Wrong about the front wing fduct AMGfans.

[dren]

Scarbs hinted it will not show up. It seems like there are a lot of potential downsides to the front f-wing. We'll see in a few weeks! I don't expect it to show at this point. I don't expect anything too innovative on the car either, at least visible to the naked eye.

[Ferraripilot]

And the W03 already delayed has of course nothing to do with contradicting agendas, intentions or ambitions?

Most likely an awkward observation as this methodology has been applied by several teams spreading over countless years. Suggesting there are too many cooks in the kitchen, especially amongst this level of professionals is just not probable. This isn't high school football.

[MercAMGF1Fans]

Wrong about the front wing fduct AMGfans.

well it was a speculation.. not a fact, besides, it's all smoke and mirrors at the moment

[dren]

Wrong about the front wing fduct AMGfans.

well it was a speculation.. not a fact, besides, it's all smoke and mirrors at the moment

Right, nobody knows one way or another at this point. Scarbs is usually right about stuff, but not always.

[Ferraripilot]

Wrong about the front wing fduct AMGfans.

well it was a speculation.. not a fact, besides, it's all smoke and mirrors at the moment

Right, nobody knows one way or another at this point. Scarbs is usually right about stuff, but not always.

If I had to guess regarding the f-duct front wing, I would say we would see it at only certain tracks. This technology does not strike me as something that can be accomodating for every type of circuit very easily. Although I still like the fluid switch or pendulum ideas regarding controlling airflow and thus the partial stalling of the wing which I believe would make it more accomodating if the triggering mechanism were tuned correctly for that circuit (tough?).

I believe one thing we have to remember is that the wing is never in 'full stall' as it's only a small portion of the front wing. Perhaps we're making the concept too complicated. The outboard areas and elements are never in 'stall' mode in essence meaning when the nose is indeed 'open flow' the wing remains probably 70-80% efficient.

[King Six]

I guess this sums up expectations so far

http://mercedesgp-fans.com/web/2012/01/ ... onrumours/

To be honest, you could say the same for all the cars on the grid. Save maybe the Front Wing F-duct

[Tyler]

Is there a possibility that we could see a return to a low nose on the W03 like on the BGP01 or would it still be beneficial to have a high nose now that double diffusors and EBD's are gone?
Perhaps with EBD's gone, Mercedes will look to the BGP01 for inspiration - the low nose worked for them in '09, I know one of the advantages was that they could put a lot of ballast in the nose.

[NewtonMeter]

I've got a feeling we'll be seeing a variation of the double radiators again this year. Fistly, there's the tweet from Ant Davidson and secondly there's this:

http://www.grandprix.com/ft/f12011review-mercedes.html

May I draw your attention to the paragraphs that state (words of Ross B):

"We rather shot ourselves in the foot with the cooling system, which was quite different to the norm in terms of the two-tiered radiators. When we solved the teething problems they worked very well but hurt us in the development stakes early on.

The two-tiered radiators were to keep the car short because obviously a single radiator is much longer. With the diffuser height changes from 2010 we thought a short car would be the way to go".

My hypothesis is that they'll further optimise the double radiators and, because it's a more compact layout, they'll use it to make, not a shorter car, but shorter bodywork. I'm guessing an extreme narrowing after the sidepods - facilitated by the compact radiators - and then a very narrow arse - maybe chuck in a very narrow gearbox like williams. Thereby getting maximum airflow to the rear wing/beam wing/diffusor combo.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Raptor22]

I believe the short wheel base will remain.
it was selected because the diffusor was intended to be a regulated component.
The longer floor works well I guess with the EBD with off throttle blowing active.
With this now outlawed the shorter Wb makes sense again.

Tighter body work will certainly be evident as well as a lower engine cover at the rear. But the wheel base I think she is going to stay and i believe its going to be all the rage in 2012.

The radiators they will keep but expect a version with a different shape, something allows a more U shaped rear of the side pod but with a similar inlet to what we saw in 2011. The rear end of the U may be open to allow cooling air out but it won't be a chimney. Expect some controversy ...

[Hemsy]

I believe the short wheel base will remain.
it was selected because the diffusor was intended to be a regulated component.
The longer floor works well I guess with the EBD with off throttle blowing active.
With this now outlawed the shorter Wb makes sense again.

Tighter body work will certainly be evident as well as a lower engine cover at the rear. But the wheel base I think she is going to stay and i believe its going to be all the rage in 2012.

The radiators they will keep but expect a version with a different shape, something allows a more U shaped rear of the side pod but with a similar inlet to what we saw in 2011. The rear end of the U may be open to allow cooling air out but it won't be a chimney. Expect some controversy ...

I agree! Either the wheelbase will remain the same or be made just marginally longer. With the ban on EBDs and subsequent reduction in the size of the fuel tank, even with the same wheelbase, Mercedes will be able to achieve a lower COG. Remember that hot blowing required teams to carry an additional amount fuel. I read somewhere it was in the region of an additional 10% fuel or something like that.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

The one thing that is a near certainty of the W03 is that it will be longer.
Brawn said so a couple of times last year.

I'm not so sure that the ebd didn't work so well on the Mercedes simply because it was SWB.
The problem Mercedes suffered was that the SWB concept couldn't utilise the Pirelli tyres. And with Pirelli looking at making more changes on gp weekends(ditching the hard tyre, and introducing a philosophy of a compound step between each tyre), Mercedes will be aware of their own requirements.

I still think we will see a longer car. May not be long wheel base but it will be longer IMO.

[aleks_ader]

The radiators they will keep but expect a version with a different shape, something allows a more U shaped rear of the side pod but with a similar inlet to what we saw in 2011. The rear end of the U may be open to allow cooling air out but it won't be a chimney. Expect some controversy ...

U rear end what exactly do mean with this? More slim rear around gearbox or you mean something like u pods?