Mercedes AMG F1 W04

[Pierce89]

Lotus also have the FRIC but they are doing fine on tyre wear. I do not think that theory of you about standing waves travelling from tyres to hydraulics and to other tyres is correct.

I've read that most of the teams use some form of suspension interlinking. I also think most people here have started way overstating the occurrence of standing waves. its not something that happens often but only when there's a confluence of circumstances.

[smlbstcbr]

A high center of gravity? Why might that be?

And for the standing waves, we're just speculating, but I still wonder why the Mercedes is the only car that eats tyres in a level almost every other team never does.

[marcush.]

every damper manufacturer will tell you a qualy setup will not necessarily be good for racing as it may lead to overheating of the tyre .
There are concepts around like high frequency pistons to generate additional grip but those generally tend to be too aggressive on rough surface .
I ´m pretty sure these effects are well understood in formula 1 so my take on this would be MGP has gampled on overly aggressive setups to close the gap to the frontrunners and as soon as the temps tumble they fall prey to those who have genuine speed in their cars .On the other hand Mercedes approach is absolutely ok for those colder than average temps .

[dans79]

Personally I think it's a combination of the following things.

1. All the Mercedes engine are a little thirstier than the Renault engines, at-least if you believe anything reported over the last two years or so. How much thirstier is any ones guess, as the amount of fuel you need to carry is track dependent.
2. MGP engines might be a little more thirsty than other Mercedes powered teams as they developed a coanda exhaust much later than others, and might now be stuck with a less fuel efficient mapping, because of the mapping freeze.
3. Personally I think Fric is a superior system, but might be a little harder to get right. The changing tire constructions and sensitivity of this years tires would make this worse.
4. MGP seems slower on the straits this year than they have in past years, and i think maybe they have gained down force but maybe took a heavy aero drag penalty for it.

[Sevach]

They have an amazing front end, i'm amazed at how responsive and how much bite they have at low speeds on new tyres.
And on the last race we saw they lacking a bit on traction even compared to mid grid cars.

Maybe their setup is too front biased and that causes the rears to go, Pirelli always seem rear limited, even on tracks that are front limited, and Mercedes suffer the most from it.

[Shakeman]

I ´m pretty sure these effects are well understood in formula 1 so my take on this would be MGP has gampled on overly aggressive setups to close the gap to the frontrunners and as soon as the temps tumble they fall prey to those who have genuine speed in their cars .On the other hand Mercedes approach is absolutely ok for those colder than average temps .

That's right because you get all your points on a Saturday for qualifying...

What's the point of an overly aggressive setup? Nothing. Ziltch. If MGP could manage the tyres better they would, it's not their choice to burn up their tyres because qualifying first and finishing tenth is no good to anyone. To suggest the MGP tyre problem is due to a setup choice they've made is to suggest that MGP haven't worked out which day you win the points.

[sucof]

every damper manufacturer will tell you a qualy setup will not necessarily be good for racing as it may lead to overheating of the tyre .
There are concepts around like high frequency pistons to generate additional grip but those generally tend to be too aggressive on rough surface .
I ´m pretty sure these effects are well understood in formula 1 so my take on this would be MGP has gampled on overly aggressive setups to close the gap to the frontrunners and as soon as the temps tumble they fall prey to those who have genuine speed in their cars .On the other hand Mercedes approach is absolutely ok for those colder than average temps .

That is the point: They say the FRIC system of the Mercedes is the only one without dampers or anything.

Reading these forums I often wonder how could people think that they can say exactly what does Mercedes wrong, while the team has information, understanding and the best engineers around, what we have none. I am pretty sure the problem is either very difficult or it is easy but very difficult to repair.
So I would think that FRIC for example could be something like this: they know that FRIC causes the tires to overheat, but there are no easy solutions like changing a damper because there are none. Maybe they have to redesign it completely or it might even be that the basic concept of FRIC is bogus, so they are trying to fix it somehow or develop it because they are still behind the idea of having it. This could cause a team to struggle with a problem for so many years, while simple set up or easily correctable problems never would.

EDIT: or as others mentioned it: In this category falls the engine map too, since they can not change it, so even if they know the cause they have hard time to do something about it. The tire swapping trick shows too that they are trying to work around a problem, as they have no possibilities to correct the problem itself.

[ringo]

The car has dampers.

Who concluded that it doesn't?

As far as i can see, it's simply the inherent balance of the car. To put less heat to the rear tyres, it probably would need a balance that is not competitive. It may well be the very same exhuasts over heating the tyres as well.
Whatever it is, it is related to donwforce creation. The aero balance not exluding the blown diffuser.

Over one lap, no problem degradation doesn't reach an advanced stage, so the car is quick.
Over a few laps the tyres are saturated and overworked, and the heat breaks down the mechanical properties of the rubber.

In terms of the exhuast, Maybe they need to allow more cooling on the inside of the tyre, cutting some more material out of the diffuser. this may result in loss of downforce, and change in behavior of the car, but to couteract that the flow can be nozzled some more.


We can see attempts here to chanell the exhuast away from the tyre and direct it where it needs to be.
The metal peice in front of the tyre will also direct air to the inside of the tyre wall creating a barier against the hot air fromt he exhuasts.
This solution probably works, as they wouldnt be using it, but i dont think it does enough to protect the tyres and it doesn't do enough to maintain exhuast speed. It's probably best at channeling flow alone. But for outright performance the gases need to be speeded up, as close to trans sonic speed as possible. You do this by using nozzles. There's a drag penalty of course.

Here's your floor nozzle in front of the tyre:


here again:

Notice that you have sufficient slots in the floor on the outside of the nozzles for allowing cooling flow to that hot area. Three very generous slots.
The most critical thing in these redbull images is the nozzle and it's shape. If you look at the outer profile of the nozzle it's pushing the exhaust away from the tyre. See the curvature? It's not chanelling straight down the inside like the mercedes guide vanes, it's speeding up the flow and it's pushing it taway from the inside edge of the tyre. Look also at the huge gap between tyre and diffuser. You can actually see the asphalt through that gap.
So in summary, i think mercedes problems could be helped by attacking the most obvious problem, rear tyre degredation. Which is of the thermal kind. You do this by lowering the temperatures, even if it doesn't make the car run 50 laps straight like a lotus, lowering temps will delay degradation. By copying redbull they could find gains in tyre life.

[smlbstcbr]

It's speculated that the Mercedes FRIC takes care of the damping, stiffness (and other stuff), not that the car does not have any damping mechanism. Not a "traditional" damper.
It's interesting to see the many hypotheses surrounding the "mystery" of the tired tyres of the Mercedes. I think we will see how close we are with our hypotheses during the race at Hungary. I hope the new Pirellis are a little more robust for the Mercedes.

BTW, nice explanation ringo!

[sucof]

The car has dampers.

Who concluded that it doesn't?

Even Scarbs wrote somewhere that the main difference between the FRIC of Mercedes and other teams interlinked suspension is that it does not use any regular components, like dampers. But of course these are too speculation, though a good one

[mantikos]

The car has dampers.

Who concluded that it doesn't?

Even Scarbs wrote somewhere that the main difference between the FRIC of Mercedes and other teams interlinked suspension is that it does not use any regular components, like dampers. But of course these are too speculation, though a good one

...and F1 website proved him wrong when they drew the internals with a damper this year...

[Huntresa]

The car has dampers.

Who concluded that it doesn't?

Even Scarbs wrote somewhere that the main difference between the FRIC of Mercedes and other teams interlinked suspension is that it does not use any regular components, like dampers. But of course these are too speculation, though a good one

...and F1 website proved him wrong when they drew the internals with a damper this year...

F1 website isnt more factual accurate then Scarbs, they dont know more then Scarbs or us or anyone outside of the team.

[mantikos]

Even Scarbs wrote somewhere that the main difference between the FRIC of Mercedes and other teams interlinked suspension is that it does not use any regular components, like dampers. But of course these are too speculation, though a good one

...and F1 website proved him wrong when they drew the internals with a damper this year...

F1 website isnt more factual accurate then Scarbs, they dont know more then Scarbs or us or anyone outside of the team.

Sure - except they ran it based on an image (by Sutton if I am not mistaken) which also showed the damper

[Cocles]

The car has dampers.

Who concluded that it doesn't?

Even Scarbs wrote somewhere that the main difference between the FRIC of Mercedes and other teams interlinked suspension is that it does not use any regular components, like dampers. But of course these are too speculation, though a good one

The thing is, Scarbs wrote that; then at next race, Nico had a DNF and blamed it on a cracked anti-roll bar. Either Scarbs is wrong, or Nico was making quotes with his fingers when he said that.

[sucof]

The car has dampers.

Who concluded that it doesn't?

Even Scarbs wrote somewhere that the main difference between the FRIC of Mercedes and other teams interlinked suspension is that it does not use any regular components, like dampers. But of course these are too speculation, though a good one

The thing is, Scarbs wrote that; then at next race, Nico had a DNF and blamed it on a cracked anti-roll bar. Either Scarbs is wrong, or Nico was making quotes with his fingers when he said that.

I remember that, and while I have no intention to prove a speculation, at that time FRIC was something Mercedes wanted to hide, so Nico most probably would have not say anything than a commonly used part went wrong.