Mercedes AMG F1 W04

[theWPTformula]

What's up with the poor downforce efficiency?
It's seems the car can't have good downforce and a decent top speed.

Look on Webber's car in contrast. He can have a good combination of DF and tall 7th gear.

To be fair to Red Bull, their gains in cutting drag this season have been extraordinary. In contrast, Mercedes are finding themselves in the situation Red Bull have been in for some time although not to the same extent. At least, thanks in part to the Mercedes power, they have decent top speed. The W04 is just a better car when more downforce producing components applied to the car.

I think the engineers at Mercedes have found that qualifying as high up as possible with a short 7th gear is better than running a long 7th gear and potentially slipping back a few places on the grid. This has become particularly apparent in recent races as Lotus have closed the gap to them in terms of qualifying speed so they must feel the need to get ahead of them in qualifying. There are a number of obvious reasons why they would want to do this (e.g. less cars in front and therefore extended tyre life).

The problem with this is, as demonstrated by HAM today, if the driver ends up back in the pack then they will have a hard time getting past at the end of the straight. Exactly the same thing has happened to both the Red Bull drivers in the past although this year they seemed to have cured their top speed issues.

[ringo]

At least with redbull, their top speed was not indirectly tied to their tyre preservation.

[Hobbs04]

Lewis reminded me of Monza 2011 when he followed Schumacher almost entire race as Button passed them both with ease. I think Lewis's car was set to high df to benefit from being on front row. He follows close because he has no top speed but ruins his aero in doing so.

[spiritone]

This is what bothers me about the present day F1. Cars having to lay back to conserve their tires. Does this really sound like RACING. What happened to be able to put pressure on the driver ahead of you. Lately if you don't have a RBR you might as well forget about passing anybody.

[Anon123]

Lewis reminded me of Monza 2011 when he followed Schumacher almost entire race as Button passed them both with ease. I think Lewis's car was set to high df to benefit from being on front row. He follows close because he has no top speed but ruins his aero in doing so.

Button passed them both because Lewis attacked Michael at Ascari and he had the chance to slip through, once Lewis passed Michael he went on to set the fastest lap of the race...

[Cocles]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/111162

Mercedes considering set-up rethink for F1 2013's final two races...

[diego.liv]

IMHO it's not such a problem at the US Gp, the second straight is very long if memory serves me correctly: same set-up philosophy of last gp could work since the two straights are different in length, a bigger difference between the two consecutive straights seen in Abu Dhabi.
Regarding Brazil, let's hope in rain, same set-up philosophy and even RB should be worried about Mercs' paces

[SectorOne]

Lewis reminded me of Monza 2011 when he followed Schumacher almost entire race as Button passed them both with ease. I think Lewis's car was set to high df to benefit from being on front row. He follows close because he has no top speed but ruins his aero in doing so.

That was because Schumacher blocked Hamilton several times and wanted to "show him that it´s not always so easy to overtake"
Button arrived when Schumacher had gotten a warning from his team to leave space.
-

Brawn on making set-up changes to the car in order to enhance their overtaking abilities with the car.

Lewis Hamilton has been visibly frustrated with the W04 car's performances on race day and has complained that the car loses much of its performance when stuck behind another car.

Ross Brawn, the Mercedes team principal, believes the problem is so serious that they are considering changing the set-up of the car to make it more effective at overtaking, even if it compromises their single lap pace.

"I think one of the weaknesses of the car at the moment, which we have identified, is our ability to follow and overtake is poor," Brawn revealed to Autosport.

"Of course, if you get yourself into your position where you need to do that to rebuild your race, then your race goes from bad to worse.

"That is really what happened to Lewis in the last couple of races and that is something we want to think about for Austin and Brazil.

"It could be we need to modify our approach to have a car and a set-up philosophy that puts a bit more emphasis on the ability to race the other cars than the lap time."
http://www.planetf1.com/driver/3213/901 ... up-changes

Edit: see now Cocles was ahead,

[heimana]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/111162

Mercedes considering set-up rethink for F1 2013's final two races...

what will change on the car? wings? I don't understand

[turbof1]

AoA and gearing. Other then that probably tiny changes all over the car, but certainly don't expect anything dramatic.

[FoxHound]

You could see the traction out of slower corners is where the car was suffering. Especially in relation to the Sauber.
Hamilton lined up Gutierrez on a number of occassions through the hairpin only to see the Sauber gap the merc in the initial traction phase.
Hamilton did eventually manage to pass the Sauber, and he did so with a higher top speed(marginally including DRS).
I think Mercedes have a set up which protects the tyres in the initial acceleration zone, which has translated in superior tyre life.
The downfall is the car is not as good as it can be out of corners.

[dans79]

You could see the traction out of slower corners is where the car was suffering. Especially in relation to the Sauber.
Hamilton lined up Gutierrez on a number of occassions through the hairpin only to see the Sauber gap the merc in the initial traction phase.
Hamilton did eventually manage to pass the Sauber, and he did so with a higher top speed(marginally including DRS).
I think Mercedes have a set up which protects the tyres in the initial acceleration zone, which has translated in superior tyre life.
The downfall is the car is not as good as it can be out of corners.

Spot on, another good example was Hulk in Korea. Hulk would pull a gap at the start of the strait, and Ham wouldn't be able to close it till the very end of the strait. Ham even complained over the radio about it.

[Anon123]

The car is often visibly quicker through the high speed stuff when following another car, traction and top speed seem to have been the problem recently.

[theWPTformula]

Yes, it would appear that by making changes to cure tyre degration they have certainly slipped back in terms of raw performance. The W04 used to have very good traction but it was putting too much stress on the tyres. Wheelspin can't be good for them but it is clearly having less of an impact. Running a bit more down force has also cost them when stuck behind other cars.

I touched on this briefly in my race analysis of India - http://wheels.morethanafan.net/2013/10/ ... raps-2013/

[GrizzleBoy]

I've noticed since the second half of the season that traction out of slow corners seems really messy on the W04. I always mentioned it in the live chat (when I was still interested enough in the races to do my usual live race feed/onboard recording/live chat multi-tasking thing).

Lots of noticeable when spin on slow corner exit. Noticed it especially in Monza coming out of the turn 1/2 chicane and last week at the beginning of the first DRS straight.