Williams FW36 Mercedes

[Henning]

There are two things I notice:
1) By watching the markings on the road, the car is weaving left and right a lot. Possibly behind the safety car or on the parade lap.
2) It seems the push rod extends when the wheel is at full left lock.

It seems that at the point of full left lock, the joint expands and this causes the suspension to lower. This would have the effect of dropping the height of car on that side and rolling" the car into the corner. This would help keep the inside front tyre more planted through the corner keep the heat in the tyre.

Does that all sound plausible and why only at large steering angles? Is there enough downforce in faster (straighter) corners that this is not required?

[Sevach]

On the grid, Massa said to Barrichello that the car is quite low drag that's why it sucked in the rain.

Interesting. The FW-36 seems to be a very fast car though. The high top speeds and the low consumption (Bottas's race) would mean the Williams is mainly relying on its floor and diffuser for downforce (its nice floating sidepods could explain this) and is running with 'flatter' wings. That would expalin it's relatively poor pace under the rain; maybe its low floor works worse in those condition and hence the wings are low AoA, it cant rely on their direct and cheap DF.

Did you notice that when you put wet tires on they automatically makes the car ride higher?
I don't know if it's the constructions or tire pressures (or both), but the cars ride quite a few cm higher on wets.

This of course works on the teams favor because the higher ride height is needed to avoid aquaplainning in wet conditions, but it certainly makes the floor less effective.

Massa was confident that if it remained dry he would go to the front and was thinking podium (and that's before Hamilton dropped out).

A very rough idea of what he said:

"It was difficult in the rain, we still need more downforce, balance isn't quite what we want and the rain just made it worst... but if it remains dry we should go to the front, the car is quite 'slippery' down the the straights".

[rjsa]

Tyres are biger, at least that's the explanation I recall hearing.

[FrukostScones]

20 Kg ballast to play with when tiny Massa sits in the car.

BOT had lots of fuel left after the race (they went the very conservative route)

source: AMuS-Magazine

[briant1]

In the Sky F1 midweek report, they said the Williams is geared significantly shorter than the Mercedes or the McLaren. That seems odd given the alleged efficiency and top speed of the Williams. Did anybody notice a scene in the race when the revs were displayed for the Williams? Would be keen to know how short they went...

[tomazy]

williams gearing is not short at all, they just use lees available RPM, I allready did an analysis of it in this thread:
http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... 02#p497402

the conclusion of this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIRM-Z8rdtA)was:

3th gear max speed is 184km/h
4th gear max speed is 238km/h
5th gear max speed is 281km/h
6th gear max speed is 327km/h
7th gear max speed is 377km/h
8th gear max speed is 423km/h

Note, that those numbers I got by rendomly pausing the video and using the numbers on the screen and can probably vary a lot using difirent frames of the video. Note also, that Williams is actualy using 8th gear, but the graphics does not support 8th gear it seems.

[Owen.C93]

Considering that the graphic doesn't go up from 7 to 8 and the high top speeds you've calculated then I think the graphic is actually 1 gear ahead. The Williams goes between 2nd and 7th.

[tomazy]

Could be, but if you look and listen to the video, the graphic goes in to 7th gear, and stays there, even though he shifts up again witch you can hear and see by RPM going down. So I still think that he is using 3th to 8th gear.

[Owen.C93]

I know. I think the graphic is wrong and he's actually 1 gear lower than it says and he shifts from 6-7th while the graphics stays on 7.

[tomazy]

this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_rapabFBaI solves our problem, the graphic still doe not support the 8th gear, but Bottas goes to 1st at 1:41 mark, and you can than clearly count that he goes into 8th down the streight. And using the same methot as previously, i got top speed in 8th as 422km/h, I was probably a bit lucky to be so close to the other video, or the data is more precise than I touhgt.

[briant1]

Thanks for the excellent analysis! Don't know where Sky got that information, then...

Given the relatively flat power curve of the new engines between 10500 and 15000 I guess top-speed gearing is less of an issue anyway, it just becomes less fuel efficient if you have to rev too high.

[Sevach]

Bottas on the FW36

"In the braking and entry of corners we were quite strong. You can lean on it and trust it. On power we still have some weak points with the car, and traction is something we need to work on - especially in the wet. We were struggling a little bit to follow others in the high-speed corners - that is the weak point for us. In some exits of the corners, and some high-speed corners, we were losing a little bit. But I would say our top speeds are very strong, which helps with the overtaking."

Lacking a bit of rear Downforce it seems.

Also this analysis by James Allen

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2014/03/a ... on-opener/

[kalinka]

I don't know..My impression about Williams after Australia was quite different. It was very noticeable how fast Bottas was closing in on other cars (especially) after turn one. I get an impression that they have very good traction...so I'm a bit perplexed now about what he says. Maybe he was comparing Williams to Merc or McLaren...but I think they have better traction than most of others...As for other things he said I can agree.

[Ra8]

I don't know..My impression about Williams after Australia was quite different. It was very noticeable how fast Bottas was closing in on other cars (especially) after turn one. I get an impression that they have very good traction...so I'm a bit perplexed now about what he says. Maybe he was comparing Williams to Merc or McLaren...but I think they have better traction than most of others...As for other things he said I can agree.

Turn one is neither high speed nor heavy traction corner. There's your problem.
Turn one I would say is braking corner, since you have to brake in late to carry max speed through the second turn. So if they have great turn in and braking balance as they say, its exactly the corner you want for your car.

[kalinka]

Turn one is neither high speed nor heavy traction corner. There's your problem.

If I understood correctly from driver quotes, every corner is now traction limited even up to 5th gear...Maybe turn one is not the best example, but you could observe the same at almost every corner exit. Especially when Bottas was closing in on Alonso.