2019 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

[zibby43]

https://www.mercedesamgf1.com/en/merced ... barcelona/

Report: 176 laps completed on Wednesday in Barcelona

Valtteri Bottas

"It was a positive day, we did 74 laps this morning, focusing on set-up work and making some good progress. There’s a lot of data for us to go through tonight to further improve our set-up and make sure we come up with the optimal programme for tomorrow. We learned a lot today and we will make sure to learn a lot again tomorrow."

Lewis Hamilton

"We got a lot of laps today which is a good thing, but we’ve come across a few little hurdles, so we’re just working our way through them, trying to be as diligent as possible trying to understand the causes – which is exactly what testing is for. Everyone is working flat-out and I’m sure we will get there. You need days like this to be able to bring light to the things that we need to work on."

James Allison

"We did set-up work in the morning with Valtteri and continued with this in the early afternoon with Lewis, yielding some good results for both drivers. The race run in the afternoon, although quite considerably quicker than the last race simulation we made, was marred by front graining – something which we think, looking up and down the pit lane, could be a feature of the year. We need to make progress on graining resistance in the next couple of days, in order to make sure we have a good way of handling it by the time the racing season begins."

[dans79]

James Allison

"We did set-up work in the morning with Valtteri and continued with this in the early afternoon with Lewis, yielding some good results for both drivers. The race run in the afternoon, although quite considerably quicker than the last race simulation we made, was marred by front graining – something which we think, looking up and down the pit lane, could be a feature of the year. We need to make progress on graining resistance in the next couple of days, in order to make sure we have a good way of handling it by the time the racing season begins."

I wonder how much this actually be an issue during the season.

[zibby43]

James Allison

"We did set-up work in the morning with Valtteri and continued with this in the early afternoon with Lewis, yielding some good results for both drivers. The race run in the afternoon, although quite considerably quicker than the last race simulation we made, was marred by front graining – something which we think, looking up and down the pit lane, could be a feature of the year. We need to make progress on graining resistance in the next couple of days, in order to make sure we have a good way of handling it by the time the racing season begins."

I wonder how much this actually be an issue during the season.

It's definitely intriguing. The nature of the track surface and the track temperature are two of the biggest factors in graining (the third being the compound being used, of course).

With the warmer track temperatures this week, I was expecting to see less graining across the board. Still lingering around. Makes me start to wonder about the construction of the new compounds this year.

[dans79]

James Allison

"We did set-up work in the morning with Valtteri and continued with this in the early afternoon with Lewis, yielding some good results for both drivers. The race run in the afternoon, although quite considerably quicker than the last race simulation we made, was marred by front graining – something which we think, looking up and down the pit lane, could be a feature of the year. We need to make progress on graining resistance in the next couple of days, in order to make sure we have a good way of handling it by the time the racing season begins."

I wonder how much this actually be an issue during the season.

It's definitely intriguing. The nature of the track surface and the track temperature are two of the biggest factors in graining (the third being the compound being used, of course).

With the warmer track temperatures this week, I was expecting to see less graining across the board. Still lingering around. Makes me start to wonder about the construction of the new compounds this year.

I'm not sure if its correct or not, but someone posted in the testing thread this morning that air temp was 6°C and the track temp was 8°C.

[zibby43]

I wonder how much this actually be an issue during the season.

It's definitely intriguing. The nature of the track surface and the track temperature are two of the biggest factors in graining (the third being the compound being used, of course).

With the warmer track temperatures this week, I was expecting to see less graining across the board. Still lingering around. Makes me start to wonder about the construction of the new compounds this year.

I'm not sure if its correct or not, but someone posted in the testing thread this morning that air temp was 6°C and the track temp was 8°C.

I could see graining as reasonable in those conditions, especially with the nature of the circuit.

I think I saw somewhere that the track surface temperature reached closer to 30°C in the afternoon.

[zibby43]

Very interesting technical piece by Mark Hughes

Why Mercedes brought such a heavily revised car to Test 2

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... Cw4DH.html

Excerpt highlighting how the new upgrades have affected and improved the airflow:

"The flow off the mid part of the wing now connects up to a totally different – and hugely complex – array of barge boards. Their shaping will have been largely determined by the very different flow induced by the reshaped sidepods. Some internal repackaging of the cooling internals will have been necessary to produce the new shape, which has a more pronounced downward sweep, helping to accelerate the airflow there as it makes its way towards converging with the flow coming along the sidepods and through the tighter coke bottle section – the converged flow then heading for the crucial gap between the inner edge of the tyre and outboard edge of the diffuser. The more airspeed that can be generated at this point, the better that flow can be used to energise the underfloor flow exiting from the diffuser, drawing on it to pull it through harder."

[De Jokke]

https://www.mercedesamgf1.com/en/merced ... barcelona/

Report: 176 laps completed on Wednesday in Barcelona

Valtteri Bottas

"It was a positive day, we did 74 laps this morning, focusing on set-up work and making some good progress. There’s a lot of data for us to go through tonight to further improve our set-up and make sure we come up with the optimal programme for tomorrow. We learned a lot today and we will make sure to learn a lot again tomorrow."

Lewis Hamilton

"We got a lot of laps today which is a good thing, but we’ve come across a few little hurdles, so we’re just working our way through them, trying to be as diligent as possible trying to understand the causes – which is exactly what testing is for. Everyone is working flat-out and I’m sure we will get there. You need days like this to be able to bring light to the things that we need to work on."

James Allison

"We did set-up work in the morning with Valtteri and continued with this in the early afternoon with Lewis, yielding some good results for both drivers. The race run in the afternoon, although quite considerably quicker than the last race simulation we made, was marred by front graining – something which we think, looking up and down the pit lane, could be a feature of the year. We need to make progress on graining resistance in the next couple of days, in order to make sure we have a good way of handling it by the time the racing season begins."

My gut feeling remains the same: Merc is behind. I think they closed a part of the gap but there still remains a decent chunk. For now the tests reflect what the drivers are saying here. Especially Lewis' feedback. The car is better but still issues to iron out. But if any team can turn it around, it's merc! Bracing myself for a low key start to the season! Hope to be wrong though!

[zibby43]

My gut feeling remains the same: Merc is behind. I think they closed a part of the gap but there still remains a decent chunk. For now the tests reflect what the drivers are saying here. Especially Lewis' feedback. The car is better but still issues to iron out. But if any team can turn it around, it's merc! Bracing myself for a low key start to the season! Hope to be wrong though!

Merc’s race pace today was actually quite strong. Especially on the harder compounds (which are more representative at Barcelona).

The only issue they had today was the front graining but everyone is dealing with that to an extent.

[dans79]

Very interesting technical piece by Mark Hughes

Why Mercedes brought such a heavily revised car to Test 2

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... Cw4DH.html

The most interesting comment imo, is this one.

There’s no doubting that the W10 that appeared for Week 2 of testing is radically different over almost all its body surfaces to that used in the first week. This is far too big an upgrade to have been a reaction to any input from last week’s tests and we understand that the team planned it way in advance. The Week 1 car was a representation of where the design was at in the wind tunnel by the end of November and was built as a ‘safe’ option for the first week of testing, to insure against there being any delays with the development of the more aggressive package.

The build of this ‘safe’ initial car allowed the aero department to continue working in the wind tunnel on the original more aggressive concept for several more weeks, the result of which is the car that broke cover on Tuesday of Week 2 and which essentially is the car that will be raced in Melbourne.

[zibby43]

Very interesting technical piece by Mark Hughes

Why Mercedes brought such a heavily revised car to Test 2

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... Cw4DH.html

The most interesting comment imo, is this one.

There’s no doubting that the W10 that appeared for Week 2 of testing is radically different over almost all its body surfaces to that used in the first week. This is far too big an upgrade to have been a reaction to any input from last week’s tests and we understand that the team planned it way in advance. The Week 1 car was a representation of where the design was at in the wind tunnel by the end of November and was built as a ‘safe’ option for the first week of testing, to insure against there being any delays with the development of the more aggressive package.

The build of this ‘safe’ initial car allowed the aero department to continue working in the wind tunnel on the original more aggressive concept for several more weeks, the result of which is the car that broke cover on Tuesday of Week 2 and which essentially is the car that will be raced in Melbourne.

That one piqued my interest. Pretty remarkable stuff.

[NathanOlder]

My gut feeling remains the same: Merc is behind. I think they closed a part of the gap but there still remains a decent chunk. For now the tests reflect what the drivers are saying here. Especially Lewis' feedback. The car is better but still issues to iron out. But if any team can turn it around, it's merc! Bracing myself for a low key start to the season! Hope to be wrong though!

Surely there is no chance any team has no issues to iron out.

[dans79]

I wonder what their development cycle is like. If it' 2 to 4 weeks, they might have 1 or 2 upgrade packages already queued up and ready to go.

That one piqued my interest. Pretty remarkable stuff.

[Morteza]

Mercedes top 1,000 laps in pre-season testing

Lewis Hamilton
"Today has been a good day – lots of mileage, which is great for us. It has probably been one of the most positive days for us, we’ve really learned quite a lot. We’ve been able to apply our learnings from the morning to the afternoon, so I’m looking forward to seeing how Valtteri felt, but the car looked like it was in a better place. Our understanding of the W10 is continuously growing so it was definitely a positive day."

Valtteri Bottas
"We got a lot of laps in today which is always good. I did a race simulation which was interrupted by the red flag, but it confirmed the progress we’ve made since last week. We’re getting more and more prepared for Melbourne, but there’s room for improvement and still a few question marks on where we stand compared to the competition. We’re focusing on our performance; the entire team is pushing really hard and keeps improving the car and that’s all that matters. We need to maximise the last day of testing as it will be our final chance to try out a few things ahead of Melbourne. Today was positive and I’m hoping for another good day tomorrow."


James Allison
"Today was a very productive day, either side of a trouble-free race distance we did a lot of good investigative work and in the race simulation itself, unlike yesterday where we failed to make the tyres live, we had good tyre behaviour across all three stints. We look forward to tomorrow where we will be investigating the range of tyre compounds and focusing more on single lap pace."

[dren]

Sounds promising and that they are moving in the right direction as I expected the team to do based on past history.

[KiLLu12258]

tomorrow more single lap pace, im hyped.