2021 AMG Mercedes F1 Team

[mclaren113]

Pace is still decent and Silverstone will be better.

So on driver side it is very much open.
In constructor I’m not so sure

Silverstone, Hungary and Italy should be better

[selvam_e2002]

till France they did a very good job. May be this track is not suitable for mercedes. It seems the car does not like this track.

after France, I doubt either RB nor mercedes bring any update. It seems to be track specific.

We can see close battle in Silverstone and Hungary. Hoping the update will fix the issue.

It is not RB fast.... it is other way around.... Mercedes slow....

[Spacepace]

Any information on what broke on Hamilton's car? Never saw anything during race or post race

[dans79]

If they can increase the rake a little bit, they will be able to better seal the diffuser using the rear brake ducts. That means they can run less rear wing and get the same amount of total downforce.

If you couple that with tweaked, engine maps that are no longer trying to compensate for the high downforce rear wing, and new rear tires that allow them to drop pressures by 2 PSI, that could be a significant performance improvement for them.

If it all came together at the same time I could see that being worth anywhere from three to six tenths a lap.

[e30ernest]

If they can increase the rake a little bit, they will be able to better seal the diffuser using the rear brake ducts. That means they can run less rear wing and get the same amount of total downforce.

If you couple that with tweaked, engine maps that are no longer trying to compensate for the high downforce rear wing, and new rear tires that allow them to drop pressures by 2 PSI, that could be a significant performance improvement for them.

If it all came together at the same time I could see that being worth anywhere from three to six tenths a lap.

Probably not as simple as that though. I believe changing to a higher rake will also mean having to change everything else towards the front of the car. Would they also have to tweak the rear suspension itself since it will now be moving at a different range to what it was optimized for?

[dans79]

If they can increase the rake a little bit, they will be able to better seal the diffuser using the rear brake ducts. That means they can run less rear wing and get the same amount of total downforce.

If you couple that with tweaked, engine maps that are no longer trying to compensate for the high downforce rear wing, and new rear tires that allow them to drop pressures by 2 PSI, that could be a significant performance improvement for them.

If it all came together at the same time I could see that being worth anywhere from three to six tenths a lap.

Probably not as simple as that though. I believe changing to a higher rake will also mean having to change everything else towards the front of the car. Would they also have to tweak the rear suspension itself since it will now be moving at a different range to what it was optimized for?

It all depends on how much change in rake is actually needed. Increasing or decreasing rate really isn't hard, it only becomes hard when you exceed the operating envelope of some component of the car.

[e30ernest]

If they can increase the rake a little bit, they will be able to better seal the diffuser using the rear brake ducts. That means they can run less rear wing and get the same amount of total downforce.

If you couple that with tweaked, engine maps that are no longer trying to compensate for the high downforce rear wing, and new rear tires that allow them to drop pressures by 2 PSI, that could be a significant performance improvement for them.

If it all came together at the same time I could see that being worth anywhere from three to six tenths a lap.

Probably not as simple as that though. I believe changing to a higher rake will also mean having to change everything else towards the front of the car. Would they also have to tweak the rear suspension itself since it will now be moving at a different range to what it was optimized for?

It all depends on how much change in rake is actually needed. Increasing or decreasing rate really isn't hard, it only becomes hard when you exceed the operating envelope of some component of the car.

In actual centimeters, it shouldn't be much especially given the wheelbase of the car I think. However, the car itself is designed to run in particular tolerances. I'd be curious to see what sort of changes they end up with if they run "high rake".

[dans79]

Probably not as simple as that though. I believe changing to a higher rake will also mean having to change everything else towards the front of the car. Would they also have to tweak the rear suspension itself since it will now be moving at a different range to what it was optimized for?

It all depends on how much change in rake is actually needed. Increasing or decreasing rate really isn't hard, it only becomes hard when you exceed the operating envelope of some component of the car.

In actual centimeters, it shouldn't be much especially given the wheelbase of the car I think. However, the car itself is designed to run in particular tolerances. I'd be curious to see what sort of changes they end up with if they run "high rake".

I don't think it would be high rake like Red Bull for example. Just higher rake than what they have traditionally run in the past.

[mclaren_mircea]

I dont believe that set-up work and understanding the tyres car can bring over the months more performance and laptime than developing with aero upgrades. Understanding the tyres cannot compensate the proper development of the car. It should be an adition, a bonus not something to replace the upgrades packages. I understand that they switched the focus earlier than Red Bull for the 2022 car but until mid-June where was the updates? February, March, April, May they should have bring at least two big packages or small aditions to every race. But instead nothing. Nothing. Nada. Nicht. Keine.I understand that since mid june nothing because all the switch for W13 but I repeat until then they should have rentless develop the car. And beside that. Why so manu retirements from the top engineers??? Newey is older and had won more than Costa, Allison, Cowel and he does not intend to stop work and improve their car. If not for Aston Marton they would have kept Dan Follows too. At Mercedes all the big engineers on the chassis or engine are gone. And the heads are not rolling where it should be: in the strategy team. Mercedes cant compensate with graduates or anynonimus young engineers what Newey and his aero-team are doing. They wont have an excuse if in 2022 Red Bull will be ahead despite starting late to work on the car.

[cooken]

Below is a comparison between Ham and Bot. I did a moving average of lap times to smooth things out a bit, excluding in/out laps etc.

Seems like the issue came a couple of laps before the first pit stop. He was immediately slower than Bot at the start of the second stint, both on new hards. Kind of looks like they were managing something beyond lack of downforce or high deg. Possibly something else overheating (eg rear brakes).

[RZS10]

I think you linked a thumbnail by mistake. When was the radio from Lewis before the pits where he said "it's starting to get loose" - that was probably right after he got the damage, which according to Shovlin was "some deterioration of some of the aero bits on the rear cake tin".

[cooken]

Yea I struggle with images...think I got it sorted well enough now.

I haven't revisited any of the race laps/onboard/radio. I recall he complained about the rear at one point but I just assumed it was normal tyre deg.

[Marty_Y]

Below is a comparison between Ham and Bot. I did a moving average of lap times to smooth things out a bit, excluding in/out laps etc.

Seems like the issue came a couple of laps before the first pit stop. He was immediately slower than Bot at the start of the second stint, both on new hards. Kind of looks like they were managing something beyond lack of downforce or high deg. Possibly something else overheating (eg rear brakes).

When he overtook Lando, I heard Lando say on the radio that "his rear brakes are on fire" I don't know if he was referring to his own brakes or Lewis's?

[Marty_Y]

If they can increase the rake a little bit, they will be able to better seal the diffuser using the rear brake ducts. That means they can run less rear wing and get the same amount of total downforce.

If you couple that with tweaked, engine maps that are no longer trying to compensate for the high downforce rear wing, and new rear tires that allow them to drop pressures by 2 PSI, that could be a significant performance improvement for them.

If it all came together at the same time I could see that being worth anywhere from three to six tenths a lap.

I think you're one of the best contributors on this site and you know more about F1 than most of the other people here (including me), so I'm not saying your wrong or anything but if it is physically possible to change the rake without totally redesigning all of the aerodynamics why didn't they do this earlier?

I hope you are right because if they haven't got a radical solution that will increase the pace of the W12 the rest of this season is going to be horrible to watch.

[El Scorchio]

Below is a comparison between Ham and Bot. I did a moving average of lap times to smooth things out a bit, excluding in/out laps etc.

Seems like the issue came a couple of laps before the first pit stop. He was immediately slower than Bot at the start of the second stint, both on new hards. Kind of looks like they were managing something beyond lack of downforce or high deg. Possibly something else overheating (eg rear brakes).

When he overtook Lando, I heard Lando say on the radio that "his rear brakes are on fire" I don't know if he was referring to his own brakes or Lewis's?

I think he meant Hamilton's. So even though they never caught it on television as far as I know, I wonder if the heat from an alleged fire might have been enough for something to come detached or weakened? (and then fail/fall off)