Mercedes W11

[Sevach]

old school people around here will remember the infamous Radii topic

Can you give link to the topic?

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=14606&p=465254&hil ... ii#p465254
With some help of the search function...
I think it's this post by Ringo that starts it.

[Giblet]

>But again other than the sidepods everything else is from last year's car!

You're not looking very closely friend.

There are massive differences in the barge board area and floor. The only thing the same is the nose and front wing.

The current W11 bargeboard area and front wing, look very similar to the configuration Mercedes ran on the W10 at the back end of 2019.

They do look similar, but they are quite different, which is why I said looking closer would help.

That's all we do here lol. Look too close at stuff.

[OO7]

They do look similar, but they are quite different, which is why I said looking closer would help.

That's all we do here lol. Look too close at stuff.

I've look quite closely at the W10 & W11 bargeboard area and maintain that they are very similar.

[OO7]

The mercedes will look the tightest because they run a longer car so it's almost an optical illusion. The further back they go the less they have to package into the coke bottle.

So I'd argue that red bull and Ferrari will have had a tougher time packaging the rears of their cars and as such have done just as good a job.

While the longer wheelbase of the Mercedes does accentuate the perceived 'tightness' of its packaging, if we observe and compare the area from the front of the sidepod to the rear face of the engine (estimate), Mercedes wins this hands down.

[Maplesoup]

The mercedes will look the tightest because they run a longer car so it's almost an optical illusion. The further back they go the less they have to package into the coke bottle.

So I'd argue that red bull and Ferrari will have had a tougher time packaging the rears of their cars and as such have done just as good a job.

While the longer wheelbase of the Mercedes does accentuate the perceived 'tightness' of its packaging, if we observe and compare the area from the front of the sidepod to the rear face of the engine (estimate), Mercedes wins this hands down.

Yes they do look tighter but red bull and Ferrari run more rake which changes the frontal area of that area to the air. For mercedes it's pretty much front on. For the others it's like 5 to 10 degrees different.

So you while they might look tighter looking at the pictures it's how the aero is going to work within their concept that will judge how well that packaging is done. Also if mercedes run into cooling issues again this year was it really worth it?

Too many unknowns to say if they've done a better job.

[OO7]

Yes they do look tighter but red bull and Ferrari run more rake which changes the frontal area of that area to the air. For mercedes it's pretty much front on. For the others it's like 5 to 10 degrees different.

So you while they might look tighter looking at the pictures it's how the aero is going to work within their concept that will judge how well that packaging is done. Also if mercedes run into cooling issues again this year was it really worth it?

Too many unknowns to say if they've done a better job.

Regardless of concept, engineers (aerodynamicists) aim to make the packaging as small and as tight as possible. Ideally they'd remove the side-pod altogether but that simply isn't plausible.

No one (I certainly am not) is discussing performance differentials between competitors, because that is impossible to establish. If we compare the RB16 to the RB15 however, while the top surface of the side-pod (not the part of the engine cover that's close to the side-pod) is now more bulky due to a slightly different design philosophy, the side-pod is tighter around the front under-cut and slightly tighter at the rear (floor level), with the transition between the two being smoother than on the RB15.

If we compare the W11 to the W10, the front of the side-pod features a much larger under-cut and the rear of the side-pod is significantly tighter, so again, regardless of aero concepts, engineer attempt to make their cars bodywork as small and as tight as possible.

Also note that the W11 side-pod concept, shares more in common with the RB15 than the W10.

[OO7]

W10 & W11 Three Quarters Shot Comparison:

[GhostF1]

Looks pretty tight. I still think RBR's and even Ferrari's is even better.

I'll wait for more photos but so far to me it looks like:
1) Mercedes
2) Red Bull
3) Ferrari

It's difficult/impossible for RBR and Ferrari to achieve the same level of coke bottle undercut due to their respective exhaust manifold layouts.

Can you share photos of the new PU exhaust manifold layouts?

Also, if anything, the Honda exhaust layout would be most similar to the Merc as they are the same PU layout. Ferrari, understandable as it is different.

[LM10]

The mercedes will look the tightest because they run a longer car so it's almost an optical illusion. The further back they go the less they have to package into the coke bottle.

So I'd argue that red bull and Ferrari will have had a tougher time packaging the rears of their cars and as such have done just as good a job.

While the longer wheelbase of the Mercedes does accentuate the perceived 'tightness' of its packaging, if we observe and compare the area from the front of the sidepod to the rear face of the engine (estimate), Mercedes wins this hands down.

Ferrari's design philosophy seems to be different from those of Mercedes and RBR who are clearly more similar to each other in that aspect. The engine cover of the SF1000 droops down quite aggressively. This was the case on it's predecessor already, but now they kept that and added some RBR-style shrinking to the part behind the sidepods. Not as tight as Mercedes (winner) and RBR (slightly behind the W11) in that area, but it's hard to compare them as they follow different design ideas, as told. That's my unqualified view of things.

[OO7]

Can you share photos of the new PU exhaust manifold layouts?

Also, if anything, the Honda exhaust layout would be most similar to the Merc as they are the same PU layout. Ferrari, understandable as it is different.

As far as I'm aware, there're no photos of the current exhaust manifold layouts used by the different manufacturers. My comments were based on the 2019 designs. Judging by packaging, Mercedes and Red Bull have maintained concepts similar to 2019. Ferrari, given 2018-2019 and their current side-pod philosophy, likely haven't changed much either.

[Just_a_fan]

The mercedes will look the tightest because they run a longer car so it's almost an optical illusion. The further back they go the less they have to package into the coke bottle.

So I'd argue that red bull and Ferrari will have had a tougher time packaging the rears of their cars and as such have done just as good a job.

While the longer wheelbase of the Mercedes does accentuate the perceived 'tightness' of its packaging, if we observe and compare the area from the front of the sidepod to the rear face of the engine (estimate), Mercedes wins this hands down.

Yes they do look tighter but red bull and Ferrari run more rake which changes the frontal area of that area to the air. For mercedes it's pretty much front on. For the others it's like 5 to 10 degrees different.

5-10 degrees? How much rake do you think the teams run?

[OO7]

Ferrari's design philosophy seems to be different from those of Mercedes and RBR who are clearly more similar to each other in that aspect. The engine cover of the SF1000 droops down quite aggressively. This was the case on it's predecessor already, but now they kept that and added some RBR-style shrinking to the part behind the sidepods. Not as tight as Mercedes (winner) and RBR (slightly behind the W11) in that area, but it's hard to compare them as they follow different design ideas, as told. That's my unqualified view of things.

Ferrari's design looks like that of the RB15. The RB15 I think had a more aggressive slope, but the SF1000 has better coke bottle taper (my guess being because of the exhaust manifold layout). While concept can play a part, the end result is that one team may create a car that is more tightly packaged than another, how this translates to performance is a separate issue however.

[NoDivergence]

While the longer wheelbase of the Mercedes does accentuate the perceived 'tightness' of its packaging, if we observe and compare the area from the front of the sidepod to the rear face of the engine (estimate), Mercedes wins this hands down.

Yes they do look tighter but red bull and Ferrari run more rake which changes the frontal area of that area to the air. For mercedes it's pretty much front on. For the others it's like 5 to 10 degrees different.

5-10 degrees? How much rake do you think the teams run?

LOL 5-10 degrees rake. Top kek.

[101FlyingDutchman]

More like 1.6 as the minimum and 2.1 degrees maximum. Making 0.5deg the difference lol

[izzy]

More like 1.6 as the minimum and 2.1 degrees maximum. Making 0.5deg the difference lol

lol yes exactly. It looks a huge difference but in numbers it isn't. Tho W11 is still low rake by comparison for sure, and it's probably a huge difference for the aero. And it's just the static angle we get, not what it's doing compressed at 300kph