2024 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[PlatinumZealot]

They had great aerodynamics but unfortunately it was for a low ride height, stiff platform philosophy.

Shouldn't that be ideal for the 2022 regulations then?

I wonder why Mercedes lost confidence in the race-winning low and stiff W13 concept when (with pole, sprint win, race win) it was actually the best of the W13, W14 and W15 so far?

(Unless the W15 gains a lot of performance with in-season development, which is possible.)

No it is not ideal for 2022 regulations because the tunnels are extremely sensitive to ride height changes and the 2022 floor does not have the benefits of multiple bargeboards and constantly increasing roof height (with rake) to create stable pressure distributions.

Teams that learn to "seal" (not a good term but) the floor when it moves away from ideal ride height are the ones have more consistent behaviour. I think this is commented on by Andrea Stella .

[PlatinumZealot]

Consensus was High rake cars would be most impacted by the 2021 regulations. Only after Merc. failed keeping their advantage they started complaining about it.

It was actually Brawn who disliked the high rake as he admitted talking about the 2022 regulations. https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/braw ... 1/8248533/ .

But for 2021 it was also an attempt to hurt high rake.

See this discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comme ... t/fyi1zeq/

Not not exactly true. It was to plain as day to hurt mercedes and bring give redbull a chance for more entertainment.

Wolff and Mercedes were overconfident. They did stillhave a fast car afterall, but they lost more than they expected. They had one of the most instricate floor gills and constantly had the flattest floor... And in 2021 it was al gone. Forced to add more rake than theh ever used before.

[RonMexico]

Consensus was High rake cars would be most impacted by the 2021 regulations. Only after Merc. failed keeping their advantage they started complaining about it.

It was actually Brawn who disliked the high rake as he admitted talking about the 2022 regulations. https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/braw ... 1/8248533/ .

But for 2021 it was also an attempt to hurt high rake.

See this discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comme ... t/fyi1zeq/

Not not exactly true. It was to plain as day to hurt mercedes and bring give redbull a chance for more entertainment.

Wolff and Mercedes were overconfident. They did stillhave a fast car afterall, but they lost more than they expected. They had one of the most instricate floor gills and constantly had the flattest floor... And in 2021 it was al gone. Forced to add more rake than theh ever used before.

So despite all evidence to the contrary, you are still hanging your hat on this.

It's a simple fact that Mercedes enjoyed a huge advantage on the power unit side from 2014-2021. During that period they had the most power, best ers, best reliability and lowest fuel usage along with packaging advantages from the split turbo.

They were able to find even more power in 2021 towards the end of the season resulting in the fastest car by quite a margin despite no aero updates of consequence in months.

[PlatinumZealot]

Claiming something as evidence does not make it evidence.

Your other fallacy is try to equate a flat floor and a ground effect tunnel.

And you are totally missing my point by the way, so I won't be bothered to go down the road you want to being me on.

The core of my argument is that a ground effect tunnel is deeper and requires skillful utilization of "sealing" vortices when it is an unsettled state, which is a competence that would have been mastered from years of optimizing a high rake floor. (RedBull). This cannot be denied.

[DDopey]

"When F1's new floor rules for 2021 were announced, with a section ahead of the rear tyre cut out, the initial suspicion was that it would actually hurt the high rake cars like Red Bull more."
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/low- ... s/5923745/

"But the initial effect, as the teams put these new spec floors in simulation, might be expected to have more impact upon the high-rake cars (such as the Red Bull and others) than those optimised around a low rake angle (such as the Mercedes and Racing Point)."
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... x49mcn0wDt

[K1Plus]

If you get rid of the ground effect formula and bring back flat floors and bargeboards,
Mercedes becomes the best again because they have the most experience in running low and stiff.

And simulation issues/correlation, yeah... Well this team is doomed until 2026 at least.

[Matt2725]

"When F1's new floor rules for 2021 were announced, with a section ahead of the rear tyre cut out, the initial suspicion was that it would actually hurt the high rake cars like Red Bull more."
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/low- ... s/5923745/

"But the initial effect, as the teams put these new spec floors in simulation, might be expected to have more impact upon the high-rake cars (such as the Red Bull and others) than those optimised around a low rake angle (such as the Mercedes and Racing Point)."
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... x49mcn0wDt

Explains why both Mercedes and Aston/Racing Point both voted against the aerodynamic changes for 2021 of course. Only one other team did, which I suspect was probably Williams or McLaren.

I never understood where this assumption it would hurt higher raked cars more came from, though. Mercedes were quite obviously using the floor to its maximum, hence the maxed out wheelbase etc. It was always going to hurt them, first and foremost. A high rake floor required more unique, tailored methods to seal off the floor, which would have been invaluable at protecting against the loss from a floor cut.

[DDopey]

"When F1's new floor rules for 2021 were announced, with a section ahead of the rear tyre cut out, the initial suspicion was that it would actually hurt the high rake cars like Red Bull more."
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/low- ... s/5923745/

"But the initial effect, as the teams put these new spec floors in simulation, might be expected to have more impact upon the high-rake cars (such as the Red Bull and others) than those optimised around a low rake angle (such as the Mercedes and Racing Point)."
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... x49mcn0wDt

Explains why both Mercedes and Aston/Racing Point both voted against the aerodynamic changes for 2021 of course. Only one other team did, which I suspect was probably Williams or McLaren.

How would it explain it as it clearly states from mentioned articles the initial expectation was it would hurt high rake cars more ?

[venkyhere]

Why are we discussing pages and pages of 2021 ?
This thread is about the 2024 Mercedes-AMG Petronas team.

This team, since 2022, only has had a crude understanding of ground effect (but still better than half the grid). Other 'top' teams were in the same boat in 2022, but they have massively improved. One team has had a surgically-precise understanding of ground effect since 2022, and are now seeing that their advantage is much reduced.

Due to budget cap, the strategy of 'throwing money at experiments' by having multiple parallel design teams following different ideas, and then choosing the best one - that is no longer possible.

So everyone in this team, including their TP and Chief Engineer are crying and using words like "physics", "following closely should not have been the ambit of the rule-making" etc etc. This crying is normal. They can't wait for 2026 to begin. This has always happened with many dominant teams in the past - a new "formula" and the erstwhile big dog becomes a puppy. So what ?

[DDopey]

Why are we discussing pages and pages of 2021 ?
This thread is about the 2024 Mercedes-AMG Petronas team.

I think 2021 was thrown into the discussion as to indicate that the issue of weaknesses around aero were already (pre 2022) in the team. Pre 2021 it was masked by an overabundance of engine power.

[deadhead]

Does anyone have a side by side photo of a pre 2022 floor next to a current one?

If you get rid of the ground effect formula and bring back flat floors and bargeboards,
Mercedes becomes the best again because they have the most experience in running low and stiff.

They will also have to bring back the old suspension designs as well because that's how they were able to run "low and stiff"

[JordanMugen]

Does anyone have a side by side photo of a pre 2022 floor next to a current one?

Sure!



I think the top photo is at least the W02 actually, as the double deck diffuser was still allowed in 2010 IIRC.

Obviously the mandatory "flat" floor between the axles introduced in 1983, became flat floor with a 50mm step upwards in 1995 (to reduce downforce loss when the flat floor car bottoms out) and you see that step in the top two floors.

Minimum venturi height in 2022 regulations is the same 50mm.

Maybe if Grand Prix teams did not cheat 1982's 60mm minimum ride height rule (enforced in pitlane with a laser) with hydraulics and pneumatic systems that dropped the car once out on track (and later active suspension) then these flat floor rules in 1983 would not have ever been necessary and Grand Prix cars could have stuck with venturi tunnels the whole time? But I digress...

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For completeness of pre-2022 floors, we have:

1960's era F1 cars
State-of-the-art cigar shaped cars that mostly don't have a downforce generating floor as such

Lotus 79 era (more or less no rules about the floor, although there were rules about front and rear wing dimensions)



McLaren MP4/7A era (pre-step. Also you can see that McLaren maintained the thinking that the nose should be as low as possible on the reference plane (flat floor level) to lower COG well after Tyrrell and others introduced the raised nose idea, and McLaren had a notably odd first attempt at a raised nose)



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The vortex generating strakes on the 2022 rules and on earlier venturi floor Indycars & Champcars are really powerful, but of course they had not been "discovered" yet when the Lotus 79 was designed.

[Venturiation]

Hamilton: Mercedes F1 had to remove ’90 points of downforce’ to control bouncing on W13
https://www.motorsportweek.com/2024/03/ ... -bouncing/

[PlatinumZealot]

Link doesn't work.

[Venturiation]

Link doesn't work.

https://www.motorsportweek.com/2024/03/ ... -bouncing/