Mercedes GP MGP W01

[Pierce89]

To put things into perspective for Mercedes GP :

Last year Rubens with Brawn car had done 1.22.976 in Q2. The fastest lap by MGP this weekend so far is 1.22.946 in FP3. On the other and Ferrari is 1.4s and McLaren is 0.9s faster than last year... Adding F-duct to the car, one year of development and refinements, EBD etc has not helped them much. Off course they lost some time due to narrower front tyres but other teams are already way faster than last year ....

thats what happens when you screw up the weight distribution and/or have chassis rigidity problems.

but we have no real evidence to say those are the problems. IMHO the team has aero problems both in overall concept and ability to develop their concepts quickly and correctly. Maybe it's problem with correlating tunnel data or CFD to each other and to the track.

[mep]

When I look at this picture I see what they are aiming for with their lower airbox. Not just less drag due to the lower airbox inlet but also a cleaner flow to the rearwing.

Furthermore when looking on those very flat wing endplates I feel confirmed that they don't have any kind of blown rear wing and possible never had (except when those bulbs the added on top of wing some races ago.
Some people here claimed they feed the wing trough those wing endplates.
I don't know how you came up with this idea but I don't believe it.

First of all those plates are just to flat to guide any air trough them.

Second, we don't see any air intake.

Third, when they never had any real blown rear wing it explains why they always are so slow on straights.

Fourth, on Monza their top speed was good and comparable to other cars. So when everybody goes for low df they are ok with speed. We can derivate its not the car that is dragy its their higher angle of attack and the lack of a proper blown rear wing.

Qualy:
Rosberg: 342,6
Schumacher: 341,5
Hamilton: 344,3
Sutil: 342,2

[raymondu999]

I do believe the both have worked together once somewhere, though I can't remember where. And if we look at the MGP W01 this race, the wing was almost an aerofoil. There was no way that thing wouldn't be near the top of the speedtraps

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

So how would their F-duct work?

And Brawn-Newey is a pipe dream, but its possible. They have both worked with big names before.

[timbo]

So how would their F-duct work?

Maybe they're stalling diffuser or beam wing.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Well there you have it. A frank assesment from Brawn.

They got the CoG wrong along with some "cooling issues". There are some things that make me optimistic, "pretty exciting things" seems like we can look forward to some innovative feature on the W02.
I just hope 2011 isnt the year Daimler decides to pull the plug.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsp ... 991896.stm

[NewtonMeter]

So how would their F-duct work?

Maybe they're stalling diffuser or beam wing.

I don't think there would be much gain stalling the diffuser. In fact, I don't know if it's even possible to "stall" a diffuser. Aerofoils can be stalled (like wing of a plane or wing of a race car), I doubt if diffusers can.

Even if possible, I don't think it would be worth much because I don't think the diffuser creates significant drag. Not any that could be reduced be "stalling" it anyway.

My understanding of aerodynamics is admittedly shaky. So I'll gladly eat my hat if proven wrong though.

[raymondu999]

Regarding the weight distribution issues that Merc have had all year, I wonder if they actually had it starting with last year. I know last year would require a more forward weight distribution, but I think this, in combination with the fat front tyres, only helped to mask the whole thing, and that it was actually still severely understeer, just masked by the front tyres.

The reason I say this is, if you looked last year, Jenson Button has often seemed to be far more balanced in Q3 than in Q2. Take for example Monaco. Jenson Button set down a faster laptime in Q3 than in Q2. The fuel would've been in and if anything, he should've been slower in Q3 than in Q2.

Q2 Jenson Button: 1:15.016
Q3 Jenson Button: 1:14.902.

That's 0.114 faster.

The only missing piece of the puzzle is, why was Rubinho slower in Q3, if this was the case?

[Morteza]

Guys, is it true that Brawn has stated that Mercedes would bring a final upgrade for Singapore? EBD upgrade I think

PS : I didn't know whether to ask it here or in Mercedes GP topic, so forgive me if it's the wrong place

[raymondu999]

Don't worry Morteza, that's about Mercedes development, and that's what this thread is for I don't think that Brawn will bring any more upgrades. I think most people have given up on the hope that W01 will win a race, and now Merc is probably focusing more on 2011 so that that car is competitive

[carvetia]

Does anyone else think that perhaps there is a fundamental flaw in the Mercedes aero facilities? I remember Honda blaming their dog-of-a-car(s) on the inability to calibrate their tunnel correctly and produce any meaningful results. It looked like they might have finally cracked it with the BGP car... but perhaps that was only temporary? It seems a distinct possibility that, in the lay-offs, they lost the expertise that had enabled them to work around the facility's flaws and develop the BGP. All last season their updates were never particularly effective and relied on the advantage inherited from the start of the season. This year seems exactly the same, only they never even had the initial advantage.

The failure to translate from tunnel to track just sounds too familiar in this factory.

[adrianjordan]

Didn't they also use another wind tunnel during the initial development of the BGP001....could that explain why they got things right?

And with the steps being taken to limit aero again (lack of F-Duct, no DDD) how much of what was useful for the BGP001 will once again become relevant on the W02?

[feynman]

They had at least 3 seperate wind tunnels spinning across the planet, and most of the juicy-goodness that made the BGP-01 special came from aero-engineers working outside of the Brackley setup.

I think they have a fundamental problem in their in-house aero-process, and have had it for years.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

They had at least 3 seperate wind tunnels spinning across the planet, and most of the juicy-goodness that made the BGP-01 special came from aero-engineers working outside of the Brackley setup.
.

The wind tunnel at Brackley was completed in July 2006. Its calibration took a very long time as you can probably tell from the earth car disasters..
But 3 windtunnels?

Superaguri didnt really add anything to the BGP 001 and the half scale aero tunnel Honda used before was used sparsley by Zander who was based at Brackley and largely regarded as the father of the double diffuser.

Cleverer people than I will know but Aero calibration erros can be sorted fairly quickly with the right software no?

[ESPImperium]

They had at least 3 seperate wind tunnels spinning across the planet, and most of the juicy-goodness that made the BGP-01 special came from aero-engineers working outside of the Brackley setup.
.

The wind tunnel at Brackley was completed in July 2006. Its calibration took a very long time as you can probably tell from the earth car disasters.. :lol:
But 3 windtunnels?

Superaguri didnt really add anything to the BGP 001 and the half scale aero tunnel Honda used before was used sparsley by Zander who was based at Brackley and largely regarded as the father of the double diffuser.

Cleverer people than I will know but Aero calibration erros can be sorted fairly quickly with the right software no?

Calibration and upgrade of aero tunnels can take from 6 weeks to a year, sependant on spec. Williams upgraded and re calibrated its tunnel this year on Rubens demand, that one was a quick one that took arround 10 weeks, just about where the Williams drop off post Barcelona came in and finished at Silverstone. In 2007 it took a year for renault to upgrade its tunnel, and the whole thing wasnot calibrated properly and was all down to a leading edge of a pannel creating disturbance in the air flow (as the pannel was all of 1mm too proud) making the figures wrong. Renault took the first 12 weeks of 2008 to calibrate the tunnel. And look at what came out of the tunnel towards the end of 2008, the 3rd best car that year at that point as BMW Sauber had halted the F1.08 for the F1.09 development.

If i were Mercedes, id take a short period of upgrade and re-calibration at the start of 2011, ideally when the cars are shipped off to Bahrain for Testing, about a week later the tunnel should be shut down for about 6 weeks, tested, upgraded and calibrated. It would mean that come Barcelona, they could have updated only tested using CFD, but come Istanbul they will have a full upgrade package.

I can see where Nick Wirth is coming from with CFD, but i think if you are running with a weighty CFD package, you should have arround 30% of the aero testing done in a tunnel just for figure proveing.

There is one other example in F1 where the CFD facility actually had to be re-calibrated to date, and that was belived to be at Toyota as the 2007 car was a dog and out came in 2008 a car that with a little luck could have won a race or two with the right driver.

Maybes mercedes should check the calibration on both Tunnel and CFD facilities.