Team: Ross Brawn (TP), Nick Fry (CEO), Norbert Haug (VP, Mercedes Motorsport), Thomas Fuhr (MD, engines), Loïc Bigois (HA)
Drivers: Michael Schumacher (3), Nico Rosberg (4), Nick Heidfeld (Test)
A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
Schumacher admited today that the f-duct of the Mercedes GP is very fragile and it happened several times this year that it did not work as supposed.
This happened more often to his car than to Rosberg ones.
A bad working f-duct sounds more reasonable to me than a a flexible tube or a to heavy spliter.
I alredy mentioned problems with their f-duct on this here. Sad those post got moved to the trash bin.
mep wrote:Schumacher admited today that the f-duct of the Mercedes GP is very fragile and it happened several times this year that it did not work as supposed.
This happened more often to his car than to Rosberg ones.
A bad working f-duct sounds more reasonable to me than a a flexible tube or a to heavy spliter.
I alredy mentioned problems with their f-duct on this here. Sad those post got moved to the trash bin.
funny that he would not even admit how it is activated and deactivated ...
and even was not sure how the team managed to make it only not work properly in Qualy....
Must be all the dodgy routing from the nose all the way through the rear end-plates. They should have just put it in a proper shark-fin from the beginning!
I don't think they have anything runing from the front to the back.
It is said they have a passive system, thats prolly why it doesn't work at all.
I hope we will once find out how it actually works. Even on the other cars I would like to know how the switch is actually done. Real answers not just rumors.
mep wrote:I don't think they have anything runing from the front to the back.
It is said they have a passive system, thats prolly why it doesn't work at all.
I hope we will once find out how it actually works. Even on the other cars I would like to know how the switch is actually done. Real answers not just rumors.
not 100% sure what you mean with "the switch", but maybe this helps - I hope, if
not just ignore it.
"Make the suspension adjustable and they will adjust it wrong ......
look what they can do to a carburetor in just a few moments of stupidity with a screwdriver." - Colin Chapman
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” - Leonardo da Vinci
I think, not sure tough, that the MGPW01 got a lot of difficulties due to (just a theory and my 2 cents):
- For 2009 they never considered a KERS, hence did not allow any room, space in the chassis design as they had worked out and put their money on the DD.
- That worked well for 2009 as they did not have to deal with the additional weight, weight distribution. Of course they had been very short on time to get it all together.
- For 2010 everyone else caught up with the DD and DDD, so that advantage was gone.
- Again for 2010 they had been late as they diverted / committed a lot of resource to win the 2009 championship. This is not isolated to them but noticed that for any team that had to fight for the title until late into the season. See McLaren, Ferrari.
- Besides that they had to worry, negotiate and setup the sale to Merc, which always will diverts resoure, concentration, Ross Brawns and others time, people in the team will worry if they still got a job or go...?
- With 2010, the front tires changed, right? No re-fueling, etc. That meant the entire weight distribution had to be overhauled, re-planned for multiple conditions, load changes during the race. I think the teams that had to fight with load & weight distribution due to KERS in 2009 had a big advantage at their hand, going back to lessons learned from the KERS experience.
Like the posts on here and all the expert opinions.
These days in F1 a lot or most of the car design get dominated by the aerodynamic experts, masters as this is just such a big chunk and time to be won.
Do you think that the good old mechanical basics are missing or not getting sufficient consideration or input? I mean that goes right back to chassis layout, weight distribution and so forth.
You remember years back when Williams BMW build that dog with the funny split nose cone and front wing design? Lot's of aero influence. The car did not go anywhere, besides that it was said the BMW engine being the monster on the grid?
Somewhere after a few races the an old hand mechanical race engineer, first thing he did throwing out a bunch of mechanical components, adding new, stiffer springs (suspension) to create more mechanical grip and force applied to the tires. Think it worked quite well, of course it was not a championship car, but did they not even win Monaco that year? A circuit where mechanical grip is king?
Maybe some simpler approaches to the problem could had some bigger impact on the MGP W01? I don't know...
n smikle wrote:Must be all the dodgy routing from the nose all the way through the rear end-plates. They should have just put it in a proper shark-fin from the beginning!
I have NEVER seen any evidence of this "the routing is through the endplates" story for the Merc. I for one find this hard to believe.
Can anyone offer any pictorial evidence of this routing theory?
The answer to the ultimate question, of life, the Universe and ... Everything?
Here's one. And thats from a simple Google search.
www.formula1.com wrote:The system of pipes used to direct the air to the rear wing is very complicated and they are all concealed by the engine cover, eventually reaching the wing's main profile through the side endplates
Here's one. And thats from a simple Google search.
www.formula1.com wrote:The system of pipes used to direct the air to the rear wing is very complicated and they are all concealed by the engine cover, eventually reaching the wing's main profile through the side endplates
.
It's been said and claimed, but not really proven anywhere it seems (whch if probably what forty-two is refrring to).
It just seems that with all the bends that air would be required to make if it did in fact route up through the endplates, there would be a ton of losses.
Even still, I'd like to actually see physical evidence of this. It's funny we have been able to see at least some kind of pictorial evidence of airflow layout (fluidic switches, piping, etc.) on other cars, but very little on the Merc.
There are 2 explanations, but only Mercedes will know for sure. Some say its a passive device, others that its driver-activated.
From the looks of it, I would say passive. If it did go up through the Endplates that a few websites have know mentioned, the air would take such a contrived path that by the time it reaches the point of blowing the wing it would merely be a puff.
It´s "funny"/interesting (at least in my mind) that MGP never made an attempt tu use a more "conventional" F-duct system (airbox/sharkfin) because especially with there low airbox intakes, they would still have enough space/area to fit an entry on top of it, or at least use a similar system as STR.
At least in theory it should work even better on a W01 with his small/slim roll hoop structure (compared to the STR).
"Make the suspension adjustable and they will adjust it wrong ......
look what they can do to a carburetor in just a few moments of stupidity with a screwdriver." - Colin Chapman
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” - Leonardo da Vinci
Yes, they'd have a huge amount of space at the sides of the roll-structure to fit their f-duct. I think they just accepted the failure of their solution because they are concentration on W02.
It's cheaper to just accept failure .. not that their competitors are doing that .. Renault, Force India, Williams, etc are all trying to move forward. Not Merc.
for giving up they looked quite good in Suzuka,I have to say.
running alone does not make you achieve your goals,you have to go into the right direction as well....
the f-duct is a bit odd though..
