What do you think's going on at Mercedes right now then?

What do you think's going on at Mercedes right now then?

Author
Discussion

HustleRussell

Original Poster:

22,879 posts

147 months

Monday 6th March
quotequote all
I'm not sure that Toto would be so damning of the concept and insistent that a new one is required unless that decision had already basically been made and something more promising was in the pipeline. It's not a kind of decision a team individual makes on the spur of the moment.

I've heard a number of commentators imply that this is out of the question in-season due to the budget cap. However, Aston Martin made a major concept turnaround in 2022 and ended the season with a very different car. Look at where they are now, a year later.

The team won't be happy with the way their season started but I think Toto's outspokenness is out of character and I wonder if it's a bit performative... project that they're in turmoil to take the pressure off and then turn up to Baku with essentially a B-spec?

Maybe there is preinvested facility within the car to quickly change to an alternative aerodynamic concept?

Maybe there's barely any paint on the car because it's even more of a 'prototype' than the others, the current configuration being transitional?

Which year was it where they rolled out a b-spec car for the second half of pre-season testing? 2020?

Am I on to something or am I going to just get a ton of 'copium' memes and gifs?

500TORQUES

301 posts

2 months

Monday 6th March
quotequote all
I would expect the bare bones of a conventional layout was already tested in computer modelling. This weekend would feed into the decision if that's going to be worth the expense/time to pursue.

If the main problem is C0fG related now they have back to back data from this year and last year floor design, it might be a relatively quick turnaround to do the packaging changes. You are then on the back foot a bit for the above floor aero development.

It's going to be interesting to see what they do.

How did the Alpine change from last years car, they had a very top heavy car also last year, stuffing a lot of kit in that fat over the engine cover.

PhilAsia

2,519 posts

62 months

Monday 6th March
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I think they might go front-engined...

500TORQUES

301 posts

2 months

Monday 6th March
quotequote all
PhilAsia said:
I think they might go front-engined...
biglaugh

Blib

41,139 posts

184 months

Monday 6th March
quotequote all
Well, don't they share a wind tunnel with Aston Martin?

500TORQUES

301 posts

2 months

Monday 6th March
quotequote all
Blib said:
Well, don't they share a wind tunnel with Aston Martin?
Test data is confidential.

HustleRussell

Original Poster:

22,879 posts

147 months

Monday 6th March
quotequote all
500TORQUES, what leads you to believe that the issue is CoG related? Most commentators seem to centre their criticisms around the aerodynamic philosophy (which may or may not be linked with CoG of course...)

CoG is one of those things that teams will obviously strive to lower every year, so it seems unlikely to me that they'd have decided to build a car with a considerably higher CoG than last year. I do recognise that the floor edge height has increased for this season which may exacerbate a CoG issue.

George commented that the FIA's 15mm increase in floor edge height might've gone a bit too far. Before the season started I thought that was a change which might reign Red Bull in and bring others closer!

500TORQUES

301 posts

2 months

Monday 6th March
quotequote all
To get the narrow zero pods, they have to package the parts higher up and inboard. A conventional layout has a lot of the cooling package and other heavy items in the sidepod, that doesn't exist on the Mercedes. If you look at the car, it's fat at the top over the engine bay as that's where they stuffed a lot of kit that would normally live in the sidepod.

Aero has been king for a long time in F1, but it appears they pushed the CofG/aero ratio too far, if that is indeed the issue.

I treat the above floor and below floor aero as two different areas of design development, it doesn't really matter what you have packaging wise above the floor as far as how that works generating downforce, they can still use the new floor design with a different top if they can manage the airflow to do the same job at the floor exit.

They have basically fixed the floor aero, and now have that working pretty well, they didn't know how important the compromises they made up top would play out because the floor was so bad last year, now they know.

Of course this is all guesswork, but thats how it looks when you just look at the concept they have gone for, i could be miles out. biggrin

Jasandjules

68,607 posts

216 months

Monday 6th March
quotequote all
I thought they had a massive aero update in the pipeline already? I suspect if THAT does not work, they will then bin it and go back next year with a more "usual" design.

deadslow

7,587 posts

210 months

Monday 6th March
quotequote all
Jasandjules said:
I thought they had a massive aero update in the pipeline already? I suspect if THAT does not work, they will then bin it and go back next year with a more "usual" design.
Toto, I think, said the update was expected to give them 3 tenths, which is nowhere near enough.

GiantCardboardPlato

1,326 posts

8 months

Monday 6th March
quotequote all
The deficit (for all the teams) - if I had to guess at an explanation - is related to floor edge sealing techniques.

Red bull, who learnt how to do it under the previous regulations running high rake set ups, are masters of aerodynamically sealing the underfloor.

The floor is now much more powerful, and of course the better the seal against air coming in under the sides of the floor, (and/or the lower it is), the more downforce you will get, because there’ll be a bigger pressure difference above/below the floor.

By more effectively sealing the edge of the floor with airflow, red bulls floor provides greater and more consistent downforce as ride height changes (or rises). That gives the driver a more consistent level of downforce as speed changes and weight transfers under braking/cornering. That means more grip, lower peak loadings on tyres, less tyre wear, etc. etc.

If I were Toto, this week I would be:

i) start efforts to get people lobbying the FIA for change to regulations to allow greater development differences between 1st/2nd/3rd place (going as far as allowing variable budgets). Use/exploit widespread fan dissatisfaction with the walkover(s) to up pressure on FIA to reform regs in this area.
ii) start THIS WEEK efforts to recruit people/expertise from red bull and perhaps Aston Martin. This is the fastest way to get the knowledge the team is missing. There may be other aspects of knowledge they could improve their skills in through recruitment, too - get from other teams too - maybe poach some financial people to learn new approaches to budget cap, catering, etc. etc.

ralphrj

3,367 posts

178 months

Monday 6th March
quotequote all
500TORQUES said:
If you look at the car, it's fat at the top over the engine bay as that's where they stuffed a lot of kit that would normally live in the sidepod.
That is a concept that has been applied by:

Red Bull
Aston Martin
Williams
McLaren
Alpine
Alfa Romeo
Alpha Tauri

I'm not convinced that it is the cause of Mercedes problems.


phil1979

3,406 posts

202 months

Monday 6th March
quotequote all
GiantCardboardPlato said:
The deficit (for all the teams) - if I had to guess at an explanation - is related to floor edge sealing techniques.

Red bull, who learnt how to do it under the previous regulations running high rake set ups, are masters of aerodynamically sealing the underfloor.

The floor is now much more powerful, and of course the better the seal against air coming in under the sides of the floor, (and/or the lower it is), the more downforce you will get, because there’ll be a bigger pressure difference above/below the floor.

By more effectively sealing the edge of the floor with airflow, red bulls floor provides greater and more consistent downforce as ride height changes (or rises). That gives the driver a more consistent level of downforce as speed changes and weight transfers under braking/cornering. That means more grip, lower peak loadings on tyres, less tyre wear, etc. etc.

If I were Toto, this week I would be:

i) start efforts to get people lobbying the FIA for change to regulations to allow greater development differences between 1st/2nd/3rd place (going as far as allowing variable budgets). Use/exploit widespread fan dissatisfaction with the walkover(s) to up pressure on FIA to reform regs in this area.
ii) start THIS WEEK efforts to recruit people/expertise from red bull and perhaps Aston Martin. This is the fastest way to get the knowledge the team is missing. There may be other aspects of knowledge they could improve their skills in through recruitment, too - get from other teams too - maybe poach some financial people to learn new approaches to budget cap, catering, etc. etc.
Or, greenlight the AMG One replacement, and keep delaying its delivery for months, if not years, so that they have a convenient testbed outside of the budget cap....

FourWheelDrift

86,369 posts

271 months

Monday 6th March
quotequote all
This year's car is still wearing last seasons dress due to a late change in design direction, meanwhile the 2023 Spring collection is delayed as it's still being sewn up and will appear on the Azerbaijan catwalk.

entropy

5,089 posts

190 months

Monday 6th March
quotequote all
Toto told Ted he wants to see a radical upgrade. Most likely ditching the sidepods as Williams did last year? The car lacks rear downforce and the easiest solution would be to follow the herd with ramped sidepods.

500TORQUES

301 posts

2 months

Monday 6th March
quotequote all
ralphrj said:
That is a concept that has been applied by:

Red Bull
Aston Martin
Williams
McLaren
Alpine
Alfa Romeo
Alpha Tauri

I'm not convinced that it is the cause of Mercedes problems.
All to different degrees. We are talking small margins here, even the slowest car is a rocket ship.

dunc_sx

1,535 posts

184 months

Monday 6th March
quotequote all
Toto said during testing they had different side pods WIP and they would be introduced near the start of the season, this is probably what is going on.

I reckon they'll copy RB / AM, they'd be nuts not to.

Dunc.

Sandpit Steve

7,618 posts

61 months

Monday 6th March
quotequote all
500TORQUES said:
All to different degrees. We are talking small margins here, even the slowest car is a rocket ship.
It’s quite amazing to see ten totally different designs of car, yet see them all qualify within about 2% of each other!

As for Mercedes, there’s a lot of clever people there, and they probably have something up their sleeve.

thegreenhell

12,311 posts

206 months

Monday 6th March
quotequote all
GiantCardboardPlato said:
If I were Toto, this week I would be:

ii) start THIS WEEK efforts to recruit people/expertise from red bull and perhaps Aston Martin. This is the fastest way to get the knowledge the team is missing. There may be other aspects of knowledge they could improve their skills in through recruitment, too - get from other teams too - maybe poach some financial people to learn new approaches to budget cap, catering, etc. etc.
Even if they did that this week, with gardening leave enforced they wouldn't be able to get anyone in time to work on this year's car, and probably not to fundamentally change the design concept of next year's car either. Not anyone good enough to have major effect anyway.

Mercury00

4,010 posts

143 months

Monday 6th March
quotequote all
I've heard all this kerfuffle about Mercedes not doing well, I hate this attitude that only the big budget teams deserve to win races.