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Hamilton doesn’t swear and stamp his feet like a teenager denied the latest iPhone purchase by his parents.
Hmmm, Drive to Survive would suggest otherwise! But still not as petulant as MV
Other teams found this out in testing, by doing long simulations and running the tanks to empty. They found the issues and put in solutions.
RedBull didnt and got caught out.
That's not what Marko says
Let’s guess - he blames someone else?
Who the chuff is Helmut Marco anyway? He’s like some weird ghoul that hangs around the pits stoking up the Red Bull whining fire whenever he’s bored.
Hmmm, Drive to Survive would suggest otherwise! But still not as petulant as MV
LH does have an annoying habit of questioning the strategy after it's been executed. I wonder how many other drivers are like that or if we're just getting edited highlights broadcast. That said, it's not the first time they've had whining radio calls of drivers asking why so-and-so is now in front of them or why the gap has grown
I thought the fuel tanks were all foam filled so the can rupture and leak fuel everywhere in an accident
Let’s guess – he blames someone else?
Tbf he didn't...just said "they'd tested down to 1 litre left in the tank so something must have broken"
What I've read is there is actually an ongoing issue with one of the 3 fuel pumps - breakdown of the electronics with a cracked housing that all the teams were aware of. Which doesn't sound like a fuel evaporation issue?
Who the chuff is Helmut Marco anyway? He’s like some weird ghoul that hangs around the pits stoking up the Red Bull whining fire whenever he’s bored.
Seventies not-terribly-succesful F1 racer and fair-play Le Mans winner, full-time miserable one-eyed shitbag.
😂😂😂😂
Just watching Indycar race from yesterday and I can’t say I’ve ever seen one porpoising in all the years they’ve used ground effect. They’re planted on the super speedways - perhaps Merc need to get on the phone to Dallara and have a word with their aero department!
To be fair, it used to happen a bit back when they first done ground effect in the Seventies, I have memories of Ferrari 126s bouncing around like heck. 🙂 Different kind of downforce, innit - all of a sudden, the cars are way more sensitive to ground clearence.
This is getting silly. I don't see how the teams could manage 30 races unless they did 10 triple headers with a one week break in between. Surely they would need a big hike in the budget cap to cover all the extra costs, including extra staff. I think they would really need two pit crews who would alternate race weekends.
https://twitter.com/SkySportsF1/status/1506545030609223691
x30 Races a year!!
I'd need to employ a divorce lawyer! 🙂
It's F1 not ruddy NASCAR.
Yeah, I remember reading an interview with Richard Petty back when Prost broke the world record for the number of wins, I think it was 27 back then. Petty said, "I won 27 races in one year."
They’re planted on the super speedways
yeah, but on road tracks they bounce around like those penny rides outside supermarkets
I just watched a YouTube video where the summary of Merc is basically that the porpoising is the main issue for them which is knocking them back on the straights. The twisty parts are fine, their times are up with the best times.
They will have to look at their aero and make a decision on how much to compromise it to stop the bouncing. If they compromise it too much it’ll make them slower in the corners. Apparently Aston Martin have completely sorted the porpoising but gone too far the other way and their cornering speed is poor. A happy medium is needed
The development curve is very steep at the moment and I think we will see quite a few changes very quickly so it could all change round for the next race.
Merc will be good on a smooth twisty circuit so they have to think of making changes later on might be better for them if the next track suits their current set up better BUT it’s a big risk especially with little testing available.
I'm sure I read that someone from Merc said they're only happy with fast cornering performance. Straightline speed = a problem, at least partly due to porpoising. Slow corners, also a problem because they have had to raise the ride height much more than they wanted (so there's insufficient downforce). On faster corners they might be competitive.
But I guess they'll be changing / testing a lot so hopefully that balance will change. A 3-way Ferarri / RB / Merc fight would be great!
Mercedes seem to have a habit of building a car which takes a fundamentally good direction but which doesn’t initially achieve its full potential. I’m expecting them to get the aero and suspension in the sweet spot within a few races, but the apparent performance swing between the Mercedes and Ferrari powered cars up and down the grid is ominous: if Merc have dropped the ball on the PU front then they’re in real trouble.
Or maybe Ferrari have pulled a fast one.... They have previous obvs!
Personally I'd rather see them at the front than RB any day.
I’m sure I read that someone from Merc said they’re only happy with fast cornering performance. Straightline speed = a problem, at least partly due to porpoising. Slow corners, also a problem because they have had to raise the ride height much more than they wanted (so there’s insufficient downforce). On faster corners they might be competitive.
But I guess they’ll be changing / testing a lot so hopefully that balance will change. A 3-way Ferarri / RB / Merc fight would be great!
Another issue that mercedes are fighting with is excessive drag on the straights, not due to porpoising, but due to the sidepods. I know it sounds weird when you look at their car with its nearly non-existent side pods and you assume it has less drag, but a consequence of that is it directs a lot of turbulent air straight onto the rear tires, causing significant drag.
This is also one of the reasons why ferrari are so fast at the moment - their sidepods are the largest on the grid and so it pushes the turbulent air away from the wheels and reduces drag on the straights.
LOL - Mercedes literally cutting the top of the rear wing away! 🙂
https://twitter.com/AlbertFabrega/status/1506985988953939970?cxt=HHwWhIC5kbnx8ekpAAAA
Someone in the Petronas marketing team is having a fit right now
That thumb wont help with the aero.
Trust that the rear wing won't fall foul of the regs. Karen will be bleating about it already.
what you say makes sense, but if it wasn’t for reduced drag, do you know why they reduced the side pods to such a degree?
@LAT, as an uneducated guess, I would think it could be that downforce gains would be so great that they could run a smaller rear wing to reduce the drag, which could then maybe reduce the slipstream effect of the car behind? Plus, the bad tyre wake would potentially also make it more difficult to follow the Merc, as I know some teams questioned it in terms of the "spirit" of the regulations of helping the cars follow each other better.
again makes sense. im surprised it’s gone so badly wrong.
i can’t help thinking that horner’s protests were silenced by red bull when their aerodynamicists worked out that the merc design was a dud.
it also comes to mind that mercedes didn’t achieve much before the turbo-hybrids. though that could be because they were spending all their money on developing that power unit.
i can’t help thinking that horner’s protests were silenced by red bull when their aerodynamicists worked out that the merc design was a dud.
There's zero chance that the aerodynamicists will be spending any time looking at other teams designs.
It took them a while after they bought out Brawn, but in 2013 they had a good chance of being in with a shout of the title until Silverstone with the infamous tyre blowouts (which I saw as I was there!) and then they change the tyres to the ones that were used the year previous after I believe A LOT of lobbying from Red Bull (who ironically didn't suffer any failures that weekend...). After this, aside from Hamilton's win in Hungary, no one won a race other than Vettel and Red Bull... Could have gone very differently if they'd kept the 2013 spec tyres and not reverted to 2012 spec. Either way, they were a team on the up that suffered a major hangover from Brawn having no money to develop the 2009 car and having to basically rebuild from scratch, which is not an overnight thing. The GP001 was supposedly the most expensively developed car ever at the time, which is why it was so far ahead at the start of the season but faded as they couldn't develop it.
I would have thought aerodynamicists spend quite a lot of time looking at other teams' ideas.
... Rather than working on their own system?
We'll find out soon enough if the Mercedes suddenly looks like a Ferrari.
I think most top aero departments will have run loads of sidepod ideas through their systems before choosing the one they went with. Don't think anything will have come as a massive surprise.
Merc could put the sidepods that they used in Barcelona maybe?
My totally uninformed opinion is that surely if Merc have packaged their car so tightly around the sidepod area they could add some hollow sidepod structures quite easily? Doing the reverse would be impossible for someone like Ferrari where I assume there will be rads and other bits in there. When I 1st saw the almost zero sidepod design my initial thought was one of flexibility. This PU thing does worry me though.. I really hope Merc haven't dropped a ball there.
Merc could put the sidepods that they used in Barcelona maybe?
No. They went in this direction because the wind tunnel would have showed better downforce. The problem they have is that they can't use the potential downforce because they have to run the car too high to prevent porpoising. They will find a solution to the porpoising problem, it's just a matter of how long it will take and how much of the downforce potential they can actually use on track.
BigJohn
Full MemberI would have thought aerodynamicists spend quite a lot of time looking at other teams’ ideas.
Yup, aero depts have been borrowing ideas off each year since there have been aero depts. Some ideas would need a major overhaul of the design so get parked, others are taken asap e.g. double diffusers, x-wings, wee up-high centreline wing thing, F-ducts, etc, etc
thols2
No. They went in this direction because the wind tunnel would have showed better downforce. The problem they have is that they can’t use the potential downforce because they have to run the car too high to prevent porpoising. They will find a solution to the porpoising problem, it’s just a matter of how long it will take and how much of the downforce potential they can actually use on track
I saw an article that suggested the tiny sidepods & porpoising could be linked, as the lack of sidepods means the floor on the Merc is potentially not as stiff as on cars with more conventional sized sidepods (because it's not as well supported by the large 'boxy' sidepods above. The implication is that the flat floor area is flexing where there is no sidepod to hold it stiff.
I wondered if they would resort to a more conventional design until they get on top of the issue.
Yes, they believe the zero sidepod idea potentially has more downforce than the ones they ran at Barcelona, but they clearly aren't realising that benefit at the moment. The Barcelona sidepods might be better than a poorly functioning zero-sidepod design.
I have no idea how restrictions on testing etc. affect what they can & can't play around with though.
I wondered if they would resort to a more conventional design until they get on top of the issue.
Not sure they'll go more conventional. They're off the pace a bit - for Mercedes - but they're hardly propping up the back of the grid.
I would have thought aerodynamicists spend quite a lot of time looking at other teams’ ideas.
Interesting video popped up yesterday about F1 'technical photographers' - every team 100% looks in great detail at other teams cars, not only to see what they're doing right, but also what they're doing wrong so they can avoid the same issues.
Not sure they’ll go more conventional. They’re off the pace a bit – for Mercedes – but they’re hardly propping up the back of the grid.
Exactly. They have an underdeveloped car that they are struggling to understand but it's still comfortably third fastest. They will sort out the current car rather than going back to an earlier design.
Right - I'm buying a Euromillions ticket tonight!... 😳😳
https://twitter.com/GoodwoodRRC/status/1507311341396103170?cxt=HHwWhMCo3bnrhespAAAA
Ooo, that 640.... *dribbles*
Edit - 640 never finished off the podium! I mean, it didn't finish many... But when it did, it was quick! 🙂
I saw an article that suggested the tiny sidepods & porpoising could be linked, as the lack of sidepods means the floor on the Merc is potentially not as stiff as on cars with more conventional sized sidepods (because it’s not as well supported by the large ‘boxy’ sidepods above. The implication is that the flat floor area is flexing where there is no sidepod to hold it stiff.
Isn't that why we saw them install the two thin metal braces ahead of the rear wheels? They certainly looked like an afterthought and I'm pretty sure they weren't on the car when the new sidepods were first revealed.
Does Mansell's collection include the McLaren that he was too fat to fit into?
Isn’t that why we saw them install the two thin metal braces ahead of the rear wheels? They certainly looked like an afterthought and I’m pretty sure they weren’t on the car when the new sidepods were first revealed.
Yeah, I think so. Although they will really only help towards the back edge I would have thought. I would imagine that the floor is flexing outboard of the main car 'body' along its whole length.
thols2
Exactly. They have an underdeveloped car that they are struggling to understand but it’s still comfortably third fastest. They will sort out the current car rather than going back to an earlier design.
Yeah, I wasn't really suggesting they would ditch the idea completely but wondered if they would go back to the Barcelona design while working out the problems with the narrow sidepod design, and then switch it back in.
But, then I guess if they aren't running it at race weekends then they won't be getting valuable data about where the problems lie, so I don't know whether they would then have the capacity to fix the problem.
I doubt they will go 'backwards' with the design - it was just thinking out loud, really.