Mercedes AMG F1 W04

[lewishamilton90]

"The race started so badly. I wanted to get a good start, but I got a terrible start. Then I was so slow. I was nowhere, no speed at all.

"No matter what I did to the car, it didn't get any faster.

"All of a sudden something happened after the second pitstop; all of a sudden the car started reacting differently and I could push again. It must have been something that happened to the car in qualifying when we changed the gearbox, and it sorted itself.

"At the beginning I was a sitting duck, and then it was great to be able to do some overtaking. All of a sudden, the car was amazing."(autosport)

[Maelstrom]

Hmm... seems like Ross Brawn might be right... might be the Merc doesn't take well to hot temperatures... which has been a problem for them for the past few years.

[Anon123]

"All of a sudden something happened after the second pitstop; all of a sudden the car started reacting differently and I could push again. It must have been something that happened to the car in qualifying when we changed the gearbox, and it sorted itself.

He switched from the medium tyres to the hards, his first 2 stints where on mediums.

[marcush.]

Rosberg mentioned a possibly broken rear ARB when retired from Chinese GP...not that i would expect he knows what he is talking about really....same with Lauda who talked about the ARB as well...

[dans79]

Mt theory is that they are still lacking on floor/coke bottle/diffuser generated downforce. Lets say RBR is generating 100% of the downforce possible, then MGP is in the 95% - 96% range. Who knows how much they are really down, but I'm willing to bet they are down compared to RBR.

Everyone knows the Mercedes engines are powerful, so I think they are using this to their advantage.

1. They are running a higher DF rear wing to make up for the DF they aren't getting from the floor/coke bottle/diffuser.
2. The higher DF rear wing hurts top speed because of the extra drag it produces. To compensate for this MGP is running longer gears.
3. The longer gears hurts acceleration, so they run the car rich to produce more power.
4. Running rich consumes more fuel, and thus they need to carry more of it.
5. Carrying more fuel makes the car harder on the tires.
6. Being harder on the tires means the drivers have to drive less aggressively till the fuel burns off.

It's very much a stealing from Paul to pay Peter scenario, but since we are talking about very fine adjustments they are getting away with it. To me this explains why they are qualifying well, & finish well, but they are sitting ducks at the start of the race.

[infy]

About half way through the race the track temp dropped by 2 degrees.

[sucof]

My guess is that they are using a stiffer suspension, which turns on tires quicker and on lower temps, but also destroys them faster and not suitable for higher temperatures. Whilst lotus has a very "loose" suspension, you could see on previous races how they are always sparkles... and that has the opposite effect on tires. And this can be seen easily, when merc goes quick lotus suffers and vice verse.

[yener]

The last 3 year they went wrong by building a car based over 1 lap speed. W01, W02 and W03 where fast on low fuel and over 1 lap.
It seems the W04 has the same issue. But they said cleary before the season started they wanted to finish in the top 4. And thats exactly their current position.

MGP still have to sort a lot of things out.

[PlatinumZealot]

Is there any news of an upgrade package for Barcelona? They have three weeks for the race.

5 tenths. Do not ask how i know.

[Owen.C93]

Nobody thought you did.

[lewishamilton90]

mercedes has the same problem for 4 years.....

[Cocles]

FRIC is also used by Lotus and both systems were designed by Bell...Lotus is the best when it comes to tires..so you know that ain't the issue...

Except they still have roll bars and springs attached. Mercedes is the only one driving fric-only.

I thought this too until Nico dropped out of China claiming a snapped rear roll bar. Hm. It was Scarbs' article on the FRIC system that made it sound like the Merc didn't have one of these.

As for those saying the car has LONG way to go... the fact that we watched a W04 kick an RB9's ass today tells us that they've also come a long way too. Credit where it's due. It's great to see improvement and I expect more to come. Credit to Hamilton too of course, but I don't think the W03 or W02 could have beaten the RB7 or RB8 with the same two drivers.

[Maelstrom]

Is there any news of an upgrade package for Barcelona? They have three weeks for the race.

5 tenths. Do not ask how i know.

Err... they'll be introducing parts that will give them a boost of five tenths?

[beelsebob]

1. They are running a higher DF rear wing to make up for the DF they aren't getting from the floor/coke bottle/diffuser.
2. The higher DF rear wing hurts top speed because of the extra drag it produces. To compensate for this MGP is running longer gears.

This is the step that doesn't work for me. Longer gears are something you use when the car can accelerate quite happily, and doesn't need to be in the ideal rev range. I.e. when the car does not have a lot of drag. You don't compensate for lots of drag with long gears – in fact, you compensate with short gears.

I do like the idea that they have to carry more fuel though, that makes a lot of sense. I wonder if we can identify something about the car that requires that – and it's not just the engine, as FI are clearly better at the start of races (relatively) than them.

[FoxHound]

I do like the idea that they have to carry more fuel though, that makes a lot of sense. I wonder if we can identify something about the car that requires that – and it's not just the engine, as FI are clearly better at the start of races (relatively) than them.

Mercedes Coanda system, and the fact they burn more fuel than their rivals to run it to their specs.
Bob Bell and co where working closely with Briworth powertrains to reduce the amount of fuel required. Yet back in November last year Schumacher guessed the Mercedes was still running around 15kgs more fuel at the start of a race.