Mercedes W15 Speculation Thread

[Venturiation]

Speculation thread for the new W15

First car made by James Allison for this new era and new concept compared to the last two
Technical director Allison said Mercedes are confident they now understand the issues that have held back their troubled W13 and W14 challengers.

“You can’t promise anything because everyone is working hard, all the teams are pretty decent, but I think we’re on a very good path,” Allison told Sky at the Qatar Grand Prix.

“I think much of what ails us now is reasonably understood and we’re working to fix that.”
Asked if next year’s car looks like a Red Bull, Allison replied: “I don’t know, I’ve got no idea what they are going to do next year.

“We’ll find out when we all arrive next year.”

Speaking after a disappointing Japanese Grand Prix weekend, Lewis Hamilton insisted that Mercedes need the greatest six months of F1 car development in their history if they are to successfully reel in Red Bull.

Allison agreed with Hamilton’s assessment and warned that Mercedes’ 2024 car will also “set the tone” for the following season, with a large carry-over expected ahead of another regulation overhaul in 2026.

[Giogio]

[Goblin42]

*Mercedes will completely turn its car on its head for 2024. “Everything will be new. The chassis, the weight distribution, the aerodynamics,” promises Wolff. "This is the only way we have a chance of catching up with Red Bull. But there is also the risk of being wrong." Everything depends on a stable aerodynamic platform.*

https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... n-leclerc/

[Elite]

Something I said in another thread:

Either way the W15 will need to be a big improvement to compete at the front. Luckily they have some low hanging fruit like moving the cockpit back, no more zero pods chassis and the engine benefits that allegedly come from it and moving the SIPS. They will also need to complete redesign the suspension imo as that seems to be quite important in this rule set. An efficient car is what they need to make essentially, one that works at all if not most tracks. Not like other cars where they will be fast one race and then at the back in another, but luckily they’re not that inefficient.

[denyall]

Hopefully the performance of all the changes together is greater than the sum of them individually. A true nose to tail harmony could be very powerful for a team that has had none of that for two years.

LH comment of and JA confirmation of "the greatest 6 months of development in history" feels like they believe they can do it. Why else even call yourself out like that? Idk, maybe I'm being overly optimistic and reading too much into it.

#nextyear

[Matt2725]

The biggest difference that I can tell at least compared to the RB car, is the way in which the tyres are used.

Whatever Newey did with that suspension as was his focus allegedly, has allowed that car to massage its tyres through a stint without even feeling a strong drop-off (in most cases). It's what allowed Max to maintain the level of pace he did from start to finish in my opinion.

The suspension will be the key ingredient in my mind.

[mkay]

Mercedes finished the season trailing Red Bull by ~0.2-0.5s/lap depending on track layout/conditions.

This year's Red Bull barely received any upgrades since the beginning of Summer, and is rumoured to be making a sizeable jump for 2024. IMO, that means Mercedes probably needs to find close to 1 second/lap with the W15 if they want to be fighting at the tail end of the grid next year.

[Matt2725]

Mercedes finished the season trailing Red Bull by ~0.2-0.5s/lap depending on track layout/conditions.

This year's Red Bull barely received any upgrades since the beginning of Summer, and is rumoured to be making a sizeable jump for 2024. IMO, that means Mercedes probably needs to find close to 1 second/lap with the W15 if they want to be fighting at the tail end of the grid next year.

Didn't that rumour start with Eddie Jordan? Not sure how much stock I would put in it.

[djones]

In fairness, it's not like Mercedes will have spent the entire year developing the W14 either.

They knew it was a total dog and they knew next year was ground up, so any updates would have been things they could learn from or partially carry over in some way.

[Farnborough]

The biggest difference that I can tell at least compared to the RB car, is the way in which the tyres are used.

Whatever Newey did with that suspension as was his focus allegedly, has allowed that car to massage its tyres through a stint without even feeling a strong drop-off (in most cases). It's what allowed Max to maintain the level of pace he did from start to finish in my opinion.

The suspension will be the key ingredient in my mind.

For me the writing was on the wall a long way out, as soon as there was option to evaluate with the change from rims 13~18 size.
It was reading different team technical view of what this entailed in regards to getting optimum performance from a tyre geometry thats more difficult to work, with attributes significantly different from its structural geometry, that gave warnings.

Clearly, there's different levels of attention that have been dedicated to the understanding of this aspect, with the relative performance we can all very easily appreciate......now

MB are not alone in this, with only the one team and concept really taking that on board comprehensively.

There appears to be many in responsible positions that assumed they had this covered within their technical appreciation of new cars in 22, only to all arrive with seriously lacking design (thats just the suspension, not aero) each and every team can now see that. Whether they've the answers within their staff we'll certainly find out next year.

[Holm86]

I think they'll definitely follow RedBull's suspension philosophy, with more agressive anti-dive at the front, and changing their pull-rod rear suspension to push-rod. Having the crank bell's at the bottom of the gearbox takes up too much space in the diffuser I believe

[Big Tea]

The biggest difference that I can tell at least compared to the RB car, is the way in which the tyres are used.

Whatever Newey did with that suspension as was his focus allegedly, has allowed that car to massage its tyres through a stint without even feeling a strong drop-off (in most cases). It's what allowed Max to maintain the level of pace he did from start to finish in my opinion.

The suspension will be the key ingredient in my mind.

I think this is a big part of it. Everyone was looking at an aero 'silver bullet' while all the time it was suspension.
Aero helped of course, but Merc and Ferrari were so engrossed with proposing they were probably lookig for the same thing to be the root of both the problems so ran down several blind ally's worth of development.
This combined with personnel changes at Merc was the perfect storm of woe. Running flat out to go backwards

[Venturiation]

[SuperCNJ]

Mercedes finished the season trailing Red Bull by ~0.2-0.5s/lap depending on track layout/conditions.

This year's Red Bull barely received any upgrades since the beginning of Summer, and is rumoured to be making a sizeable jump for 2024. IMO, that means Mercedes probably needs to find close to 1 second/lap with the W15 if they want to be fighting at the tail end of the grid next year.

I honestly doubt gaining 1 sec in pace will be enough. RB were not even trying in the second half of the season. RB will have found more time over the winter (quite possibly a substantial amount of time), on top of the actual pace advantage they had at the end of 2023, so my guess is Merc needs to find close to 2 seconds between now and March 2024 to challenge RB next year.

[shady]

Floor and Suspension, 'armchair aero' just looked like the RB19 v the W14 ingested a larger volume of air at the floor entrance. The sidepods acting as a second floor, in conjunction with whatever magic they came up with at the rear suspension. Who knows what MB can come up with, reignite that underdog fire.. F1 wilderness is a scary place. They need to find 1.5+s and that doesnt just happen on a regular basis.. re-engineering the monocoque and the whole car from the inside out is no easy feat.. and whole new car, means whole new learning. How they figure tire management with a whole new chassis and possible suspension philosophy is going to be 2+ years behind in familiarity.. its just a monumental hurdle.. lets see if anyone can catch up to rbr.