Mercedes GP W02

[Morteza]

Isn't Mercedes using Mobil even though their main sponsor is Petronas?

No. They use Petronas fuel and lubricants for their car.

[Coefficient]

I read somewhere that Red Bull are testing Forward Facing F-duct.Some polish site translated,from one link given here.

BTW for me 3 days of testing prove that the car is definitely a dog.Without people like Bell & Costa coming in I would not have been surprised W03 fighting with Carteham & Williams next year. Afterall the car loses atleast 1+s due to engine mapping & EBD & none of these cars have.

Either Sam Bird is the least talented driver on earth or the car was massively over-driven. MASSIVELY. The car is very far off the pace.

I think you'll find that they are running the car with compromised setup. If you look at the picture of the car head on on page 302 I believe, you can see they have jacked the ride height up as far as it will go. They often do this for inexperienced drivers to get more mileage out of their necks. If you remember back in 2001, Jenson Button had a back/neck injury and had to race most of the season with the ride height jacked up to stop his neck from crying enough during a grand prix weekend. Probably contributed to his poor showing against Fisichella.

[Coefficient]

http://www.formula1.com/wi/plain/sutton ... 5no523.jpg

Looks like f-duct or something alike is present (just noted air inlet near mclaren f-duct inlet used to be)...That's what Whitmarsh told about.

That is most likely cooling for the cockpit.

Agreed, with the nose vent now being used to test the front wing exit augmentor device they need another way of getting some cool air to the driver. I guess this is just a crude interim measure that will be refined on next years car if the trick front wing makes it onto the final design.

[dren]

With the info coming out from Renault that they have raced with the same basic car since the start of the season due to aero parts upgrades not working, it is really easy to see how much of a gain Mercedes made with the W02 since the season started.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

The difference is stark. Renault aren't even in the same ball park as mercedes now.

Although one thing is odd, mercedes have not really pushed the boat out in terms of updates for the W02.
They changed the exhaust location, and they added their new wing from mid season onwards.
This front wing has been around since testing began so was always scheduled to be part of the car.

I think mercedes spent alot of time getting the cooling right before focussing on anything else. Bloody shame they couldn't get that right first time....

[dren]

I agree, it took the team far too long to sort out the car before they could slap on the real performance upgrades. I believe the team expected issues to iron out since they put out the plain car in testing. Brawn even stated that was the reason for the plain car. I think I read somewhere Brawn stated the cooling issues set them back at least a month relative to the rest. If the car was 100% ready to go from day one, I think they might have been able to squeeze out a podium or two.

Now that the team has the cooling issues, KERS, and the hydraulic linked suspension sorted, I expect them to hit the ground running in testing next year.

[Raptor22]

Not having a proper simulator and the test bn has really not helped Merc's cause wrt rapid development of their car. I think thats their biggest ball and chain

[Tyler]

Not having a proper simulator and the test bn has really not helped Merc's cause wrt rapid development of their car. I think thats their biggest ball and chain

I thought Merc were having a new simulator built?
When is it supposed to be operational?
I remember reading that Schumi gets sick in the current simulator and as such doesn't use it much, could this be one of the reasons that Rosberg is outqualifying him, that Rosberg is able to get a better setup from the start of the GP's due to more time in the simulator?
Hopefully the new simulator won't make Michael sick.
Why are Merc having a 50 percent model simulator built instead of a 60 percent as Renault have just done?
Does the 60 percent model really offer more advantages?
If so, I would have thought that seeing as though they're building a new sim from scratch, that they'd go for the best possible, possibly being a 60 percent model?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

The mercedes simulator was fully operational as of october 2011.

Said to be highly advanced, marcush kindly posted a link earlier in the mercedes gp thread.

[NewtonMeter]

Not having a proper simulator and the test bn has really not helped Merc's cause wrt rapid development of their car. I think thats their biggest ball and chain

I thought Merc were having a new simulator built?
When is it supposed to be operational?
I remember reading that Schumi gets sick in the current simulator and as such doesn't use it much, could this be one of the reasons that Rosberg is outqualifying him, that Rosberg is able to get a better setup from the start of the GP's due to more time in the simulator?
Hopefully the new simulator won't make Michael sick.
Why are Merc having a 50 percent model simulator built instead of a 60 percent as Renault have just done?
Does the 60 percent model really offer more advantages?
If so, I would have thought that seeing as though they're building a new sim from scratch, that they'd go for the best possible, possibly being a 60 percent model?

I might be wrong, but I think you're confusing simulator with wind tunnel. The fag packets are having a 60% tunnel built afaik. I don't know why a 60% simulator would be built or what the purpose of such a thing would be...

Oh, and yes, they do have a new simulator on the cards. Apparently a pretty good one, in fact. I think it is slowly starting to get operational, but will only be fully functional end of next year. Can anyone else confirm?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

My post above NewtonMeter.

[NewtonMeter]

My post above NewtonMeter.

Dankie!

[Raptor22]

Having a operational simulator will help them push ahead more quickly. And by operational i assume it calibrated to the windtunnel and CFD machinary

[hardingfv32]

Help me understand how the simulator can help the design of the car?

Is this a simulator in which the driver sits?

Brian

[raymondu999]

Yep - like a big video game. It would help drivers find a good baseline setup from which they can work on on Friday; and it can allow them to feel new developments to a car to give feedback to the engineers.