2017 AMG Mercedes F1 Team - Mercedes

[Facts Only]

I needed a good laugh this morning, cheers.

Yes, maybe we all should laugh at the person next to you who doesn't know more than you. =D>

One thread I'm going to avoid more often this year: Check!

I wasn't laughing at you knowing less, nothing wrong with that. I was laughing at the fact you were making such ridiculous assumptions based on no information whatsoever.

Asserting that McLaren have a better chassis than Merc and then saying you don't know how to define a chassis... well even you should be able to see how funny that comes across.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

IMO Merc had the fastest car last season, but I don't think it's because it has a chassis that is on par with Red Bull. I think last season Red Bull and Honda had a better chassis than Merc, but Merc IMO had the upper hand thanks to a more and better developed aero package, a stronger PU and this trick suspension which is banned right now. I wonder what the effects are without this trick suspension. Will we revert back to early 2013 where the Merc were quick over 1 lap, but eating away its tires on race trim? It's exciting none the least these rumours. If it bunches up the pack even better, but I still want the Merc the car to beat next season.

First statement highlighted, is quite contradictory in my opinion. I am not sure if you think the definition of "Chassis" is without "Aero" in it.

Someone need to clearly put out what is the definition of a "Chassis" means to have a specific conversation around it. But, I don't think it is possible and I also don't think we have good enough tools to specifically measure the chassis performance.

A Super Perfect "Chassis" could be defined as:
1. A Car that has a low coefficient of drag vs downforce. Which means, the car is less troubled on the straight and still faster on corners.
2. A car that has a great balance in corner entry and exit, ensuring a faster time through a corner. You cannot have a car that is ultimate fast on fast corner, also being supremely fast on slow corners. The setups for slow corner is quite different to a setup for a fast corner. Most of the time, it is a balance between the two. So, cars could be setup differently, targeting different performance parameters.
3. A Car that is extremely kind on tires. There are various compounds of tires available and each has a different "optimum performance" window. Each compound behaves differently on different tracks.
4. A Car that switches on the tires. Like mentioned above, different compounds gets switched on at different temperatures and a great chassis, also keeps the optimum performance windows, longer.

I have seen some footage/image, where RB and Merc were compared from corner entry to corner exit, to prove there is almost nothing between the two. But that's a very primitive comparison, which doesn't really talk about all parameters of the Chassis. For the first part of 2016, RB12 struggled to get the tires working right for them, while the W07 was simply in it's own territory. For the full season, it was W07 that was ahead of everyone else in tire life (look at the first stint of Austria for example) and not just that, that car used to switch on every type of compound, faster than anyone else, in all climatic conditions (cold, hot, wet). There were many races where qualifying was on ultrasoft, a compound that never lasted a full fast lap, but W07 stood a class apart.

So, you see, to say chassis A was better than B, without really listing the detailed behavior of each parameter of the car, is just a futile exercise.

Regarding Merc reverting back to 2013 type of tire eating situation, we need to realize the team that created W01-W04, was different than the team that has been designing W05 lineage. The concepts and the approaches have changed. For Example, when the FRIC was banned in 2015, everyone thought that was the Secret sauce for their dominance and it's removal, hardly mattered to the overall performance. Then they came up with the new technique of last year and now that is being outlawed. As Paddy had said, engineers will never unlearn what they have learnt and they will find out different ways of getting that advantage back.

Mercedes has people like Paddy Lowe, who was the architect of the Active Suspension in early 90s, Aldo Costa whose primary specialization is suspension and to remind people here, the Interconnected Suspension came from Renault to Mercedes, when Bob Bell came and he brought along Mike Elliott from Renault. The concept went through a lot of iterations and with Paddy and Aldo joining in, it became a strong characteristic of W05 and the subsequent cars. Hence, I don't think the W08 suffers the danger of falling back into 2013 type of tire destruction as the team and their car creation philosophies have gone through a drastic evolution.

[Just_a_fan]

Does the floor count?

Maybe I don't know exactly how to define what's in a chassis and what's not? Sorry folks.

Perhaps it would be useful to think of aero-derived grip and mechanical grip rather than "aero" and "chassis". Then you see how important the suspension design is. No good having great downforce or great engine power if you can't get the tyres to take that load.

The floor would be aero anyway.

The real issue is that trying to separate aero and chassis is pretty difficult. A suspension system that maximises tyre grip at all speeds is what is required. When some teams say their chassis is good, I think they refer to how the car generates and utilises grip of all types.

The argument put forward by some is that the RedBull is the better chassis but hampered by the engine. The problem with that is that data suggests otherwise. The RedBull and Mercedes were pretty well matched in corners. Sure, the Mercedes had a bit more power but it was how the PU was utilised that really gave them performance. They are able to get more out of the PU as a whole and that benefits them over the whole lap.

[Just_a_fan]

[
2. A car that has a great balance in corner entry and exit, ensuring a faster time through a corner. You cannot have a car that is ultimate fast on fast corner, also being supremely fast on slow corners. The setups for slow corner is quite different to a setup for a fast corner. Most of the time, it is a balance between the two. So, cars could be setup differently, targeting different performance parameters.
3. A Car that is extremely kind on tires. There are various compounds of tires available and each has a different "optimum performance" window. Each compound behaves differently on different tracks.
4. A Car that switches on the tires. Like mentioned above, different compounds gets switched on at different temperatures and a great chassis, also keeps the optimum performance windows, longer.

That is precisely what the clever suspension does. It ticks all of these boxes. It gives a great balance in all corners, not just fast or slow ones. It also allows the tyres to be maximised. It's a bit of a golden bullet, if you like.

[KeiKo403]

Let's say a chassis is, no wings, nose, floor, diffuser, engine cover and side pod covers. Take away from that the PU and all internals for obvious reasons. Suspensions are getting evermore complex so let's remove that from the chassis too.

To me that just leaves you with a carbon fibre tub (survival cell?) with mounting points. Or am I way wide of the mark?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[WaikeCU]

IMO Merc had the fastest car last season, but I don't think it's because it has a chassis that is on par with Red Bull. I think last season Red Bull and Honda had a better chassis than Merc, but Merc IMO had the upper hand thanks to a more and better developed aero package, a stronger PU and this trick suspension which is banned right now. I wonder what the effects are without this trick suspension. Will we revert back to early 2013 where the Merc were quick over 1 lap, but eating away its tires on race trim? It's exciting none the least these rumours. If it bunches up the pack even better, but I still want the Merc the car to beat next season.

First statement highlighted, is quite contradictory in my opinion. I am not sure if you think the definition of "Chassis" is without "Aero" in it.

Someone need to clearly put out what is the definition of a "Chassis" means to have a specific conversation around it. But, I don't think it is possible and I also don't think we have good enough tools to specifically measure the chassis performance.

A Super Perfect "Chassis" could be defined as:
1. A Car that has a low coefficient of drag vs downforce. Which means, the car is less troubled on the straight and still faster on corners.
2. A car that has a great balance in corner entry and exit, ensuring a faster time through a corner. You cannot have a car that is ultimate fast on fast corner, also being supremely fast on slow corners. The setups for slow corner is quite different to a setup for a fast corner. Most of the time, it is a balance between the two. So, cars could be setup differently, targeting different performance parameters.
3. A Car that is extremely kind on tires. There are various compounds of tires available and each has a different "optimum performance" window. Each compound behaves differently on different tracks.
4. A Car that switches on the tires. Like mentioned above, different compounds gets switched on at different temperatures and a great chassis, also keeps the optimum performance windows, longer.

I have seen some footage/image, where RB and Merc were compared from corner entry to corner exit, to prove there is almost nothing between the two. But that's a very primitive comparison, which doesn't really talk about all parameters of the Chassis. For the first part of 2016, RB12 struggled to get the tires working right for them, while the W07 was simply in it's own territory. For the full season, it was W07 that was ahead of everyone else in tire life (look at the first stint of Austria for example) and not just that, that car used to switch on every type of compound, faster than anyone else, in all climatic conditions (cold, hot, wet). There were many races where qualifying was on ultrasoft, a compound that never lasted a full fast lap, but W07 stood a class apart.

So, you see, to say chassis A was better than B, without really listing the detailed behavior of each parameter of the car, is just a futile exercise.

Regarding Merc reverting back to 2013 type of tire eating situation, we need to realize the team that created W01-W04, was different than the team that has been designing W05 lineage. The concepts and the approaches have changed. For Example, when the FRIC was banned in 2015, everyone thought that was the Secret sauce for their dominance and it's removal, hardly mattered to the overall performance. Then they came up with the new technique of last year and now that is being outlawed. As Paddy had said, engineers will never unlearn what they have learnt and they will find out different ways of getting that advantage back.

Mercedes has people like Paddy Lowe, who was the architect of the Active Suspension in early 90s, Aldo Costa whose primary specialization is suspension and to remind people here, the Interconnected Suspension came from Renault to Mercedes, when Bob Bell came and he brought along Mike Elliott from Renault. The concept went through a lot of iterations and with Paddy and Aldo joining in, it became a strong characteristic of W05 and the subsequent cars. Hence, I don't think the W08 suffers the danger of falling back into 2013 type of tire destruction as the team and their car creation philosophies have gone through a drastic evolution.

Thanks for explaining this thoroughly like adults do. I learned a lot reading that.

Does the floor count?

Maybe I don't know exactly how to define what's in a chassis and what's not? Sorry folks.

Perhaps it would be useful to think of aero-derived grip and mechanical grip rather than "aero" and "chassis". Then you see how important the suspension design is. No good having great downforce or great engine power if you can't get the tyres to take that load.

The floor would be aero anyway.

The real issue is that trying to separate aero and chassis is pretty difficult. A suspension system that maximises tyre grip at all speeds is what is required. When some teams say their chassis is good, I think they refer to how the car generates and utilises grip of all types.

The argument put forward by some is that the RedBull is the better chassis but hampered by the engine. The problem with that is that data suggests otherwise. The RedBull and Mercedes were pretty well matched in corners. Sure, the Mercedes had a bit more power but it was how the PU was utilised that really gave them performance. They are able to get more out of the PU as a whole and that benefits them over the whole lap.

Thanks for making this clear. Yes, I was thinking exactly as just being the tub, but now I know the suspension is part of the chassis. Now I fully understand that mechanical grip is just the chassis doing its work. Add to that the aero grip and the grip the tires can generate with the given chassis, gives you the complete picture the amount of grip the car has. I always approached the suspension as a seperate part.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

[
2. A car that has a great balance in corner entry and exit, ensuring a faster time through a corner. You cannot have a car that is ultimate fast on fast corner, also being supremely fast on slow corners. The setups for slow corner is quite different to a setup for a fast corner. Most of the time, it is a balance between the two. So, cars could be setup differently, targeting different performance parameters.
3. A Car that is extremely kind on tires. There are various compounds of tires available and each has a different "optimum performance" window. Each compound behaves differently on different tracks.
4. A Car that switches on the tires. Like mentioned above, different compounds gets switched on at different temperatures and a great chassis, also keeps the optimum performance windows, longer.

That is precisely what the clever suspension does. It ticks all of these boxes. It gives a great balance in all corners, not just fast or slow ones. It also allows the tyres to be maximised. It's a bit of a golden bullet, if you like.

I argue on that. If that was so, then W06 should have lost all it's advantages when FRIC was taken away. As we know, FRIC offered greater advantage than the system that they had in 2016. While Renault also had a similar system, they were hit hard in 2015 with the ban of FRIC. So, it's not that straight forward that, just a good suspension is the silver bullet, though it is critical component for the mechanical balance of the car. The weight distribution, the downforce generated to keep the temperature in tires, the impact from the wake of other cars (some cars get impacted more than others, due to variety in front end design philosophy), detachment and reattachment of the air flow at the right point at the rear, efficient diffuser and so many different pieces form a good chassis. Similarly, cornering efficiency depends on how all these elements work in harmony, which we call SET UP, that influences a car becoming either oversteery, understeery or perfectly balanced. Essentially, the culmination of all the above and many others that I haven't listed here, is what makes a great chassis.

If it was all about suspension design, we would have seen all teams chasing that silver bullet frantically, like the double diffuser, EBD and so many other gimmicks, but that wasn't the case.

[Just_a_fan]

I argue on that.

I'm not sure the systems are perfect and I'm aware that other issues affect the car's performance but...

Paddy Lowe:

“If drivers from the past got into these cars they’d been mind-blown by how well balanced they are. We can build the car far more precisely and repeatably these days – and the degree to which we’re tailoring the aero and mechanical platforms almost corner by corner, or even within the corner through brake balance, all these different things, gives a car where you can get to point in the weekend where the drivers is saying, ‘There’s nothing to tune. It’s a perfectly balanced car.’ It’s not quite like that – because the tyre is moving around – but it’s vastly better to how it was 20 years ago when you had to take a really very crude approximation of getting a balance at as many corners as possible whilst accepting the others would be rubbish.”

The systems really seem to be close to silver bullet territory.

[diego.liv]

So if i got it right, Merc/RB solutions are banned if the main purpose is aero gains, as it has been for years now. No problem with that, it's about different or clever interpretation of the regulations. Now the italian Motorsport reports this case

http://it.motorsport.com/f1/news/merced ... ll-862861/

Merc has asked the FIA about RB's chassis, particularly if it complies with the regulations regarding the A-A section: the two little openings (google will transate "ears of the devil") are part of the question, even though the article doesn't go into details; i suppose it's about interpreting "what is considered part of the chassis, where does it ends etc..."
But the puzzling part is the last paragraph:

At first the FIA responded that the interpretation of Milton Keynes would not be up to standard, but then Charlie Whiting would have changed his mind; being aware that the chassis of a car is now well under construction and that there would not be enough time to modify it, the matter will be taken care of at the next meeting to be held in February to define a regulatory amendment for 2018.

On a side note, the same article says that word from Brackley is that the "Ferrari/3rd element suspension" case won't affect the W08 project

[basti313]

IMO Merc had the fastest car last season, but I don't think it's because it has a chassis that is on par with Red Bull. I think last season Red Bull and Honda had a better chassis than Merc, but Merc IMO had the upper hand thanks to a more and better developed aero package, a stronger PU and this trick suspension which is banned right now. I wonder what the effects are without this trick suspension. Will we revert back to early 2013 where the Merc were quick over 1 lap, but eating away its tires on race trim? It's exciting none the least these rumours. If it bunches up the pack even better, but I still want the Merc the car to beat next season.

Surely the "chassis" includes the suspension system? Otherwise it just refers to the tub and that doesn't do much other than carry loads.

If the suspension system used by Mercedes was better than the one used by RedBull, then Mercedes had a better chassis than RedBull.

Well...this is actually a philosophical question. Giving the fact that they were (clearly) using suspension parts, which had the sole purpose to help the aero, even more.

[KeiKo403]

Looks like 23/2 (or 2/23 for any Americans) is the date of the W08 launch.

http://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id/184 ... aunch-date

[PlatinumZealot]

What can be seen in the pictures? =D>

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C1RU13TUcAAVNWV.jpg

? Valtteri exercising?

[Just_a_fan]

IMO Merc had the fastest car last season, but I don't think it's because it has a chassis that is on par with Red Bull. I think last season Red Bull and Honda had a better chassis than Merc, but Merc IMO had the upper hand thanks to a more and better developed aero package, a stronger PU and this trick suspension which is banned right now. I wonder what the effects are without this trick suspension. Will we revert back to early 2013 where the Merc were quick over 1 lap, but eating away its tires on race trim? It's exciting none the least these rumours. If it bunches up the pack even better, but I still want the Merc the car to beat next season.

Surely the "chassis" includes the suspension system? Otherwise it just refers to the tub and that doesn't do much other than carry loads.

If the suspension system used by Mercedes was better than the one used by RedBull, then Mercedes had a better chassis than RedBull.

Well...this is actually a philosophical question. Giving the fact that they were (clearly) using suspension parts, which had the sole purpose to help the aero, even more.

I've been thinking about this. Trying to separate chassis and aero in F1 is meaningless. The aero works through the chassis and the chassis is designed to help the aero work at its best. Both work to to maximise the tyres and aid the driver to minimise lap times. It's a whole thing and can't be differentiated in to separate things in a meaningful way.

[ClarkBT11]

IMO Mercedes will change the hydraulic third element back to the sprung element which was the same as redbull and Ferrari in 2016. I would expect Mercedes suspension to be still ahead of the game in 2017, the only part of the suspension that is illegal is the hydraulics.

[ME4ME]

.. the only part of the suspension that is illegal is the hydraulics.

Why would that be illegal?

From Motorsport Magazine:

All contemporary F1 cars feature a lateral ‘third element’ heave spring across the front (and usually the rear too). This controls the car’s vertical stiffness. Because the aerodynamic loadings on the car are variable over the speed range, the heave spring is useful in decoupling loads imposed in cornering (to which it doesn’t react) from those imposed by the downforce working on both sides of the car (to which it does). It adds to the suspension stiffness when needed (at high speeds as the downforce loads increase dramatically) but remains neutral through cornering. All F1 cars have featured such springs for many years.

Where the Mercedes and Red Bull differed from the others last year was in how they combined the heave springs with hydraulic actuation. It allowed them to use the movement from the suspension to create hydraulic pressure that could effectively act as an energy store. This energy could then be used, when required, to manipulate the suspension in an advantageous way.

http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/opini ... 7-f1-title

If the 3rd suspension element is illegal because it's primary purpose is aerodynamic stability, than it shouldn't matter if it's hydraulically coupled or just a mechanical spring/damper.