Mercedes W14

[Tiny73]

Sorry, but crisis meetings are not why teams test and what is the order of the day in testing. The balance changes constantly and nobody knows why, the rear end breaks out uncontrollably, aero load is not consistent and changes extremely with vehicle height, to the point that the car becomes uncontrollable as soon as it gets below a certain ground clearance. At the front axle there is a sudden loss of downforce when cornering. The car should behave largely according to the simulations and calculations. But this is not the case at all with the W14. The problems are so far-reaching that a crisis meeting has been called to discuss how to proceed and what to do. And unplanned crisis meetings are not part of the test program and why one tests. Likewise, you don't test to clear up unexplained reactions of the car. I don't even want to talk about the other rumors, because on the one hand these are actually rumors so far for which I haven't received any direct confirmation, and on the other hand it is a very sensitive topic to which a few people here react sensitively. At least in the past. But in fact, many of these statements are reminiscent of what was said about cars that had a fundamental aerodynamic problem.



Well...Kyle says he doesn't believe in it. Definitely he has not proved anything. In any case, there are the following facts :

- Aerodynamicists from other teams say this side box concept is too complex to make it work.

- Mercedes has again problems to make the car work

- the car again behaves differently than in the simulations

- suddenly dropping uneven downforce, logically has an aerodynamic origin, as well as cars that showed this in the past usually had a fundamental aerodynamic problem

If you put one and one together and put this in relation to what the aerodynamicists of other teams have said about the complexity of this concept, then there is at least a lot to suggest that Vanja is not wrong here.

And quite honestly front wheel wake management is extremely important for the aerodynamics of a car. Without bargeboards, however, this is extremely difficult and the sidepods are a component of what Kyle also clearly stated. So now you can believe that the sidepods are not the reason at Mercedes. Certainly nobody says or knows that. But in any case it would explain the problems Mercedes has been struggling with since they introduced this concept. And in my eyes it would be a great coincidence that everything fits together so well.

One more thing, if you think a team would have a crisis meeting such as that in front of the worlds media then you have no clue how a successful team operates. Whatever that meeting was it was not a crisis debrief played out in front of the cameras. (If you want an example of how this is poor management check out Phil Brown keeping Hull City on the pitch and berating them at half time when they were being beaten by Man City.). Management 101 is keep it in house and berate your team behind closed doors if that’s what’s required, not out front of the team hospitality. Whatever that was it was most certainly not a crisis meeting or b*llocking.

I'm not commenting on this now. I just want to tell you - I talk and write to people in Formula 1 personally almost every day...so I get a lot of my information first hand, like this. And so I can also tell you - don't overestimate what a team in Formula 1 can keep secret. The F1 world is small, incestuous and everyone knows everyone....But as already said - I am herewith out of this topic again, because in the end always the same comes out anyway if one addresses this topic.

This wasn’t aimed at you Andi76, I have no view on the quality of your information so apologies if it looked that way, quoting your post wasn’t aimed at you specifically, more a comment generally on team dynamics etc. As for keeping secrets, yes, I can believe that having gone through numerous product crises and due diligence where random people engage with you about something they should know nothing about

[Andi76]

One more thing, if you think a team would have a crisis meeting such as that in front of the worlds media then you have no clue how a successful team operates. Whatever that meeting was it was not a crisis debrief played out in front of the cameras. (If you want an example of how this is poor management check out Phil Brown keeping Hull City on the pitch and berating them at half time when they were being beaten by Man City.). Management 101 is keep it in house and berate your team behind closed doors if that’s what’s required, not out front of the team hospitality. Whatever that was it was most certainly not a crisis meeting or b*llocking.

I'm not commenting on this now. I just want to tell you - I talk and write to people in Formula 1 personally almost every day...so I get a lot of my information first hand, like this. And so I can also tell you - don't overestimate what a team in Formula 1 can keep secret. The F1 world is small, incestuous and everyone knows everyone....But as already said - I am herewith out of this topic again, because in the end always the same comes out anyway if one addresses this topic.

This wasn’t aimed at you Andi76, I have no view on the quality of your information so apologies if it looked that way, quoting your post wasn’t aimed at you specifically, more a comment generally on team dynamics etc. As for keeping secrets, yes, I can believe that having gone through numerous product crises and due diligence where random people engage with you about something they should know nothing about

Sorry if i got you wrong

[PlatinumZealot]

Zero pods are serving there purpose. It's clear that they have benefits over other pods and Mercedes will evolve them again.

We should treat the floor problems separately and stop tieing them to the pods. The problem is the treatment of the floor is hard to see.

[f1jcw]

b)should simply copy another team's design, even though the ones that did copy such design are far behind Mercedes in

It is a interesting point, what is the performance differentiator is between
Cars with the Mercedes engine that copied the Redbull side pods
and Mercedes.

Is Mercedes getting better performance from the floor, the suspension, drivers?

[NickD]

Anothe rumour killed was the cockpit moved 20cm.
Elliot said it was in the exact same place as w13.
The poster with the photos did say this but he was out maneuvered with gab and thus deemed incorrect by the majority. But it's all what the forum is for discussion. The debates as trivial as they can be sometimes does perculate up to the media who then asks the teams.

Hi Ringo,

Your post summarises our problem perfectly.

As armchair experts we will never have access to the data, tools, intent, expertise or skill of the people working for Mercedes. But, provided we are constructive we do have something.

While we'll never have enough information to criticise a design in advance (only racing does that), we can at least try to use the collective skills available here to collaboratively understand what they are trying to do.

CFD is one of those tools despite the limitations stated clearly above. Photogrammetry is another provided we do it properly.

The 20cm cockpit move rumour is a great example.

We did not need Elliot to tell us the cockpit had not moved. Careful analysis had already confirmed it using two independent analyses. Elliot just confirmed the analysis was right. Hopefully that's also true of the 100mm intake move published formally by Paoli (and that he is not just quoting me!)

It also confirmed we should have a healthy scepticism for any statement, how ever apparently reliable the source, when good data say something else. They may not be lying, they may not be mistaken, it's just too easy for misunderstandings to creep in.

I'm reminded of a scary engineering manager I worked for who frequently stated "In God we trust, everyone else brings data" - so applicable here.

Nick

[AR3-GP]

Perhaps "the sidepods are not important" will turn out to be the big misunderstanding of Mercedes with these new regulations. After all, they can't explain their cars behaviour.

I don't know if the sidepods are important for their car or not, but maybe the lack of importance that Mercedes are giving the sidepod, is the reason why they are struggling.

One would almost have to take anything stated by Elliot and Shovlin with a grain of salt, given the lack of real success under the new regulations.

[mechanoit]

It is not difficult to generate downforce with these cars. The venturis in the floor design are very powerful and very easy to generate downforce. The limitation of using that downforce is porpoising. Why?

Because the venturis generate downforce. Without getting into exact figures and using just broadbased aerodynamic principles to understand, let us assume that downforce increases proportionally to speed squared. So as the car speed increases, the downforce increases at ever greater deltas. This downforce also affects ride height and the car squats down, reducing the ride height. The floor seals better and downforce increases even quicker. A step change even.

The cars run stiff to resist this ever increasing downforce on the suspension. Now couple in an external induced force such as a bump. This force generation is enough to compress the suspension further, reduce ride height, break the venturi flow structure and result is sudden loss of downforce. The process repeats and we get porpoising.

So we all understand this rather well, but it is not easy to solve. In effect, the floor must be tuned. It must be tuned so that downforce builds with speed, but does not exceed the limitation of the straights or fast corners for the specific track and taking into account any potential force inducers such as the bumps on the track. It must be tuned such that at this maximum limit, the downforce stops continuing to build and instead vents off. Staying in balance between maximum useable downforce but not crossing over into one that compresses ride height to an extent that the venturis of the floor break the flow.

The best floor design will have elements on it that can be added or removed or adjusted easily on the main principal design to tune the floor for each track. No different to tuning the front wing, rear wing (including DRS element) or beam wing. This is an entirely new element to the 2022 regulations. Previously the floor was flat and was not a moveable parameter for track to track downforce configuration so teams focused only on the front wing, rear wing, and beam wing. Now they need to add the floor and this is no mean feat. The floor design needs to have tuneability built into it.

The side pods are big focus to mainstream because firstly, they can see this easily, secondly, they are conditioned to the importance of external flow conditioning of the top of the floor to the diffuser which was very important previous to 2022 regulations where the floor was flat so the diffuser design and above floor flow conditioning to extract the diffuser was crucial, and thirdly, because mainstream are technically ignorant. No offence.

With the 2022 regulations, the side pods are not so important. They are of course important for managing front tyre wake to reduce risk of disturbed flow affecting floor edge and to an extent getting high energy air to the diffuser, beam wing, rear wing and preventing energising the rear tyre squirt further and all those sorts of things. But they really are far less important than in the pre-2022 regulations where the flat floor with just the diffuser needed everything to help. Now the downforce produced by the venturi floor is very big. Downforce itself isn’t the problem but rather how to use it effectively.

[AR3-GP]

With the 2022 regulations, the side pods are not so important. They are of course important for managing front tyre wake to reduce risk of disturbed flow affecting floor edge and to an extent getting high energy air to the diffuser, beam wing, rear wing and preventing energising the rear tyre squirt further and all those sorts of things.

This is incredibly contradictory. If the sidepod is used to prevent the front tire wake from entering the diffuser, then it is rather important. Furthermore, one again the proof is in the pudding. How do you explain how all teams have evolved these "unimportant" sidepods .

I'm seeing an incredible amount of sensitivity (as Andi76 pointed out) to the discussion of the Mercedes sidepods. It has become a point of pride seemingly to say nothing is wrong. People are eager to dismiss discussion of it because Mike Elliot told them so.

At the moment, it is not apparent that anyone should be taking design advice from MGP based on their success under these new regulations...one must take a step back and look at the pudding to realize this.

Mercedes had great success under the previous regulations and I would absolutely follow them off the train tracks were the regulations as they were a decade ago. But now? I'm not so sure.

[chrisc90]

Perhaps "the sidepods are not important" will turn out to be the big misunderstanding of Mercedes with these new regulations. After all, they can't explain their cars behaviour. It suggest they lack understanding of what is actually important so one would almost have to take their conclusions with a grain of salt, given the lack of success under the new regulations. A lack of importance given to the sidepod design could very well turn out to be why the W14 is struggling.

Agree, I think the side pods play a massive part of getting air around them and into/through the diffuser.

The flo-vis Images posted by Organic here:viewtopic.php?p=1115050#p1115050

The flow just doesnt look very organised (in a amateur viewpoint - so could be wrong) compared to the likes of other teams.

Im also wondering, that because of the design of the mid wing, and the subsequential side pod that has to go down to floor level, that the airflow around that area isnt the same as any other teams, therefore the airflow doesn't want to stick to the 'sidepod' and engine cover and eventually feed back through the diffuser.

Same with Ferrari here: viewtopic.php?p=1114839#p1114839

I think the key to getting good performance/downforce whilst retaining the higher speeds is to get the accelerated airflow over the beam wing and use that to create the downforce and pull the air through the floor with the faster air passing over from under the car (possibly?), that allows you to run a smaller rear wing to get a top speed advantage (not always the most ideal) but it also allows you to finely tune the downforce off the rear axle with different beam wing/rear wing configurations.

I could be totally wrong however

[mechanoit]

Perhaps "the sidepods are not important" will turn out to be the big misunderstanding of Mercedes with these new regulations. After all, they can't explain their cars behaviour. It suggest they lack understanding of what is actually important so one would almost have to take their conclusions with a grain of salt, given the lack of success under the new regulations. A lack of importance given to the sidepod design could very well turn out to be why the W14 is struggling.

Agree, I think the side pods play a massive part of getting air around them and into/through the diffuser.

The flo-vis Images posted by Organic here:viewtopic.php?p=1115050#p1115050

The flow just doesnt look very organised (in a amateur viewpoint - so could be wrong) compared to the likes of other teams.

You are misunderstanding the flow there and what it is they are looking for. They are not looking for flow there going around towards the diffuser. They are looking for a strong down and outwash. It seems to me that they are trying to drive the front wheel wake strongly out.

[AR3-GP]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FpveStmXEAE ... name=large

Interesting construction. You can see that there are little screws and blanking pieces to cover up a joggle that allows them to fit blanking panels to change the cooling power.

[f1jcw]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FpveStmXEAE ... name=large

Interesting construction. You can see that there are little screws and blanking pieces to cover up a joggle that allows them to fit blanking panels to change the cooling power.

Everything about the budget cap is about change parts as cheaply as possible.
Now every part is departmentalised, now every part can be changed independently.
Weighs more though.....

With suspension on these era being so important I'm surprised they havn't had
either Costa or James Allison being persuaded to advise, those two was some of the best in the business at that area.

[hollus]

Guys, we are serious. If the post is not about this car, do not put it in the car thread. Personal feuds, being right or being wrong, winning or losing... In the team thread (a few posts were moved to the general aero thread instead).

A reminder to everyone but specially to the new people (welcome!).
The car threads are specially strictly moderated in this forum. Stick to this car and to hardware in the car threads.
Team politics and other team things, please in the team threads.
Lap times, happy faces, sensations and will they be faster/slower than XYZ, either in the team threads, in the testing thread or in the race threads.

If your post is in this thread and is not centering on this car, the physical car, it might have been or might be deleted or moved.
Let's keep the awesome car threads on this forum
a) focused on the hardware and
b) awesome.

Thanks.

[NoDivergence]

Perhaps "the sidepods are not important" will turn out to be the big misunderstanding of Mercedes with these new regulations. After all, they can't explain their cars behaviour.

I don't know if the sidepods are important for their car or not, but maybe the lack of importance that Mercedes are giving the sidepod, is the reason why they are struggling.

One would almost have to take anything stated by Elliot and Shovlin with a grain of salt, given the lack of real success under the new regulations.

Midcorner balance changes can literally mean anything. From roll sensitivity, to yaw sensitivity, to pitch as the throttle is put down, to flutter, to poor suspension kinematics, to any combination of them. All of them could involve the sidepod, or none of them. All of them could even just be the tire deformation being different than their models. We just don't know.

[f1jcw]

Perhaps "the sidepods are not important" will turn out to be the big misunderstanding of Mercedes with these new regulations. After all, they can't explain their cars behaviour.

I don't know if the sidepods are important for their car or not, but maybe the lack of importance that Mercedes are giving the sidepod, is the reason why they are struggling.

One would almost have to take anything stated by Elliot and Shovlin with a grain of salt, given the lack of real success under the new regulations.

Midcorner balance changes can literally mean anything. From roll sensitivity, to yaw sensitivity, to pitch as the throttle is put down, to flutter, to poor suspension kinematics, to any combination of them. All of them could involve the sidepod, or none of them. All of them could even just be the tire deformation being different than their models. We just don't know.

I would think some things though are easier to work on and get right quite quickly, unlike with porpoising that couldn't be replicated in the wind tunnel, especially for a team like that Mercedes that have excelled with suspension design.