2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[chrisc90]

Maybe Toto should have listened to Christian wayyyy back last year when he told him to "change his f%$kn car." Probably the best bit of free advice ever given to a team.

[Cs98]

Adrian Newey about Mercedes: "In the third race we believe Mercedes will bring a new sidepod"

Looks like some the new hires still have inside connections to their old workplace at Brackley.

RB wouldn't touch Merc's aero department with a ten foot pole wrapped in a bin bag Rather seems like poaching one of RB's top aerodynamicists is the golden ticket to success in todays Formula. Time for Toto to open up the check book and place some calls to Milton Keynes lest his team ends up in the midfield.

[CHT]

The quickest fix for Merc of course is to copy Aston Martin, but that may come at a big cost. Merc will need more budget and wind tunnel time as the team will have to redesign the front wing side pod and rear wing to maximize airflow for the new design. It will also take time for Merc to understand the new car concept as Merc doesn't have ex-RBR aero engineer within the team. potentially a PR disaster if W14B is worst than W14.

I foresee Merc will be going through a very long and tough period, Even with this new specB, they may only be as good as 2nd or 3rd at best, and this is too little too late to challenge RBR dominance. The best shot will perhaps be in 2025 when RBR starts to concentrate its development for 2026.

[F1Krof]

I read somewhere (I honestly can't find it anymore) that Mercedes already put a RB-like concept into CFD and the tunnel and that they didn't think it had as much potential (or that it wasn't any better) as their own design so they were having a hard time justifying going in that direction.

Maybe their CFD models aren't right. JK.

The key formula behind performance in this turn of regulations isn't the sidepods. As we really went around the bush for the millionth time. The sidepods are just a tool to manage and disperse the airflow in and around the car. I don't think one sidepod is overly superior to another (RBR vs Ferrari vs Mercedes), they all try to achieve the same effect, just one is slightly better and different circumstances than the others, and one might be slighty simpler to integrate with other tools around the car.

The key performance generator in this turn of regulations is the underfloor and suspension kinematics (especially the front) that support a consistent base for the aerodynamics to work close to the optimal window. Mercedes clearly seem to be lacking in this department, they've been suffering from 2021 where the regulations clearly hurt their concept. AM has a good base coming directly from the honey pipe straight out of RBR in Fallows, but at some point they will have diverging ideas with Newey, and yes they are in front of Mercedes (just now), but I don't believe they'll be able to develop the car and stay ahead. Just look at their 2020 campaign where they copied Mercedes W10.

If I was Toto, I would tell my engineers to stick to their guns and just go ahead, do whatever experiment needed just to prove the concept as they clearly haven't accomplished yet. They believe they have a fast formula, just cannot realize the potential. Maybe they are understaffed with senior personnel, maybe they don't have the right tools to deal with floor development which is giving them inconsistent data. Who knows at this point?

Well ... they managed 5th at least. Lets wait for the upcoming races to clarify the trend.

[PlatinumZealot]

George Russell says the championship is already gone. RedBull more like 2 seconds ahead if they go full beans.

The good news is the W14 is stable and a good bed for development. The bad news is it lacks downforce and becomes imbalanced if more wing is added in it's current form.

I see no further solution than for Mercedes to rethink their floor concept. I have an idea to add a sweeping undercut to the zero-pods. Should help generate some outwash at the floor edge.

Do you guy see the gigantic floor edge blade on the RedBull?! That's the sort of downforce thier floor is generating.

[AR3-GP]

George Russell says the championship is already gone. RedBull more like 2 seconds ahead if they go full beans.

The good news is the car is stable. The bad news is it lacks downforce and becomes imbalanced if more wing is added.

I see no further solution than for Mercedes to rethink their floor concept.

Do you guy see the gigantic floor edge blade on the RedBull?! That's the sort of downforce thier floor is generating.

What’s the significance of the floor edge blade in relation to how much downforce they are generating?

[zakhassan44]

it seems that the Merc engineers were fooled into sticking with their concept by the resurgence at the end of last season. considering that red bull stopped all development after having both championships sewn up early and ferrari having to turn down their engine due to reliability concerns surely this makes the merc engineers look even worse

[napoleon1981]

it seems that the Merc engineers were fooled into sticking with their concept by the resurgence at the end of last season. considering that red bull stopped all development after having both championships sewn up early and ferrari having to turn down their engine due to reliability concerns surely this makes the merc engineers look even worse

Whats easy to forget is that all concepts are significantly faster than RB last year, so the reference has moved and that has not become apparent until now. Also gaps in qualy were relatively small. It seems like RB seems to have a much better understanding of how to work the tires.

[PlatinumZealot]

George Russell says the championship is already gone. RedBull more like 2 seconds ahead if they go full beans.

The good news is the car is stable. The bad news is it lacks downforce and becomes imbalanced if more wing is added.

I see no further solution than for Mercedes to rethink their floor concept.

Do you guy see the gigantic floor edge blade on the RedBull?! That's the sort of downforce thier floor is generating.

What’s the significance of the floor edge blade in relation to how much downforce they are generating?

You need more toilet paper for bigger poops right?

RedBull edge more prominent and agressive. Pitched slightly upward, taller fances and cuts inward more.




Merceds has a simple flick infront of the edge wing which itself looks flat and benign.

[Venturiation]

according to Amus the spec b has been running more than 2 weeks ago now

[organic]

according to Amus the spec b has been running more than 2 weeks ago now

Yes it's also a direct quote from toto so it's fairly reliable. Although there are caveats to that

[Venturiation]

it seems that the Merc engineers were fooled into sticking with their concept by the resurgence at the end of last season. considering that red bull stopped all development after having both championships sewn up early and ferrari having to turn down their engine due to reliability concerns surely this makes the merc engineers look even worse

if that's true then they are lost
unless they have worked on 2 parallel concepts
the problem is somewhere else, no way a team of 100 aero engineers would fail like this unless there is internal sabotage

[organic]

To me it feels like an internal struggle about the right technical direction, with wildly different pictures coming across from interviews and toto quick to call the car concept a total failure after 1 qualifying session despite having invested a ton of resources in the car

[chrisc90]

I thought Elliot said there was no B spec car with his interview with Ted Kravitz?

[Venturiation]

according to Amus the spec b has been running more than 2 weeks ago now

Yes it's also a direct quote from toto so it's fairly reliable. Although there are caveats to that

during the 2022 abu dhabi gp toto confirmed that in the wind tunnel there the W14 had zero pods like W13 so i guess he was talking about the current W14

maybe during the winter they found the problems that's why since the reveal of the car they kept talking about that there will be changes