Mercedes AMG F1 Team 2012

[MIKEY_!]

Never had endplate fins IIRC

[elf341]

I found from the W02 thread that at the very least they tested the endplate fins back in July 2011 on the W02: here. However, I am not sure that they kept them as have been unable to find a pic in late 2011 with them.

[ForMuLaOne]

I would like to talk about something that really irritates me. We`ve seen a lot of upgrades for every team`s car so far. But many of them are parts they already used last year. The monkey seat is new to mercedes, but what about the endplate fins which help the diffusor? I mean they were running them on the W02 and i still don`t see them. So, maybe i am wrong, but to me it seems like many teams do not hit the ground with a car that represents their full potential. Sure, you have to talk about aero balance, they cannot bolt on downforce at the end, without doing so at the front. But why do cars lack parts their predecessors were showing?

they had monkey seat before.

They had some sort of ramp....looked like a quarterpipe. Even if they had the monkey seat, this would strenghten my argument. The Endplate fins cannot be THAT hard to copy as almost every team runs them.

[Huntresa]

I would like to talk about something that really irritates me. We`ve seen a lot of upgrades for every team`s car so far. But many of them are parts they already used last year. The monkey seat is new to mercedes, but what about the endplate fins which help the diffusor? I mean they were running them on the W02 and i still don`t see them. So, maybe i am wrong, but to me it seems like many teams do not hit the ground with a car that represents their full potential. Sure, you have to talk about aero balance, they cannot bolt on downforce at the end, without doing so at the front. But why do cars lack parts their predecessors were showing?

they had monkey seat before.

They had some sort of ramp....looked like a quarterpipe. Even if they had the monkey seat, this would strenghten my argument. The Endplate fins cannot be THAT hard to copy as almost every team runs them.

Just because alot of teams run fins at the end doesnt mean everoyne needs to. You dont know how it affects mercedes car or they have setup their airflow etc etc they are not dumb you know, if they could gain 0.1sec from apair fins you dont think they would add them?

[Timstr]

First things first. I think their strategy is to concentrate on more fundamental and bigger aero developments before they start looking at what looks like a small, not hugely significant add-on. I expect it will appear later in the season, like last year's version did.

[ForMuLaOne]

See, all i wanted to say was that they already dealt with some items the W03 does not show. So, it is not very hard to imply a monkey seat and the fins at the stage of wind tunnel testing. Many other teams did. They have knowledge about it, it is not something new. I just don`t get it. Cause as you say, it influences the whole car, so one would think it was senseful to create the package as a whole and tune every part to work as a good package. We are not talking about such radical things as the RBR exhaust solution, even the macca nose has more impact. But of course, they have reasons for it which i understand as well. It just irritated me, i was hoping for answers.

[e30ernest]

Their (and other teams approach) makes sense IMO. While they say this year's design was an evolution last year's, a lot on the car has changed both physically and in the design philosophy. With all these changes, you really can't say that an winglet here, or a monkey-seat there would work just as well as it did on a previous model.

Given the (limited) time and resources they had, they would go for as much performance on the base of the car, then tweak or add incremental (bolt-on) parts later based on what they learn. Wind tunnel and CFD testing will not always reflect what will happen in the real-world, so some of these changes will also have to be made after some real mileage has been done.

That's my opinion on the matter anyway.

[elf341]

Also it's important to remember that whilst certain features seem to be obvious at adding downforce (e.g. the monkey seat, or winglets near the sidepods), the team will be looking at aero balance more than absolute df numbers.

For example, last year it appears that the W02's exhaust-blowing concept did not produce the rear downforce that they expected it would. We saw that because their new mkIII front-wing which appeared in Barcelona testing appeared to mess up the aero-balance by producing comparatively too much downforce at the front. They were forced to revert to the mkII (2010-like) front-wing before the first race until they increased their rear downforce. Their RB7-like EBD appeared at Silverstone, and then they moved back to the mkIII front-wing at the very next race (Nurburgring).

[Raptor22]

I would like to talk about something that really irritates me. We`ve seen a lot of upgrades for every team`s car so far. But many of them are parts they already used last year. The monkey seat is new to mercedes, but what about the endplate fins which help the diffusor? I mean they were running them on the W02 and i still don`t see them. So, maybe i am wrong, but to me it seems like many teams do not hit the ground with a car that represents their full potential. Sure, you have to talk about aero balance, they cannot bolt on downforce at the end, without doing so at the front. But why do cars lack parts their predecessors were showing?

because the improvements are usually for a specific set of race tracks. Since those race tracks only pop around once a year, we only improvements to those specific components when we arrive at those circuits. Some improvements are general car upgrades while other are track specific.

So a different end plate may provide a benefit only at a specific set of tracks. Else where it may be a hinderance.

[Coefficient]

Could this be the infamous carbon casing gearbox?http://www.formula1.com/wi/597x478/sutt ... esp303.jpg

No, because that is the renault gearbox.

[radosav]

That's odd! The pic is of the front right, but it appears to have a reverse thread. Is that normal?[/quote]


it has to rotate in the same way as wheel

[MercAMGF1Fans]

According to Bob Bell.. the Upgrades are working..
BARCELONA, FRIDAY – BOB BELL: “TODAY HAS PROVIDED THE DATA THAT WE NEED TO PLAN AHEAD”
The Spanish Grand Prix weekend got underway today with Michael and Nico Rosberg completing the two ninety-minute practice sessions in blazing sunshine at the Circuit de Catalunya.

The pair completed a total of 112 laps today during practice, including 77 in the afternoon session.

The fastest first practice time was around 0.7s quicker than in 2011; the fastest in P2 just over 0.9s slower. The top ten cars in second practice were covered by less than a second, with six different teams represented.

“The practice sessions went reasonably well for us today” said Bob. ”Certainly the new parts that we have here this weekend worked as expected with no reliability issues. We also saw the benefit of the work that we did in Mugello last week, particularly the understanding of how the tyres need to be used.

We weren’t quite as strong as we would have wanted to be in P1 this morning, however we made changes over the break and saw improvements this afternoon. Overall, a solid day’s work which has provided the data that we need to plan ahead for the weekend.”

For Norbert, today was “a challenging day with changing track conditions. We worked through an intensive programme with lots of laps to evaluate the two tyre compounds available. Our team learned a lot today and the plan is to make a further step tomorrow as we did today from the first to the second practice session.”

[xpensive]

This really makes me wonder, medical condition...?

http://www.f1technical.net/news/17311

[AosudiF1]

This really makes me wonder, medical condition...?

http://www.f1technical.net/news/17311

I would say, no...

[xpensive]

Time for one of my by now legendary predictions; MGP/AMG will sumit a press-relaese next week.