2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Jdn1327]

Don’t want to venture too far away from the team topic. However, nothing personal.
What do you propose other than a wind tunnel limitation, CFD limitations, cost cap etc to bring the playing field more level?

I dont see much more they could do other than further regulations like one chassis supplier or to go further than that and have one engine supplier. Then it becomes a stock car series. And I know everyone wants to see drivers in equal cars but that's not really the case. Brawn tried with these regulations but honestly it's not working out. What the FIA should do is ask the drivers what they want...I think Vettel did ask this in 2019...are the drivers' recommendations included in regulation changes?

[RonMexico]

Key to higher top speed is higher downforce generated by the floor!

Look at how shallow rear wing Red Bull is running! This is what gives them their higher top speed…which means their floor is working much better than Mercedes’s one!

Mercedes has been talking about the importance of the underfloor with these regulations since last year and they have often said that that’s where the concept changes compared to Red Bull!

redbull can run their car very low something merc tried but gave up on the idea too early because floor was getting damage.Redbull never gave up on high rake concept even when merc was 2 second quick like in 2014 ,it took them 8 eight year to win their champ with max although with help of floor being cut.Honda too never gave up on size zero concept and in 2021 they brought an engine which was even smaller than the original size 0 and are now dominating.even if merc make a great car their deployment or hybrid area is not as good as the Honda so championship is unlikely until 2026.merc has the right idea they should just have soldiered on ,thats were great technical leadership comes in rather than just starting all over and hoping things work out ,they will probably go backward.

You might have a point here. Unfortunately for Merc, I think their actions are more pressured by Hamilton's desire for short term success, rather than looking towards the long term with Russell.

Who really knows what the W13 concept could have become. While it did not perform right away, primarily due to the correlation issues, I suspect rival teams are breathing a sigh of relief that Mercedes was never able to realize the potential they saw in the data and have now seemingly abandoned it. The car was so different looking. That definitely scared people in the paddock. You much prefer if your rivals cars are similar to your own because it enables an easier exchange of ideas if they manage to do something better than you. If that W13 worked, no one would have been able to copy it. Scary.

I'm going to butcher the quote but Irvine when he saw the 1996 Ferrari supposedly said this thing looks so different to the field it will either be terrible or excellent.
Newey himself said they deliberately built a car that will work across a broad spectrum of track and corner types. The Mercedes might have been superb in Barcelona but no good in half the other tracks. Was that not Mercedes MO for the championship years? Have the best car over the season

[ValeVida46]

Merc wind tunnel correlation affected by out-of-tolerance parts. Very disappointing if true, and relevant individuals have reportedly been dismissed.

https://www.formu1a.uno/en/mercedes-win ... ntil-2024/

More information has surfaced surrounding problems during the development of the W14 in the wind tunnel over winter.

Mercedes has worked to better understand this issue, carrying out a complete investigation in the factory through scans both in the scale models used in the tunnel and in the real ones.

It has emerged that some parts used in the wind tunnel (the scale models) were inaccurate and went beyond the necessary parameters.

These problems have not only affected the development of the W14, such as the delays we reported during the winter, but also in terms of correlation. Subsequently, some of those who worked in this area have been dismissed.

Kindly posted by Mkay in the W14 thread.

If this has any substance, it points to negligence or even misconduct. Would be very interesting to see if Mercedes corroborates the story, and the circumstances surrounding the discovery.
The positive to come out of this is that at least there are systems in place to do thorough checks for inconsistencies.

[ringo]

Why would Charles drop to a lesser team though? Doesn’t make sense.

I really can’t see any driver adjustments happening to be fair, especially in the top flight. Excluding a retirement of Lewis - potentially.

Then his seat probably filled with lando who is clearly a talent that’s not having the smoothest of times at mclaren.

Ferrari will never have Mercedes reliability and solid strategy. They need more than a fast car to challenge redbull.
I say Hamilton stays. Keep signing 1 year deals.

[ringo]

Merc wind tunnel correlation affected by out-of-tolerance parts. Very disappointing if true, and relevant individuals have reportedly been dismissed.

https://www.formu1a.uno/en/mercedes-win ... ntil-2024/

More information has surfaced surrounding problems during the development of the W14 in the wind tunnel over winter.

Mercedes has worked to better understand this issue, carrying out a complete investigation in the factory through scans both in the scale models used in the tunnel and in the real ones.

It has emerged that some parts used in the wind tunnel (the scale models) were inaccurate and went beyond the necessary parameters.

These problems have not only affected the development of the W14, such as the delays we reported during the winter, but also in terms of correlation. Subsequently, some of those who worked in this area have been dismissed.

Kindly posted by Mkay in the W14 thread.

If this has any substance, it points to negligence or even misconduct. Would be very interesting to see if Mercedes corroborates the story, and the circumstances surrounding the discovery.
The positive to come out of this is that at least there are systems in place to do thorough checks for inconsistencies.

Wow. Hmm.. could be imcompetence as well.
It needs incestigating. It can be the part manufacturer, the 3d modeller, and the quality/sporting regulation inspector if that post even exists. But clearly the parts did not meet the regulations. Or.. someone wanted to Cover their azz (cya) and wanted the models to perform better to save the concept.
Also we can consider sabotage from redbull with their ex merc engineers as a crazy but possible theory. Espionage!

[chrisc90]

Merc wind tunnel correlation affected by out-of-tolerance parts. Very disappointing if true, and relevant individuals have reportedly been dismissed.

https://www.formu1a.uno/en/mercedes-win ... ntil-2024/

Kindly posted by Mkay in the W14 thread.

If this has any substance, it points to negligence or even misconduct. Would be very interesting to see if Mercedes corroborates the story, and the circumstances surrounding the discovery.
The positive to come out of this is that at least there are systems in place to do thorough checks for inconsistencies.

Wow. Hmm.. could be imcompetence as well.
It needs incestigating. It can be the part manufacturer, the 3d modeller, and the quality/sporting regulation inspector if that post even exists. But clearly the parts did not meet the regulations. Or.. someone wanted to Cover their azz (cya) and wanted the models to perform better to save the concept.
Also we can consider sabotage from redbull with their ex merc engineers as a crazy but possible theory. Espionage!

What engineers left RB to go to Mercedes in order to compromise the W14?

[ValeVida46]

Wow. Hmm.. could be imcompetence as well.
It needs incestigating. It can be the part manufacturer, the 3d modeller, and the quality/sporting regulation inspector if that post even exists. But clearly the parts did not meet the regulations. Or.. someone wanted to Cover their azz (cya) and wanted the models to perform better to save the concept.
Also we can consider sabotage from redbull with their ex merc engineers as a crazy but possible theory. Espionage!

It's a possibility. I'd wait until we hear more and merc can substantiate what's happened. For someone to get fired, there needs to be some pretty good reason, including as you say, sabotage.

What engineers left RB to go to Mercedes in order to compromise the W14?

Nobody has to leave anywhere, and it doesn't have to be sabotage or Red Bull. Also, I imagine you aren't compromising a car, but a process in the hypothetical situation.

[El_KaPpa]

Despite rigorous quality control processes, errors and issues can occur, especially when pushing the boundaries of engineering and design.

[PlatinumZealot]

Good news if true. Should be a straight forward and cheap fix if the errors occure after 3D model goes to wind tunnel model. Problem is they will have to design new parts after the newly expected iterations in the tunnel.

[Wil992]

Taking it on face value that this story about incorrectly scaled wind tunnel parts has some merit, and obviously I’ve no idea whether it has or not. But assuming it has, my understanding is that parts have been scaled incorrectly for the wind tunnel models and therefore they are not representative of the full size car?
Presumably no such scaling occurs in the cfd models they use? Does that mean that the results of the wind tunnel tests are fed as inputs into the cfd models so even though the model is “full size” it’s using some incorrect source data and therefore will produce inaccurate results? Effectively masking the wind tunnel error?

[SiLo]

Taking it on face value that this story about incorrectly scaled wind tunnel parts has some merit, and obviously I’ve no idea whether it has or not. But assuming it has, my understanding is that parts have been scaled incorrectly for the wind tunnel models and therefore they are not representative of the full size car?
Presumably no such scaling occurs in the cfd models they use? Does that mean that the results of the wind tunnel tests are fed as inputs into the cfd models so even though the model is “full size” it’s using some incorrect source data and therefore will produce inaccurate results? Effectively masking the wind tunnel error?

It means their correlation will be off, and if they had previously adjusted their numbers to get "correct" correlation then everything after would be slightly off.

[LM10]

Let’s assume this is true - how can the same thing happen two years in a row without a single person figuring it out?

[Wil992]

It means their correlation will be off, and if they had previously adjusted their numbers to get "correct" correlation then everything after would be slightly off.

So this, if true, is a good news story then? They have identified a significant correlation issue that they can fairly easily fix?
It obviously doesn’t speed the car up on its own, but it does reduce the chances of developing down blind alleys?

[SiLo]

It means their correlation will be off, and if they had previously adjusted their numbers to get "correct" correlation then everything after would be slightly off.

So this, if true, is a good news story then? They have identified a significant correlation issue that they can fairly easily fix?
It obviously doesn’t speed the car up on its own, but it does reduce the chances of developing down blind alleys?

If that's actually what happened, then yes it would be positive for the team. They can fix the 60% model, check correlation and adjust accordingly and then hopefully progress with new updates that actually do what they thought they would do.

[Wil992]

If that's actually what happened, then yes it would be positive for the team. They can fix the 60% model, check correlation and adjust accordingly and then hopefully progress with new updates that actually do what they thought they would do.

I get that the “if” here is quite a big one, let’s see if there’s any truth in this.