Mercedes W14

[Big Tea]

Can someone explain why the "zero pod" concept has any advantage over the RB concept ?
.

This might help

Thanks, that explains a lot I thought I knew but I was mistaken (again )

[carisi2k]

What are the advantages of the "zero pods" other than a lower centre of gravity which in this ground effects era is less critical.

I don't even think a lower centre of gravity is real either. Look at how high the bodywork is now and I'm willing to bet there are a lot more things that are now higher in the car then they would be if there was an actual sidepod. My understanding is that they are having a significant issue with roll in the W14 because of this higher centre of gravity and this would explain the the rocking seen on the shakedown video at Silverstone. This roll will also create a significant aerodynamic issue as well and maybe even some vibrations which could have caused the gearbox failure for George.

[Henk_v]

Did not notice how much bodywork there was around the front suspension wishbones on the Mercedes W14. Maximum downwash to feed the Venturi inlets.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fpvwl-GXgAA ... name=large

A lot of thread left on the pushrod adjustment. Ready to raise that car! Anyone chasing grams would have shortened that thread if they did not expect they might use it....

[Vanja #66]

Can someone explain why the "zero pod" concept has any advantage over the RB concept ?

Only the Mercedes team knows what they saw in the wind tunnel and what kind of phenomena were at play to increase the downforce worth 1.5s per lap on W13. My guess is some powerful interaction of mid wing vortex and rear tyre squirt and overall downwash to rear and beam wings. Clearly they wanted to treat the diffuser in a powerful way.

It should be noted their original floor was very, very low. This caused all the trouble with bouncing before the Barcelona floor change, bouncing after that was caused mostly by other things.

[Unc1eM0nty]

https://twitter.com/f1motospogp/status/ ... 36545?s=20

Shows an interesting comparison between the W14 and the RB19. Obviously the tyre smoke will not perfect represent the tyre wake but it does show how much better the RB19 is at keeping wake from reaching the beam wing and diffuser

The Red bull is turning in and the Mercedes is running straight so I'm not sure this is a true comparison. Very interesting image though and speaks a thousand words.

[Andi76]

Andi, anonymous Mercedes engineer doesn't have to mean anything. They could have made everything up, including the engineer. The car clearly has the cockpit in the same place as W13. Let's please move on

I agree with the last sentence. Let's move on. The rest is for everyone to decide for themselves. Whether he believes the indirect statement of a Mercedes engineer, this technical expert or that or the one or the other comparison in this forum, or completely forms his own judgment.

A fact is that Mercedes had a crisis meeting yesterday with the drivers and all the key engineers. The W14 is not performing as well as hoped. There seems to be confirmation of rumors that there were about the rear axle. When they lower the car above a certain point the handling deteriorates extremely. Updates to the sidepods are already a done deal, even if they don't matter.... a new rear wing will come as soon as possible, because they have to fight (once again) with too much drag, which they want to counter with a new rear wing. All in all, except for the porpoising, things aren't going much better than 2022 and the W14 apparently poses similar problems as the W13.

[Vanja #66]

But the fact is, and based on first-hand information this time, Mercedes had a crisis meeting yesterday with the drivers and all the key engineers. The W14 is not performing as well as hoped. There seems to be confirmation of rumors that there were about the rear axle. When they lower the car above a certain point the handling deteriorates extremely. Updates to the sidepods are already a done deal, even if they don't matter.... a new rear wing will come as soon as possible, because they have to fight (once again) with too much drag, which they want to counter with a new rear wing. All in all, except for the porpoising, things aren't going much better than 2022 and the W14 apparently poses similar problems as the W13.

I was convinced last year the mid wing vortex is handled properly and shouldn't cause any trouble for the team, so I never mentioned it. Not so sure anymore.

In any case, it's clear their sidepod concept is in fact the problem, not only for floor structural instability (that seems to have been solved with wider sides) but also for actual aerodynamic instability and unpredictable interaction with other elements. I was convinced they were very thorough about it last season...

[Andi76]

But the fact is, and based on first-hand information this time, Mercedes had a crisis meeting yesterday with the drivers and all the key engineers. The W14 is not performing as well as hoped. There seems to be confirmation of rumors that there were about the rear axle. When they lower the car above a certain point the handling deteriorates extremely. Updates to the sidepods are already a done deal, even if they don't matter.... a new rear wing will come as soon as possible, because they have to fight (once again) with too much drag, which they want to counter with a new rear wing. All in all, except for the porpoising, things aren't going much better than 2022 and the W14 apparently poses similar problems as the W13.

I was convinced last year the mid wing vortex is handled properly and shouldn't cause any trouble for the team, so I never mentioned it. Not so sure anymore.

In any case, it's clear their sidepod concept is in fact the problem, not only for floor structural instability (that seems to have been solved with wider sides) but also for actual aerodynamic instability and unpredictable interaction with other elements. I was convinced they were very thorough about it last season...

You just said what I decided to leave out because I thought it would cause the appropriate reaction. I agree with you completely. I even think it is undeniable. You don't just change the side boxes for visual reasons. Moreover, it also fits together. The slightly larger sidepods have helped a bit with the mid-wing vortex problem you described, but they're obviously still too small to position that vortex properly at low vehicle heights. I think it's starting to be undeniable now that the concept is the problem. Also, this totally fits with what you hear from the aerodynamicists of other teams who have looked at this concept and said that it is far too "complex" aerodynamically to make it work properly.

[AA_2019]

https://twitter.com/f1motospogp/status/ ... 36545?s=20

Shows an interesting comparison between the W14 and the RB19. Obviously the tyre smoke will not perfect represent the tyre wake but it does show how much better the RB19 is at keeping wake from reaching the beam wing and diffuser

The Red bull is turning in and the Mercedes is running straight so I'm not sure this is a true comparison. Very interesting image though and speaks a thousand words.

The RB turning in makes it even more impressive !

By turning in you would expect more of the tyre smoke to move towards the beam wing & diffuser area !

Also note the impact of rear tyre drag.

It shows how much worse the w14 concept is at front tyre wake management and drag on the rear tyre.

[Unc1eM0nty]

https://twitter.com/f1motospogp/status/ ... 36545?s=20

Shows an interesting comparison between the W14 and the RB19. Obviously the tyre smoke will not perfect represent the tyre wake but it does show how much better the RB19 is at keeping wake from reaching the beam wing and diffuser

The Red bull is turning in and the Mercedes is running straight so I'm not sure this is a true comparison. Very interesting image though and speaks a thousand words.

The RB turning in makes it even more impressive !

By turning in you would expect more of the tyre smoke to move towards the beam wing & diffuser area !

Also note the impact of rear tyre drag.

It shows how much worse the w14 concept is at front tyre wake management and drag on the rear tyre.

The Red Bull front wheels are at an angle though, Mercedes are straight, so the wake comming off each will be completely different.

The RB flow does look neater, but the steering angle might be helping this, it might not, it's impossibe to tell and a real pitty the pic isn't like for like.

[mzso]

The W14 seems to have ironed out porpoising, but the car is so stiffly sprung it suffers on the kerbs and also lacks rear traction out of corners.

Can't believe they built another dud of a suspension

Suspension stiffness is a very trivial thing to modify. They aren't locked into anything. It's a matter of softer torsion bars (or whatever springing medium they are using)

Maybe they need the stiffness, to be within legal limits of oscillation. So it might not be trivial, or possible at all.

[myurr]

The RB is also slower if it's already turning in, so there is less volume of smoke being generated. It'll also have rotated in relation to the ambient wind. You really cannot draw too much of a conclusion from such a picture.

There's faint evidence of smoke going both sides of the rear wheel on the Red Bull in similar flow patterns to the Mercedes, so it's not a night and day difference with the variation easily explained by external factors such as those listed above.

[organic]

[Marble]

Lewis telling bouncing has gone but "some of the underlying issues are still there".
When pushed about the issues, he wouldn't elaborate but mentioned "balance issues".

[Cs98]

The W14 looks more sorted today, though it's hard to derive much from those soft runs in terms of relative times. What I am quite certain of though is that their drag issues have been mostly solved. On the race runs George was basically within 1-2 kph of the RB on the main straight, and ~5-6kph behind the Ferrari, which is running a lower wing than the aforementioned teams.