Is the Merc engine really that good?

[raymondu999]

Hey all. This isn't a thread about Renault etc being down on power. This is calling to question if the Merc is really that good. Most of these assumptions are based on last year's data, with Brawn, Findia and MacMercs in the field. But if we look at the data, we had a slippery Findia, a KERS-equipped MacMerc, and an excellent all-rounder Brawn car.

We've seen this year how Findia just breezed past the Merc GP cars in Spa, and the Macca could be just plain fast because of their f-duct which is fully tuned and optimised, working excellently.

What are your takes on this?

[NewtonMeter]

I've seen data which shows that the merc has 80BHP more than the Renault engine.

Regards
Christian Horner

Seriously though, its a good question. I think the merc is probably one of the best, but for all we know, the ferrari could have pipped in the mean time. Its just so difficult to say with the info we have. With the aerodynamic force increasing at the square of speed and the power required thus increasing at the cube of speed, a car's top speed will be affected quite a bit more by aerodynamics than the engine power.

Stated otherwise, the top speed we're seeing is governed more by aero than by power. I think a more accurate indicator would be in gear acceleration. True, this is more an indicator of torque than power, but since all engines only rev up to 18k, one will probably be able to make a rough estimate as to which has more power.

But I've always maintained that peak power outputs can be misleading, as the power at both ends of the peak may drop off more from one engine to another. Stated with a math flavour, one would like as large an area under the torque curve.

[marcush.]

to me the whole idea of discussing engine power is ridiculous when you have so many factors with so much more influence.

We got :Merc Mac and FI all running at different levels performance from track to track and it is not obvious to me why the mercedes engine should be a deciding factor for their performance with the really impressive overtaking moves of FI on works Mercedes it is absoltuley clear that we do not see difference in engine power or torque but car potential in the situation dominating the picture

Renault and RedBull have not shown particular bad on the power circuits either but they have shown very well on those events where a good low end torque could be an advantage.

we do not know if the different cars have similar mechanical losses in their transmission or elsewhere in their mechanical layout...and we don´t know for which circuits the teams have optimised their aero layout of the basic car shape.

obviously FI for example have done away with their concentrating on Spa/Monza and have reverted to more conventional thinking as did RedBull did somehow manage to produce a car that is not as bad as it was on the quick circuits without loosing their edge on the high downforce circuits.


If engines were diciding all teams using the same engine would show similar ups and downs on the characteristic tracks.wich is not obvious .maybe to an extend for Cosworth and Ferrari at the start of the season with their problems motivating them to turn down the engines a bit.

[donskar]

to me the whole idea of discussing engine power is ridiculous when you have so many factors with so much more influence.

We got :Merc Mac and FI all running at different levels performance from track to track and it is not obvious to me why the mercedes engine should be a deciding factor for their performance with the really impressive overtaking moves of FI on works Mercedes it is absoltuley clear that we do not see difference in engine power or torque but car potential in the situation dominating the picture

Renault and RedBull have not shown particular bad on the power circuits either but they have shown very well on those events where a good low end torque could be an advantage.

we do not know if the different cars have similar mechanical losses in their transmission or elsewhere in their mechanical layout...and we don´t know for which circuits the teams have optimised their aero layout of the basic car shape.

obviously FI for example have done away with their concentrating on Spa/Monza and have reverted to more conventional thinking as did RedBull did somehow manage to produce a car that is not as bad as it was on the quick circuits without loosing their edge on the high downforce circuits.


If engines were diciding all teams using the same engine would show similar ups and downs on the characteristic tracks.wich is not obvious .maybe to an extend for Cosworth and Ferrari at the start of the season with their problems motivating them to turn down the engines a bit.

marcush sort of lets all the air out of the balloon, but he's right -- interesting though the topic may be, there's no way to reach any certainty. As another poster has pointed out, power under the curve will often be more important than absolutely peak power. Ferrari's earlier F1 V12s often illustrated that HP without torque is a formula for frustration.

[NewtonMeter]

Furthermore, I'd be slightly weary of speaking about absolute performance around a track anyway. When one deals with performance around an entire lap, a few more variables are added to the equation like mechanicals and tyre management which doesn't have anything to do with relative engine performance.

So its supremely difficult to make an informed judgement unless one engine is lacking severely in terms of engine power.

[strad]

There's more to it than absolute power...There's the power curve...You can make power but have it so peaky that you almost can't drive it as the throttle just becomes an on off switch...Ya gotta have torque come on at the right time...Ya gotta have engine mapping that mates up well with that curve.
Current Racer has an article where Cosworth say they think that they are right in the ball park with Redbull and the others,,,BUT, they aren't as stingy on fuel...There's more than just power...You've been talking a lot about the turbo cars from the past...Yeah they made tons of power but they were a bear to drive cause the power tended to come on at all the wrong times. You can be up on power but if you can't put it down it means nothing,,so drive-ability and the mechanical grip can also affect how you can use the power.

[marcush.]

the area under the curve is what it is all about..even though the quickshift gearboxes of todays make life easier for the engine you still want at least the possibility to shortshift a bit without loosing everything in power.Gearing becomes less critical and so a bit of head or tailwind is not that much of a concern if your engine has substance to the powerand torque curve.
and you can generally gear taller and have some extra rpm to make use of a tailwind or tow...

[segedunum]

We'd need to see some data from the teams on where and how the power goes down, how quickly it take an engine to push a car to a certain speed and how long it can maintain it. The speed trap figures are terribly misleading.

When you see how Renault powered cars have dropped off at certain circuits than you'd have to conclude that they're missing some outright power, but how much is impossible to tell. The teams will have a pretty accurate idea though, and it might well be exagerrated in public.

[xpensive]

When watching the inboard-camera of an F1 car of today's, it becomes obvious that they rarely drop beneath 15 k under power, why the need for a wide power-band becomes pretty redundant. Power is force times speed, where force can either be mass times accelleration or aerodynamic and rolling resistance, it's actually simple as that.

[marcush.]

oh exp..sorry I have to rise my voice there .
the trouble is you got a standing start there +pit stops so all your gearing calcualtions have to start from zero speed and have to end with a common top speed for all competitors so with a fixed number of gears there is not really much you can do to help your bad torque curve so you have one.
At all tracks with lowish top speeds ..there should not be that big problem but Monza could highlight some knee points in your torque curve..of course you can always make the spread a bit bigger in the lower gears as you are traction limited anyways but still it might be impossible to cover up for every weaknesss especially if you need to reduce rpm at some time during the weekend.

[xpensive]

Aha, so you think they drop the clutch at zero rpm when starting?

[marcush.]

Aha, so you think they drop the clutch at zero rpm when starting?

they start the engine before dropping the clutch.....
the point was you got an awful lot of speed spread to cover with your 7 gears ..

[segedunum]

xpensive is right. These cars and engines operate in a pretty narrow powerband, and that's where you want to be concentrating your efforts. Standing starts and pit stops simply don't make up the lion's share of where these engines operate at most of the time.

[timbo]

When watching the inboard-camera of an F1 car of today's, it becomes obvious that they rarely drop beneath 15 k under power, why the need for a wide power-band becomes pretty redundant. Power is force times speed, where force can either be mass times accelleration or aerodynamic and rolling resistance, it's actually simple as that.

VERY track dependent.
Xtreme xample here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7N8k5V2xOw
Just watch the blue line, what, as low as 5k rpm at Grand Hotel?

Not so xtreme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7KU_O663mA
around 6k at the hairpin.

Keeping in mind that we often see drivers separated by mere .01ths of a second in qualifying, I would not wrote off engine's elasticity.
That .01s might be just what you lost out of hairpin.

[marcush.]

xpensive is right. These cars and engines operate in a pretty narrow powerband, and that's where you want to be concentrating your efforts. Standing starts and pit stops simply don't make up the lion's share of where these engines operate at most of the time.

If you are .5s behind the winning driver when the flag drops I would like to ask you if it made a difference just how good your takeoff was.
We have seen whom losing out again and again at the startline ??????