What do you think's going on at Mercedes right now then?
Discussion
IMO people are making too big a thing about the position of the driver in the car.
I have worked on the design of F1 cars with the driver’s knees almost at the front axle and then with feet 10 to 15 cm behind the front axle without the driver failing to feel what was going on.
When we tested the 6 wheeler (4 rear wheels) when the driver was asked whether he got more power under steer with 4 rear wheels, he said he’d forgotten he was driving a 6 wheeler and that was VERY different.
IME whatever you think a problem might be, when you fix it always turns out actually to be either tyre temperature or aero.
Interestingly the team at Merc have been exceptional at keeping their already good car at the front when rule changes were small - highly effective micro-development - but presumably don’t have anybody with a good enough global understanding of the flow field overall, so didn’t get the big rule change correct.
The new F1 rules have a lot in common globally with the old CHAMP car underbody rules and the only team with an aero guy with experience of them were Red Bull - Dan Fallows was a young aero CFD guy at Lola on CHAMP car and probably gave them a head start on the likely effects and how to exploit them.
Now he is at Aston.
I don’t think Merc (or any of the others) have anybody with that breadth of experience of ground effect and I’d bet it’ll take a while more to catch up. More likely to be underbody than sidepod.
I have worked on the design of F1 cars with the driver’s knees almost at the front axle and then with feet 10 to 15 cm behind the front axle without the driver failing to feel what was going on.
When we tested the 6 wheeler (4 rear wheels) when the driver was asked whether he got more power under steer with 4 rear wheels, he said he’d forgotten he was driving a 6 wheeler and that was VERY different.
IME whatever you think a problem might be, when you fix it always turns out actually to be either tyre temperature or aero.
Interestingly the team at Merc have been exceptional at keeping their already good car at the front when rule changes were small - highly effective micro-development - but presumably don’t have anybody with a good enough global understanding of the flow field overall, so didn’t get the big rule change correct.
The new F1 rules have a lot in common globally with the old CHAMP car underbody rules and the only team with an aero guy with experience of them were Red Bull - Dan Fallows was a young aero CFD guy at Lola on CHAMP car and probably gave them a head start on the likely effects and how to exploit them.
Now he is at Aston.
I don’t think Merc (or any of the others) have anybody with that breadth of experience of ground effect and I’d bet it’ll take a while more to catch up. More likely to be underbody than sidepod.
F1Eng said
“The new F1 rules have a lot in common globally with the old CHAMP car underbody rules and the only team with an aero guy with experience of them were Red Bull - Dan Fallows was a young aero CFD guy at Lola on CHAMP car and probably gave them a head start on the likely effects and how to exploit them.
Now he is at Aston.”
The simplest explanation makes the most sense. As for Lewis’s concerns, then I guess he needs to wait for the 2024 car, and a better location in the tub.
“The new F1 rules have a lot in common globally with the old CHAMP car underbody rules and the only team with an aero guy with experience of them were Red Bull - Dan Fallows was a young aero CFD guy at Lola on CHAMP car and probably gave them a head start on the likely effects and how to exploit them.
Now he is at Aston.”
The simplest explanation makes the most sense. As for Lewis’s concerns, then I guess he needs to wait for the 2024 car, and a better location in the tub.
rdjohn said:
F1Eng said
“The new F1 rules have a lot in common globally with the old CHAMP car underbody rules and the only team with an aero guy with experience of them were Red Bull - Dan Fallows was a young aero CFD guy at Lola on CHAMP car and probably gave them a head start on the likely effects and how to exploit them.
Now he is at Aston.”
The simplest explanation makes the most sense. As for Lewis’s concerns, then I guess he needs to wait for the 2024 car, and a better location in the tub.
That was a masterstroke from Larry Stroll. One consequence of the ‘three wildcard salaries’ rule, is that an exceptional person not in that category in a large team, can be poached with a large raise by a smaller team. “The new F1 rules have a lot in common globally with the old CHAMP car underbody rules and the only team with an aero guy with experience of them were Red Bull - Dan Fallows was a young aero CFD guy at Lola on CHAMP car and probably gave them a head start on the likely effects and how to exploit them.
Now he is at Aston.”
The simplest explanation makes the most sense. As for Lewis’s concerns, then I guess he needs to wait for the 2024 car, and a better location in the tub.
I also suspect that, over time, we’ll see more experienced technical team members move to part time roles, to keep the salary down. I suspect a senior design engineer, or engineering team leader, is much more productive (output / time on the computer) working three days a week on the computer, and taking four days a week to think about the problem, as opposed to five days a week on the computer, and two days thinking about the problem.
Nah, this season is a write off for anyone except red bull but it’s exciting to see the design team swapping around.
I do think with Mercedes being so successful it was easy to wander into a fundamental mistake, I just hope it doesn’t evolve into a McLaren or Ferrari downwards spiral for a decade or so.
I do think with Mercedes being so successful it was easy to wander into a fundamental mistake, I just hope it doesn’t evolve into a McLaren or Ferrari downwards spiral for a decade or so.
Pflanzgarten said:
Nah, this season is a write off for anyone except red bull but it’s exciting to see the design team swapping around.
They have certainly been the highest performers so far, however there a long way to go, plus they have shown fragility.All other teams have more development and testing time that RBR, so there is a great deal of opportunity for gaps to be closed.
Over one lap pace, RBR aren't as dominant as the Mercedes propaganda machine would like to have you believe.
mat205125 said:
They have certainly been the highest performers so far, however there a long way to go, plus they have shown fragility.
All other teams have more development and testing time that RBR, so there is a great deal of opportunity for gaps to be closed.
Over one lap pace, RBR aren't as dominant as the Mercedes propaganda machine would like to have you believe.
I disagree, they are absolutely as quick as Mercedes fear, they’re driving to massively pessimistic deltas when up front. Off the leash they’d likely lap everyone else with no disruptions.All other teams have more development and testing time that RBR, so there is a great deal of opportunity for gaps to be closed.
Over one lap pace, RBR aren't as dominant as the Mercedes propaganda machine would like to have you believe.
What I don’t agree with is Mercedes’ woe is me act-they’re at worst the third quickest car and likely the second if they could get their understanding consistent.
Pflanzgarten said:
What I don’t agree with is Mercedes’ woe is me act-they’re at worst the third quickest car and likely the second if they could get their understanding consistent.
Mercedes pedal that cr@p even when they enjoyed their massive dominance for the best part of a decade.They've reached the point where they've told the same story for so long, they actually believe what they're spewing
mat205125 said:
Pflanzgarten said:
What I don’t agree with is Mercedes’ woe is me act-they’re at worst the third quickest car and likely the second if they could get their understanding consistent.
Mercedes pedal that cr@p even when they enjoyed their massive dominance for the best part of a decade.They've reached the point where they've told the same story for so long, they actually believe what they're spewing
Leithen said:
Newey worked in Champ cars in the early ‘80s too, so double bonus for Red Bull and no surprise we see their current advantage. I’m surprised none of the teams approached Barnard to consult as he did the same. Perhaps they did and he declined.
It was the late 90s when the Champ car rules were like current F1, so Adrian’s experience would have been less useful than Dan’s I expect.Aero wasn’t John Barnard’s speciality really and he arrived in F1 at the very end of the ground effect era anyway (and got all his data to do the Chapparal from his mate and old colleague Patrick Head). I don’t think he would be able to offer much to current rules.
f1eng said:
It was the late 90s when the Champ car rules were like current F1, so Adrian’s experience would have been less useful than Dan’s I expect.
Aero wasn’t John Barnard’s speciality really and he arrived in F1 at the very end of the ground effect era anyway (and got all his data to do the Chapparal from his mate and old colleague Patrick Head). I don’t think he would be able to offer much to current rules.
He got no data from Patrick, they had a single chat over the phone about some of the basic concepts, the car didn't even get to see a wind tunnel. At the time Patrick was learning about ground effect himself, being at the early stages of the FW07 project.Aero wasn’t John Barnard’s speciality really and he arrived in F1 at the very end of the ground effect era anyway (and got all his data to do the Chapparal from his mate and old colleague Patrick Head). I don’t think he would be able to offer much to current rules.
500TORQUES said:
f1eng said:
It was the late 90s when the Champ car rules were like current F1, so Adrian’s experience would have been less useful than Dan’s I expect.
Aero wasn’t John Barnard’s speciality really and he arrived in F1 at the very end of the ground effect era anyway (and got all his data to do the Chapparal from his mate and old colleague Patrick Head). I don’t think he would be able to offer much to current rules.
He got no data from Patrick, they had a single chat over the phone about some of the basic concepts, the car didn't even get to see a wind tunnel. At the time Patrick was learning about ground effect himself, being at the early stages of the FW07 project.Aero wasn’t John Barnard’s speciality really and he arrived in F1 at the very end of the ground effect era anyway (and got all his data to do the Chapparal from his mate and old colleague Patrick Head). I don’t think he would be able to offer much to current rules.
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