Mercedes W03

It's the low down force front wing that has peaked my curiosity...

 

That is incorrect....but I'm not reaching for my Coach Kristin yet...

 

I really hate the covered cockpit. I was hoping that was still many years out.

OTOH the new wheel tethers are impressive.

 

Actually it is correct: With the 1991 points system MS would have beaten Nico by 3 points.

Obviously there are dozens of different point systems over the years yielding different results, but the one before last did the trick.

 

That isn't the part which is incorrect....

 

Oh, squeeze me. I didn't go that deep into deciphering the original message. I believe you however.

 

http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/formel-1/technik-trick-aktiviert-der-drs-knopf-auch-den-f-schacht-4468262.html


Interesting article from March 9 explains MB's potential DRS and w-duct tie. Also notes an 18kph difference between DRS open and closed with Merc which is a few kph difference more than other teams who typically see 13-15kph at Catalunya. They are up to something.....

 

Every team in F1 is ALWAYS up to something.

It is the nature of the beast.

 

That's definitely true, but every year almost without fail there is one team doing some 'it' thing that actually works and everyone copies. EBD, DDD, bendy wings, j-damper, blah blah blah.

 

And here it is. Really brilliant job Mercedes. Very interesting. /golf clap

http://scarbsf1.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/mercedes-f-duct-front-wing-operated-by-the-rear-wing-drs/

 

Very interesting article...that helps explain why it would be so difficult to copy if they're really routing from the back wing all the way up front. Do they (Mercedes) still have the slot in the nose area similar to the Red Bull? I wonder if that helps add velocity to the air moving through from the rear to help stall at a lower overall speed? Great catch and thanks for posting! I'm actually thinking of keeping my old rear out of bed for the PF1 live stream tomorrow. Usually with the Far East races my DVR does the dirty work (altough this isn't without folly as rain has made me an unhappy viewer in Malaysia)

 

Very interesting indeed - *If* that's what they've done, and it works as advertised I'm really impressed. However, I'm still not convinced for a couple of reasons;

- I don't see how the air "in" the holes when DRS is open is going to be at a lower pressure than the air whizzing by it - As we know, high speed air = low pressure air - I'd guess it would be more likely to be *sucking* air out of the holes! [Also possible, and a little more likely?]

- The plumbing to move the air all the way thru the car has gotta be a nightmare - I guess I'm just not "feeling" it.

But, I was wrong once!

Cheers,
Ian
PS - Hopefully Scarbs doesn't mind me reposting his drawings for illustrative/newsworthy purposes (?)
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I know him, and he is cool with it so long as his name is mentioned, which it obviously is in most of his photos!

Anyway, there is some theory out there that the front wing hole in the nosecone is constantly flowing to the rear wing holes which are covered by the DRS flap, and when DRS is activated, a switch junction decides whether to stall the front wing based on DRS being activated OR if the front nose hole reaches a certain pressure. This means the front f-duct could work two ways; with DRS as a secondary function (legal), and passively as the front hole reaches a certain pressure. Regardless, this could mean the Merc is *the* qualifier this year.

 

Very cool.

The more I think eek on this, the more I think he's got it backwards. The original f-ducts worked by feeding additional air to the rear wing, right? That's exactly what opening this hole is gonna do - Air is being "sucked" (by the low pressure air passing by) out in the vicinity of the rear wing and voila, a legal f-duct.......

I'm not sure about (anything!) a switch being legal - Even passive Charlie isn't gonna like that. But, when the DRS is closed there's obviously no flow front to rear - Open it, and it's gonna suck like a hoover and who knows what then happens at the front.

Cheers,
Ian

 

Gills reappear on the Benz sidepods...*sigh*

 

The Airforce did experiments in the mid-1960s with slots milled in the wings of experimental aircraft. When air was blown through the slots drag decreased without losing lift.

 

I actually heard that these were perhaps intentional. The gills are pointed towards the exhaust and the exhaust essentially supercharges the additional air coming from the gills thus aiding downforce. I've also heard those sidepods are specific for Malaysia only. Not sure. We'll see right.

 

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/98035

 

Good.
There's little enough innovation left in F1.

 

Mitch, thank you for this. Huge thanks actually. I spent a good amount of time on the phone with a friend of mine who is an engineer with Boeing talking about laminar flow and slots near the trailing edge. He seemed to believe flow would be unaffected if the design were built around knowing they were there, but the bottom of the wing needed to compensate in some ways. Great case study example though Mitch.

 

"No moving parts, completely passive, nothing" , per Whiting.


Amazing, how did Mercedes do this. I knew Bob Bell hid himself away in Brackley for good reason. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say a Merc might just make pole this weekend.

 

Interesting stuff, it's all about the interpretation of the rules, a passive F duct is ok, for now....

 

And so long as it's a secondary device as well I believe

 

The genie is out of the box.
Now we see how effective it is and how long it takes the rest of the field to adapt.
Got to hand it to Ross.
Again

 

I was wondering this same thing. If there is indeed ducting from the front to back, I know this is not going to be an easy adaptation as any modification to the crash structure requires crash testing. If we see teams adapting to this rather quickly than it might be safe to say that there is no ducting from front to back. Then again if the system is as Whiting says, "completely passive" and is linked to the rear DRS, how on earth would they not be linked. Bell and Brawn really got one over on the field with this one......again.

Rumors say this further stalling of the front wing in combination with DRS adds another .500 during qualifying. Fast. Especially at the power circuits. Australia sees a top end of around 310kph so we'll see how this does.