A few years back some friends were at the first week of barcelona testing, ferrari was fastest. Second week, mb showed up with a different car. Seems they know how to do it. Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
In my post I meant to say "DAS controversy" not "DAS conspiracy". But roughly the same point. What Mercedes did isn't even exploiting a loophole so much as just coming up with a radical design. Perhaps deeper in the rule book there are certain lines that can be questioned on interpretation, like the mirrors. "some teams will find the design extreme, illegal, unfair and will protest it. You seem to abound in that direction" - I clearly said I had no problem with the Mercedes design. There was a good argument how DAS was illegal as it broke parc ferme rules in the sense it altered the setup during the race. I don't want a big discussion on that, it's a dead horse, but the point is there was grounds to ban it and the FIA chose to ban it after allowing it for 1 season. The FIA also gave direct consulting to Mercedes in how to make the design "legal" to the FIA's standards. If teams protest the Mercedes design based on things found in the technical regulations, something with the mirrors being an aero device (which they all are now anyways) or whatever, then the FIA should ban it or Merc faces DQ if they don't modify the design to conform to the technical regs. This is very close to being black and white, unlikely the silly "spirit of the rules" nonsense. The whole spirit of the rules thing is too subjective if you ask me. If it conforms to technical regs, then it's legal. How the FIA police this "spirit of the rules" is extremely inconsistent. Mercedes shows CAD drawings that the FIA say are against the spirit of the rules, but call it legal until another team protests (WTF?), but allow them to run it for the whole season. Which I tend to agree with if it complies with technical regs. However, they gave the same okay to Red Bull over their rear wing, which Mercedes quickly adopted the same solution after protesting the Red Bull, and the FIA changed the rules within a few weeks, but disregarded the flexy front wings completely. Changing the pitstop procedure on grounds of safety? Come on. There was no incidents that proved the procedure was unreasonably unsafe, and there is nothing to suggest the new procedure is any more safe. Bottas' spin in the pits was more unsafe, but you didn't see the FIA ban wheel spin in the pits or even banning exiting the pit box in a higher gear. There is nothing to support the need for the FIA to change the rules on grounds of safety, but it sure did close off a competitive advantage Red Bull had.
2019. All the media swore the Ferrari was the car to beat because it looked amazing in testing. Mercedes didn't look great until they showed up with a big update and the car dominated the season. You know what they say. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
I for one was blown away by the new Mercedes and their ability to produce two different cars. Let's not forget that in the last test RedBull showed up with something radical that looked like it was eons ahead of anything else and it was lauded for its innovation. Less than 2 weeks later Mercedes makes them look ordinary with their new car. Its just brilliant for enthusiasts of the sport and while I would like Ferrari to be the one leading the way in innovation, I'm thrilled to be a spectator to these engineering feats. As for the whole 'spirit of the rules' it looks like the FIA is going soft on us. Next thing you know the podium will have 20 spots on it. Racing is a hard game and if someone out-thinks you, buckle down and figure out a way to be smarter or get out of the way. This is a big appeal of the sport and I hope it is not watered down by bleeding hearts thinking that everyone is a winner and that losing is unfair.
Last week I said about the Red Bull their sidepods are the biggest innovation since Ferrari did the F2002. That still holds true. But Mercedes has the biggest sidepod innovation since Red Bull 2022.
Precisely. Read the rules. Be clever. Audi R8 and lemans rules required wing enplates to be rectangle and no bigger than a certain size when attached to the wing. Image Unavailable, Please Login Someone read the rules....nothing about making the endplates stick up from the body... wing endplate still there....body endplate, though protested was deemed legal. Image Unavailable, Please Login
At some point with all the crap in F1I would like an old school "run what ya Brung" Throw a cash cap on it, but other than that anything goes. Spend the time making sure the budget is in compliance and let the teams dream **** up.
In fact, there were real safety concerns with the new pitstop procedure Red Bull introduced once it was revealed. It relied of accelerating the wheel change by building automatism in that all operations would be done faultlessly and without check. Thus, if a mechanic had a slight delay in tightening the wheelnut, the flag man would have already signaled the driver to go. a) The airgun operator was at risk of being injured by the departing car before he could complete his prodedure. b) The team would commit an "unsafe release" by sending back on the track a car with a wheel not properly locked. The FIA banned that wheel change method to everyone's relief. There is no need to wait for incident and casualties to stop an unsafe procedure. Prevention is better than cure. In fact, rumour has it that it was a Red Bull mechanic who blew the whistle. That put pay to the accusation that the FIA acted on Toto Wolf instruction.
So, as explained by Merc TD Mike Elliot on Ted’s notebook, the real objective of the narrow sidepods design was to have these inboard of the front tire wake so the turbulent wake would not latch onto the body work and get sucked into the Coke area. It’s really not to do with velocity over the exposed floor as, in any case, you want a higher pressure above the floor than under it. Not sure who did the graphics on that picture but I’m pretty sure there is not air being sucked to the top side of the floor in front of the rear wheel. Looking at the Merc straight on from the front, I don’t see any huge reduction in projected frontal area compared with the Ferrari as the front tires mask the narrower side pods and especially as the Merc is bulkier behind the driver. And all this high-mounted volume also implies as higher CG. Ferrari and most others’ sidepod design pushes the front tire wake outboard. I expect this creates a (relatively) low-pressure zone at the side of the car so reducing the amount of air leaking into the under-floor. The Ferrari design of the upper surface of the sidepods, with the pronounced dip and kick-up at the end is obviously designed to recover some downforce here as opposed to the Merc sidepods where the flow is turned down and so generates some lift. So maybe not as aero-dramatic it looks to be a sound design.
As explained very well by Migeot in Autosport, the porpoising is not due to flow separation but is a aeroelasticity problem. About the top speed of the Mercs, from those measuring such things as the engine acoustic signatures, it seems the Mercs were running very short gearing. So either masking top speed while still wringing out the engine or they’re prioritizing acceleration on their gear selection.
I fear Mercedes is once again going to be unbeatable. I agree with those who say Mercedes has been working on this car for three or four years. It isn't that Mercedes builds faster cars, it is that Mercedes builds better teams. That team came to the new era with a really new car. Everyone else is still evolving but not innovating. They are reacting to the rules, not reinventing them.
I fear this too. Yesterday Toto talked to Piola ( Italian journalist) and said to him that if their aerodynamic concept works then they will have a very confortable season !
Day 2 Latifi fire Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I spy with my little eye.....good pic of the bottom part of the floor of the Williams. Image Unavailable, Please Login
4 years head start with huge budget and resources followed by some voodoo accountancy can buy lots of extra speed. Should be another cake walk for Mercedes. At least one car won't be wasted on Bottas this time
It will be another year of how LH is dragging yet another pos car to victory. All kidding aside it seems that the MB has the worst porpoising and I think the mirrors and front wing are questionable at best. Again, it’s only testing.
What is there to fear ? That the team with the best engineering, and the best preparation could win? If Mercedes prepared the earliest and the best for the new formula to get an advantage, so be it. There is nothing magical about it; it's the product of good management and hard work. Why couldn't other teams do the same?
let’s face it MB spend far more on their F1 operations than any other team so kudos to them. Allegedly spent 1.4 billion on developing the hybrid engines, and of course no one could catch up due to the silly token system. I know MB did all their homework upfront on this car but I can’t wait to see some novel accounting coming from all the teams in the future under this budget cap.
