The issue predominant is flexing of the very large floor
Tough to flex surgical-installed diamonds lol Seems the floor is the main issue. The 'no sidepods' is a small compound to it from the press and others talking about it in the aero world.
More about Mercedes dire choice after Spain. This will be interesting to see evolve from a design and subsequent performance perspective............. https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/mercedes-not-discounting-ditching-zero-pod-concept-after-spanish-gp/10302171/ Mercedes won't rule out ditching F1 sidepod design after Spanish GP Mercedes has not ruled out abandoning its ‘zero-pod’ concept as it faces a crunch decision on the future of its Formula 1 car after the Spanish Grand Prix. Image Unavailable, Please Login By: Jonathan Noble May 10, 2022, 12:02 PM Image Unavailable, Please Login The German manufacturer is struggling to tame the porpoising problems that have beset the W13 since the start of the season and have left the squad unable to challenge Ferrari and Red Bull. While the team continues to chase answers, it views the next F1 race at Barcelona as a key moment in defining its next steps. Having run at the track in pre-season testing with its standard sidepod launch spec, the running over the Spanish GP will give it a golden opportunity to compare the behaviour and potential of the different concepts. After limited progress has been made so far this year, Mercedes thinks a call has to be made soon on whether to plough on with the ‘zero-pod’ solution or do something different. Asked by Autosport if it could rule out going back to the launch spec philosophy if Barcelona shows that’s the way to go, Wolff said: “Well I wouldn't discount anything, but we need to give all our people benefit of the doubt. “They have produced great race cars in the past and we believe that this is the route to go. Barcelona is definitely going to be a point in time where we are able to correlate with what we saw in February and gather more data. “I'm also annoyed about saying the same thing about gathering data and making experiments, but it's physics and not mystics, and therefore you have to unpick the data.” What Mercedes needs to get out of the Spanish GP weekend is the answer as to whether the theoretical performance benefits of the current ‘zero-pod’ solution can be attained in real life.
I am not aero expert, but the problem seems to be more underneath the car with the floor design than the sidepods. I doubt if Mercedes will be able to catch up this season.
All aero surfaces play a part in stable down force. When one part of the aero system is off it could create issues with the other aero surfaces, such as uncontrolled buffeting. A lot of times these cannot be determined by modeling and wind tunnels. Software modeling is great but it only gets you so far. Then wind tunnel testing, but how do you simulated in a wind tunnel the effect of random bumps and vibrations? Harmonics caused by all the vibratory systems at play, such as the engine, gearbox, the person in the seat, the wind variance on aero surfaces must be displaced outside the physical car or it can create havoc with stability. Mercedes is very smart and employs top notch engineers, they will solve this issue, it's all physics.
They need a better car. By consensus on this forum, the driver only counts for 20% of the success, right?
Without budget cap a turnover like this would be already pretty impossible. So then imagine with the financial restrictions..
Remember the email drawings sent by toto to Masi at Silverstone 2021 when Ham crashed into Max to ensure Max doesn't win?
Maxing out that 20% driver bandwidth would make a significant difference. But yes, improving the car is easier for Mercedes than finding a new Senna / Schumacher.
No driver can close the gap of 0.7 seconds. What Schumacher could do if you are not allowed to test the car anymore? Put Verstappen on the Merc and he will not be close to winning races. Russell is very fast, put him in a Ferrari or RedBull and see what happens.
But all teams were all testing when Schumacher was fighting the dominant Williams that was 1 second faster than his Benetton and every other car. MSC made the difference.
No other team had the testing facilities Ferrari had. Fiorano is near Maranello and could be used at any time; other teams had to rent circuits and travel far afield to test. The difference were the hours Schumacher spend testing, practising and setting up his car before the season and between races. Granted Schumacher was probably more dedicated than most doing that, but that was his advantage.
I completely agree, Schumacher work ethic allowed them to close the gap, nobody worked as hard as he did and committed so much time to it. But today with the amount of testing time allowed, his talents would be wasted.
All other teams are practically build on top of Silverstone. Fiorano as a circuit is tiny. It's like an XL go kart track. Like said by others, other teams had the capability to rent silverstone and plenty of other tracks (as was done throughout the year at the nearest suitable track when traveling through Europe). It was his dedication that made the true difference.
Being down .7 per lap?? No thats not how it works. No one takes a .7 car down per lap and wins. Ask Russell lol. He is doing the maximum and having some nice luck as well. The only thing Max has done is drive well and suffer less tire degradation with an advantage on the straights with top speed. In the Mercedes with .7 or more down per lap plus lack of top speed he does what Russell does or worse. Possibly .7 down in qualy due to a mistake sure. But thats a momentary gap that is not reflective of potential without the mistake.
Nowadays it would be difficult for a driver to cover such a gap, but i recall Gilles winning races in a car that was 2 full seconds a lap slower! Of course in the early 80s, the driver counted for a lot more than 20%, but even so, i never saw anyone else do something similar. WEll, perhaps Michael at barcelona 96, his car was at leas 1sec per lap slower than the Williams, but again, it was raining, so that gave him a bigger margin, Gilles did it on dry, wich is a lot more impressive!
in 2018 the Red Bull was .6% slower than the Mercedes. Max scored 2 wins. 2019 Red Bull was anywhere from .4 to .8 slower on average, Max won 3 races (including Austria, where he qualified .45 down, 8 tenths clear of his teammate, on the fastest lap of the season. A normal 90 second lap would make Max .7 slower). 2020 Red Bull was .8% slower, yet Max wins 2 races. Including the Silverstone GP where he qualified over a second behind the mercs but half a second clear of his teammate (for reference, the races before this the qualifying told much the same, max being outqualified by a second yet him being well clear of his teammate, and the races after, the same story presented itself with the red bull .5 to over a second off the pace, but Max well clear of his teammate). So yes, those races won do actually reflect what happened those seasons.
I could check on that but I believe the FIA introduced a ban for testing on circuits that were on the F1 calendar that year. That would mean Silverstone was out of the question most years. Silverstone was never available willy-nilly anyway. Most circuits need to be booked well in advance, and don't come cheap either. I remember BRM and Lotus practising at Snetterton in the 60s. I was taken to one of these sessions circa 66. G.Hill still at BRM then. I think that was one of the reasons why Chapman moved Lotus to Hethel to be nearer that circuit. Up to the 80s, Brands Hatch was sometimes used too, but that interfered with the driving school. McLaren tested at Goodwood where Bruce was killed. Later the team thought about buying Lydden Hill to turn it into their test track. Paul Ricard in South France hosted some testing too; that's where poor De Angelis lost his life. Later some British teams went to test at Spanish tracks, or in South Africa for the weather, but the cost influenced too. Britain being too cold, they used to say, which is probably true but I think they wanted to escape the glare of the media (already!). But anyway, that's not the same as Fiorano which was always readily available. I agree about the dedication though ...
