2023 F1 Car Launch dates

Ferrari finally put the nose on the second element, leaving a slot gap. I was surprised they never changed this last year.

 

Let’s hope it is worse than last year’s effort.

 

Russell will still do a better job with it than his team mate

 

Boooooooooo!

 

To be honest, that is no concern, nor interest, of mine.

I hope both Mercs, and both RBs, and all the rest are behind our guys.

Forza Ferrari !

 

Well if the season is as good as the epic launch,maybe 2023 will be THE year,cant believe its 16 years since Kimi was WDC.Then again there was a 21 year drought after Jody before Schumi in 2000.

Just pray Fred can sort out the muppets in the strategy team....Charles looks nice and confident and Carlos has that steely eyed look about him ..remains to be seen if team orders surface early on in favour of Charles,hope they give Carlos a fair shot at the title,if he earns it.

 

They went pretty far with the whole ''saving weight on paint'' thing

 

Yup. But lets wait for bahrain...though I do think they'll stay with it as they've hinted at that quite a lot in the last few months.

If we're to believe Adrian Newey (written well before this merc concept came about), the zero sidepods concept, whilst it certainly provides good low drag figures in the windtunnel, it prohibits control of airflow which in the end will lead to poorer performance. Unless Merc has found a very clever trick to make it work, I'm going to stick with the words of Newey here...

 

Silver Arrows ditched again ?

 

Some doubted they´d try the zero sidepods again but they went -1.

 

Toto has been stating the actual 'major' changes would not be visible vs the 'sidepod' So floor etc I would suppose.

Per Autosport:
The weight saving on the paint adds to the fact that the W14 is a significantly lighter chassis, and features revised front suspension geometry, cooling system adjustments and refined aerodynamics.

Technical director Mike Elliott explained that a lot of the work done on the W14 was effort that could not be introduced last year because of cost cap constraints.

 

Yup.

One wonders how much overweight they still are since they have to do this? Or maybe they saw it as an opportunity and did it anyways despite making weight already...

 

Is there another cause being promoted this time? Or just trying to save some weight?

Looking at the renders, though, it seems the top surfaces of the car are actually painted black and not exposed carbon.

 

It must be for weight reasons. I suppose the carbon layout of the painted parts was too ugly to leave it exposed, but stripped everything they could.

 

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/mercedes-black-livery-switch-driven-by-f1-weight-saving/10432369/

--Rather than the car being painted black in its entirety, much of it is unpainted and run as raw carbon fibre.

The upper section of the nose and the engine cover feature matte black paint, but almost every lower element of the car, including the wings, are unpainted.

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff did not hide from the fact that the decision to be so bold in not painting its car has been driven by a bid to save extra mass.

“We were overweight last year,” he said. “This year we have tried to figure out where we can squeeze out every single gramme. So now, history repeats itself.

“You will see that the car has some raw carbon bits, along with some that are painted matte black.--

 

Is this the new Merc W14 or just last years car with no paint?

 

Note that the “projected” frontal area of this concept is no less than that of full sidepod cars since the front tires shadow the wide part of the sidepods in the latter case.

Any reduction in drag here will come from the fact that the “dirty” air shed by the front tires will not latch on (or stick to) the sidepod surfaces, creating drag and lowering the energy of air to the back of the car. Also, last year, the pundits were impressed by the exposed floor area which, this year, looks to be reduced and Ferrari—with their substantial undercut region—seems to match or better the Merc.

To help downwash flow to the underfloor, Merc need to add all these (drag and lift generating) devices whereas for cars with full sidepods the flow around these does the job. Also, the Ferrari is much tighter than the Merc above the waistline, so promoting good flow to the rear wing and (presumably) doesn’t carry its fuel load so high since the Merc takes out a chunk of the chassis to bury the heat exchangers into either side of the chassis.

 

Just a stupid question about this weight saving, wich i think was pretty clever or Merc side....couldn't ferrari just do the car in red carbon? Or would the cost just be stupid?