Not going to lie, by what we've seen so far, Ferrari looks highly promising. And I'm not saying that from bias or faint hope. The packaging around the engine/radiators looks ****ing awesome. Haas also showed the engine is very compact.
These cars deserve wheel designs with personality, like the previous cars. No emotion with these wheels to match the new design.
I have to agree....not being biased here but it looks desperately simple. Apart from that rocket engine in the middle? I mean we haven't seen Red Bull yet so by default what RBR have shown that's the least impressive, but his isn't far off. Not underestimating Merc at all as I'm sure they'll have plenty of **** on there but it's very plain indeed. My ranking so far: Ferrari looks by far the most innovative (no bias) #2 Alpha Tauri #3 Mclaren #4 Aston Martin #5 Williams #6 Haas (only a render for now still but bodywork very tight, much of an improvement of their previous pigs) #7 Mercedes (of course it'll be way clear of Williams) #8 Red Bull (of course expect that to fight for the title, but only FIA show car shown in RBR livery).
The renders they released are quite different than the actual launch car. As for the real car, the body work looks extremely tight, even though it's quite boring. Very similar to AM (surprise surprise), Mercedes run a very flat angle just outside the radiator inlets. They really are trying to kick out that air as hard as they can it seems. The waves in the floor are something new. And the rear wing is quite a lot different than what anyone else has shown. The front wing looks to be elevated, much like AM (surprise surprise), but what is surprising is that it appears the nose connects to the lower element. They also have the most extreme curvature to the front wing elements. It seems teams that have the high wing run very aggressive wing angles, and the low wing teams have smaller elements and less angle of attack. Even if their chassis isn't the best, the rear fear is in the PU under the bodywork. An advantage they enjoyed the entire hybrid era, aside from Ferrari's 2019 non-compliant PU.
I disagree. I think the Merc looks super sophisticated. Their central aero strategy seemed to be to maximise aero flow into and under the under body. It has the most open route for air from the nose to the underbody of all the cars so far revealed and you can see a ton of work has gone into the flow path into and under the body. Do not underestimate how advanced this car is. Having now seen all the cars (except the fake Redbull), it’s interesting how different all the car designs are. This really good to see. They will develop massively through the season. But it’s great to see that there are multiple philosophies for a change rather than one more or less identical design with minor variants from team to team. Can’t wait!
You have a point. All Mercs since 2014 looked quite simple but worked incredibly well. Hope they ****ed it though.
It looks conservative because after yesterday´s Ferrari anything looks conservative, but it´s very streamlined and there are a lot of details that show this is an already quite developed design.
Testing is going to be so interesting. It seems we are off on our own design/innovation wise, though I wonder what Red Bull are up to.
Yep. We will soon see… I’m most interested to see the real Redbull. Newey is the best in the aero business, so my hopes are high that he will have come up with something properly effective. And I like the Ferrari concept too. Very cool use of the side pod area. But my fear is that optimising the underbody aero, as Merc have done, will be more effective than optimising the over side pod aero as Ferrari have done.
The mysteries keep us watching and learning. A good sport it is. Very happy to see the spectrum of designs even before the possible major changes as we 'drive' through testing sessions! The winner of the Ms Beautiful F1 Car is Ferrari - Can she sing and dance and bring World Peace?? We hope so lol!
Your assessment is interesting. Autosport issued this of its own assessment on the new Mercedes: https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/the-intriguing-mercedes-discrepancy-keeping-its-f1-rivals-guessing/8281126/ The intriguing Mercedes discrepancy keeping its F1 rivals guessing By: Jake Boxall-Legge Feb 18, 2022, 7:06 AM Mercedes became the latest team to present a 2022 Formula 1 challenger on Friday as its W13 was revealed, with its silver livery making a comeback. But on the back of its fierce 2021 title battle and with an aerodynamic testing handicap, can Mercedes' new chariot mount a title defence - or will W13 prove to be unlucky? Silver’s back, but it’s going for gold. Mercedes begins 2022 in a familiar position: defending a constructors’ title as Formula 1 makes the move into a new aerodynamic era. Having run with a predominantly black livery for the past two seasons to underline its commitment to improving the level of diversity within the company, Mercedes returns to its silver roots. But it is no less committed to its Accelerate 25 cause, which has already begun to bear fruit and has resulted in an increase in underrepresented groups within STEM careers joining the team. Mercedes estimates that 38% of its new recruits over 2021 could be considered as such. Mercedes also begins 2021 with a new driver pairing, as George Russell picks up his long-awaited chance with a full-time ride with the Brackley squad to partner Lewis Hamilton. As driver line-ups go, it’s one that’s keenly anticipated by everyone involved within F1. What of the new car? Well, therein lies a little bit of confusion: the renders of the W13 and the physical car shown at launch aren’t the same. That’s not uncommon within launch season, with teams often attempting to wrong foot each other to hide their best-laid plans. PLUS: Why F1’s fake war is underway and the real battle is to come But which is the real W13? At a guess, probably the one that took forever to be wheeled out at the physical launch. Grampa Simpson's famous "just eat the damn oranges" quip springs to mind. Regardless, the front wing on both representations is not only interesting, but it’s a bit different to the other cars on the grid. Many of the 2022 cars seen so far have focused on loading up the inboard part of the wing, filling as much of the bounding box as possible – even at the attachment points to the nose. Image Unavailable, Please Login Mercedes W13 detail Photo by: Mercedes AMG Mercedes has focused its downforce production at the front within the centre of each side of the front wing, sweeping the wing downwards towards the nose attachments. The renders feature a more boomerang-shaped array of elements on the front wing, while the car seen in Mercedes’ launch event shifts some of the wing camber further in-board. The endplates on the renders are more triangular compared to the physical car, and those renders also show a protrusion of the nose beyond the front wing – which the launch car did not have. The transition of the endplates to the front wing is probably the squarest to be seen so far with the new breed of designs, with Mercedes perhaps looking to recapture some of the outwash effects lost to the change in regulations. This is also hinted at with the direction of the front wing flap adjuster, angled outwards to give oncoming airflow a little bit of encouragement to go around the front wheels. Once again comparing renders to physical car, Mercedes has hidden its more aggressive opening to the underbody tunnels in its imagery, and the outside strake is considerably more vertical on the real-world model to reclaim any control over the onset of airflow from the front lost to the departure of the bargeboards. This leads into some very light rippling on the edge of the floor, not dissimilar to the design used on the W12, potentially an attempt to help provide the Venturi tunnels with more of a seal – or to generate more mid-corner downforce. "Hopefully, you will also see that we have taken another step with how tightly packaged the sidepods and engine cover are. To get to this is not just a shrink-wrapping exercise but requires a huge amount of redesign and simulation to make it work" Mike Elliott Mercedes’ sidepods have an interesting feature on the leading edge too, which isn’t visible on the renders; the front corners have been dimpled inwards with a flow conditioner placed on top. It’s similar to the shaping that Aston Martin launched its AMR22 with, in an attempt to control the airflow coming from the front wheel assembly and turn it outwards. Previously, that was a job for the mass of bargeboard parts that sat in that area, but these have been waylaid by the new rules – meaning that the teams have had to use their ingenuity to overcome their departure. The sidepods have offered further variation in design, probably aligning most closely with the McLaren MCL36 – which is no surprise, given their common powertrains. But again, the physical car shown on Mercedes’ stream is even more tightly packaged compared to those seen on the renders, with the rear almost tapering off into a tear-drop shape to open up the top of the floor. That should also yield the reintroduced beam wing with lots of clean air to work with, given the noticeable clearance between the rear wheels and the car’s tail. “Getting to the desired aero shapes has meant a complete internal repackaging,” said Mercedes’ technical director Mike Elliott, “right down to the electrical layout and where we fit things like the ECU. “The suspension has been redesigned to account for the loss of hydraulics and remote springs, now banned in the new regulations. Hopefully, you will also see that we have taken another step with how tightly packaged the sidepods and engine cover are. To get to this is not just a shrink-wrapping exercise but requires a huge amount of redesign and simulation to make it work.” Image Unavailable, Please Login Mercedes W13 detail Photo by: Mercedes AMG It’s also interesting to see Mercedes’ take on the rear wing, which features two dips either side of the central mounting pillar, with the leading edge of the mainplane slightly raised in the centre. At such an early stage in the new ruleset, it’s hard to know definitively what specification of wings are being shown, especially given the renders show a slightly different variation – where the mainplane is straighter overall. Given the retention of the powertrain formula, Mercedes appears to have largely kept the same inlet size within the rollhoop given intake and cooling will be in a similar ballpark to what last season’s internals required. Mercedes has introduced a few changes to its power unit ahead of the freeze point before the start of the season, and managing director of Mercedes’ High Performance Powertrains division Hywel Thomas noted that his team had to work closely with the chassis team to reach an optimal layout. “The project we took on for 2022 was large,” said Thomas, “and it is a very broad upgrade across the different elements, to get every last bit of performance, efficiency and reliability. There are also some FIA-imposed measurements, particularly in the ERS system, that we had to accommodate as well. "The chassis team have been working very diligently and swiftly through the new regulations, so they can understand where the opportunities lie, and which areas are lap time sensitive. We make adjustments to the PU that allow the chassis team to best exploit the regulations. We might want to rearrange the installation slightly or change the PU layout to get more flexibility in those lap time sensitive areas.” "Over the course of the year, given the regulation changes, I think the development of the overall car package will be quite strong, so the way the PU works at the start of the season won't be the same come the final races of 2022. We must include that ability to be adaptable into the PU from the start of the season, because of the performance freeze.” If Storm Eunice doesn’t put a pin in venturing outside, Mercedes has planned a shakedown at Silverstone to begin its first batch of troubleshooting ahead of the 2022 season. One thing that could be in the team’s favour is the change in inclination of the ‘22 cars, which have so far run without any rake to maximise the efficiency of the Venturi tunnel underbody. That’s a sea change from a year ago, when the floor changes rewarded cars with more rake but, given that everyone’s starting from scratch, it probably won’t give Mercedes too much of a leg up. Regardless, Mercedes was one of two teams in a title fight, and most likely would have made some compromises to ensure it could last the distance in 2021. It also, thanks to its constructors’ title win, has the least available windtunnel time owing to the new aero testing regulations. Like last year, Mercedes is not going to have it all its own way – and if anything, it might take a little bit of pain in the early season with those drawbacks. But if there’s one team who knows how to turn a diva into a dancer, the Silver Arrows can. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Looks like Merc phoned it in with recycled sidepods and wavy floor from 2021. It’ll probably be fast but maybe, just maybe, they took their eye off the ball to do battle with the RB last year. Combined with their reduced wind tunnel time per the rules—Dodo already claiming Ferrari have a .2 sec. advantage because of this—maybe they just resorted to aero concepts from the previous generation cars that may not necessarily adapt well to the ground effects car.
