Should Merc continue to develop its unique design concept or abandon it?

Wombat

Test Driver
After finally taming the severe porpoising and bouncing problems (though the drivers reported that there was still some bouncing present at the final race), Merc progressively unlocked potential from their unique design concept. While this progress culminated in a 1-2 in Brazil, the lingering problems that the cars experienced during the final race weekend raise a crucial question regarding this design concept: Is there enough as yet unlocked potential in it to produce a consistent, title winning car? For example, a major, remaining season-long problem with the car is that it generates excessive aerodynamic drag which retards its straightline speed—and good straightline speed is crucial for overtaking and producing competitive lap times. Is this something that can be rectified or is it an incurable inherent aspect of this design concept? Merc have stated that they now understand the problems with the car. However, does this mean, “Yes, and we can fix them,” or “We understand that the problems are inherent and can’t be fixed and that we need to go in a different direction.” With such a short off-season, one would guess that the team has already made its decision regarding this important matter.
 
Wombat - I think that this is an excellent question, and I suspect that the answer is "It's complicated". After all, there are moves afoot to marginally change the rules for 2023 - meaning that cars will have to run slightly higher than they have this year - this will tame the porpoising in many cars (in fact, it might even bring other cars into the mix).
 
We'll know at the first race - with a years worth of testing they'll have a decent idea of how much more performance can be extracted from the concept. if they've persisted they still believe it's the fastest design and that they can fully unlock it. If not then it was either too slow, or too hard to extract the performance from consistently.
 
its an interesting idea. i think next years car will be very different. because Mercedes thought & in 2021 in hindsight looking back you can see how they got it so wrong. but they & paddock rumour around Abu Dhabi was that it was going to be 2014 dejavu because numbers from the computer & the suction they supposely going to get. but they forgot that tracks arent flat like wind tunnels. any bump would set off the purposing. & as soon as they raised the car, downforce fell away

from what i understand that car was always decent. but they had to pile on downforce so that when they raised it up. they at effectively a net zero. they put the downforce on they were going to lose. but also they have to sort out their drag issue. they were saying at likes of monza & suzuka they were losing 8 tenths a lap just on straight line speed
 
They will have more wind tunnel time than Ferrari and Red Bull to try and fine tune it (on paper) over the winter.

Mercedes have 256 runs, Ferrari 240, Red Bull 202 (should have been 224 for RB but they're cheats so had their time reduced).

From what I understand, the issue with Mercedes was just trying to run it too close to the ground - seemingly no-one in the engineering or management teams knew about porpoising, which has affected many race series over the years.

I don't expect things to change much for next season.
 
I think they might have to change the side pods at least a little bit. They were the only ones to turn up with them and they just couldn't get them to work enough to offset any weak areas with the car. I think they might try a wider concept next year. Hamilton said they had an "upgrade" they couldn't install because of time and money.
 
They will have more wind tunnel time than Ferrari and Red Bull to try and fine tune it (on paper) over the winter.

Mercedes have 256 runs, Ferrari 240, Red Bull 202 (should have been 224 for RB but they're cheats so had their time reduced).

From what I understand, the issue with Mercedes was just trying to run it too close to the ground - seemingly no-one in the engineering or management teams knew about porpoising, which has affected many race series over the years.

I don't expect things to change much for next season.

How do they enforce the wind tunnel time limits?
 
How do they enforce the wind tunnel time limits?
I believe, like the budget cap, the FIA hope the teams will behave and if they don't, they apply a useless fine which has no deterrent effect whatsoever.
 
Back
Top Bottom