The time for excuses is over. In the season of 2013, Mercedes fight for victories. The development of the new model AMGW04 enters its decisive phase. Over Christmas delivers the aerodynamics department two major development thrusts. Half its goal had been achieved previously. End of season 2012 Mercedes missing between 1.5 and two seconds on top of the class, because the Red Bull team champion with his redesign for 2013 up to at least one more second is Mercedes needs to make up for their own account about three seconds. Half of it was already done before the holidays. If the wind tunnel delivers correct data. The crucial development thrust for the new Mercedes AMGW04 was planned for the period around Christmas and New Year around. And in two stages. Mercedes AMGW04 will resemble Red Bull Mechanically the 2013er Silver Arrow has been a face. The new ultra-small gear has become ready in time and brought its first successful test runs behind. The crash tests were passed on time. The chassis has its baptism of fire in the lab already behind. The rear wheel suspension is designed so that it can change the geometry quickly when needed. The tire development requires that flexibility. While Aldo Costa has the field of mechanical grip, about the aerodynamics is a question mark. The new Mercedes is very different from the old. One need not be a soothsayer that he is similar in many details to the Red Bull, especially around the exhaust. Course 2013 Mercedes continues with the Coanda solution. "This is the way to go," confirmed team boss Ross Brawn at the season finale in Sao Paulo. Meanwhile, the engineers know why the exhaust gases, the rear tires have heated up excessively. The side boxes were to blame. The exhaust jet was lost in free space, after he left the tailpipes and the Coanda slot. Red Bull he will continue beyond the side boxes and the bottom plate to the diffuser edge. Disturbing influences by the natural flow Adrian Newey met with two shafts, where he sucks the trending along the sidepods air into the vehicle. The same is expected from Mercedes. http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/...04-auf-der-suche-nach-3-sekunden-6360842.html
Only problem with this is that Mercedes report that they reckon the RB9 will be a whole second faster than last season so they need to gain 3 seconds from their previous design to be on equal terms, not being funny but that's big! Even for Mercedes...
And the closer the design comes to Sebs driving style, which it nearly is, it's ony going to lead to Seb running away with it 2011 style and RBR will only make it faster throughout. They could really break Mercedes considering what happend last season, with the likes of McLaren and Ferrari around only makes it more obvious. Seb fan in me says yay, but the F1 fan and Merc fan is already getting the tissues out ready for when Seb gets a gap of 80+
I don't think Red Bull will be much faster next year. The rules are basically the same and the tyres are supposed to be softer and affect the aero. So unless Newey creates a genius design I suspect Red Bull will maybe be 3-5 tenths faster next season. Mercedes could find maybe 1-1.5 seconds which would still make them comparably slow to the leading teams.
The sidepods with the airflow to the diffuser and the PDRS are the new fads coming in I read. So there is time still to get.
I'm completely missing your point silver. The closer the Mercedes comes to Vettels driving style, the more likely he is to dominate?!?! What has Vettel to do with Mercedes?
The 2013 Mercedes AMG W04 has passed all 18 FIA crash tests in the run up to Christmas ahead of the new season, Auto Motor und Sport reports. The Anglo-German outfit struggled throughout the 2012 season despite winning a race early on in the year. Their form was short-lived however, as they scored just 142 points, 318 less than Red Bull. That has led to several management changes and the development of what is essentially an entirely new car. The German magazine reports that Mercedes have developed an entirely new gearbox which is much smaller than its predecessor, allowing for a more tightly packaged rear-end and a more efficient Coanda-effect exhaust system. One of the teams biggest struggles were tyre temperatures. An entirely new rear-suspension package has been developed to work better with the softer Pirelli tyres. Among many other changes, Mercedes are hopeful that they can catch the leaders - Red Bull and McLaren - which ended the season upwards of two seconds per lap quicker. The car will debut at the first Jerez test and is only the second car to publicly pass the governing body's crash tests following Sauber's C32.
I'm on about the RB9 suiting Seb's driving style more than the RB8 as they would of caught up with rear downforce, didn't say anything with regards to him driving the Mercedes. If I did somehow that is my mistake but not intentional.
That's the big problem Merc and the others that are lagging behind have. While they are playing catch-up, the faster teams are also making gains.
talian Media Omnicours.it are reporting more details on what is being leaked out about the new AMG W04. Roughly translated as follows The Mercedes (team) has homologated the chassis of the AMG W04 after it successfully passed the crash tests. At Brackley they are working very hard to give Lewis Hamilton a machine that is capable of winning the Grand Prix next year, after the success of the GP Nico Rosberg in China this year. The monocoque has been revised by Aldo Costa who is the chief designer: This will be the former Ferrari-man his first car, since he’d arrived at the three-pointed star at the beginning of 2012, when the F1 W03 had already been completed​​. Engineers in Brackley are counting on (these changes) to reduce the gap to Red Bull Racing and rumors that come out is that, the new car will be much more similar to the RB8 which won the world championship with Sebastian Vettel. The system that stalls the front wing is out (it was banned by the FIA), the Mercedes team are developing an exciting new ultra-compact transmission that should allow to create a lot of rear downforce, freeing the area to the rear diffuser and to the possible system for the passive stall the rear wing (DRD). Aldo Costa is also reviewing the suspension: according to rumors front and the back pull-rod suspension will be adopted (the first is copied from Ferrari, while the second will be inspired by Red Bull Racing). At the rear they are studying setups that can be used to easily modified during the season depending on the behavior of the new Pirelli tires. And aerodynamically much care has been taken in the exhaust gasses with the Coanda effect and will be easy to find the influences of RB8. In the racing division of Brackley is a complete transformation of the structure to speed up the development and deployment of machine packages evolution. http://mercamgf1-fans.com/2012/12/29/ultra-compact-amg-w04/
So it will be based around Lewis? Not saying that is bad, but finally people will shut up about lop sided teams in F1.
Well I guess I'd prefer them to go all out and fail rather than carry on from last year and be mediocre.
Very big changes, but my concern will be tyres and reliability during testing, both of these factors Mercedes have been struggling with for the past couple of years now. The last big change Mercedes tried to introduce with the W02 similair to this it was a mess, hydraulics would fail every odd lap and tyres wouldn't last 3-4 laps. In qualifying it was pretty strong though which was something at least, but I would expect less problems for this car and hopefully a smoother test session. If its strong in reliability and consistent with laptimes in testing the season should be strong for the Silverarrows as they do have the resources to keep up with the big 3. Consistency though of bringing new, working upgrades could be a problem, they still seem to struggle to fix the car and evolve it through a whole season where the big 3 are able to make the car more flexible to new extras. It can look like a IRBR/Ferrari all it wants, acting like one is a different matter which they haven't actually done before, but things do change and hopefully 2013 is that year to see a true SilverArrow being up there.
So in short, they've made progress but still haven't reached the level of the RB8. Newey isn't standing still, he is overspending - I can't see Mercedes having a race winning car in Australia. Also McLaren were right there with Red Bull at the end of the season and all the good points from the W03 will be transferred to the F2013 thanks to Bigois. It's not going to be easy for Mercedes, and I don't rate Aldo Costa. Who else shares my pessimism?
2014 is essentially going to be a lottery. I do hope people haven't forgotten how terrible BMW were that season despite having spent a lot of 2008 developing their 2009 car to the detriment of Kubica's championship chances - might history repeat itself?
For me 2013 is just a learning curve for 2014, they need to be able to keep up with the top 3 teams next season or it won't matter how different the cars are. IRBR, Ferrari and McLaren will just out develop them in half a season and leave them for dust, Lewis needs Mercedes to keep up with this lot and I dont think they're quite ready, yet! Mercedes could build a monster in 2014 but 1-2 of the big 3 will eat that gap up in a couple of months and then surpass it and Mercedes would of spent all that effort for nothing really and more heads will roll... Good things on the W03? Apart from the DDRS nothing else really stood out for me Forza, your foundation would be wise to avoid that whole design because Mercedes sure as hell did, the whole car has been redone since it turned out so bad in the end. The RB8 and MP4-27 are the cars to look at with direction. Mercedes should start out (at worst) behind the likes of Lotus/Sauber but at the halfway point they should have already overtaken those 2 and start to catch up whoever is 3rd in the WCC and then the podiums, maybe wins will come.
TBH Mercedes have to catch and overtake Ferrari & Lotus before they can think about McLaren & RBR, and all 4 of those teams have had a whole year of redevelopment on their original cars. The only positive for Mercedes is that the more pace the others have found means they probably won't be able to extract much more, meaning every race Mercedes should be getting closer. It also helps that they finally have a decent driver.
