Mercedes: Team Thread

Thought this gave a great perspective of how different it is this year- Ferrari and Aston “ramp” more visible:

 

i love that shot.

Now i can see the vanes on the top of the merc. there is some air coming out of the top of that new feature so that is probably just dealing with dirty air.

We can see the lower floor section where the air flows need to be

we can clearly see this lovely clean ari flow creating section that no other car has

Its like top flow dirty, middle flow clean and powering diffuser etc and the lower air flow to the side of floor etc.

This kind of shows what mercedes are going for IMO.

 

Lovely on track shot this

 

I wonder if a relative of Henry Ford had any input into this year’s colour schemes ?

 

That looks like Merc have made a channel behind the halo plus a channel/ramp on top of the sidepods like ferrari! Maybe the halo channel is to direct more directed air to the rear wing?

 

I don't believe that is the final floor, way too much on view for the competition to oggle.

 

test in 7 days time, only 3 days to test.

it might not be final final but it has to be closer as the 100 lap shakedown it went on is crucial time for teams and couldnt be wasted

 

Wolf has commented the nano pods are headed for the bin like the obsolete apple product.

Changes coming of some sort.

Not quite sure what he means as they have a concept to deliver clean air down the side to the floor and to the rear and to get rid of dirty air high.

Not sure how side pods suddenly have no impact as he is saying

 

I don't get the comment. They had all last season and winter to make a decision to change the concept. Why persist if it's not the answer.

 

it could just be a smokescreen but equally the thing is wider down low so surely the cooling system is not changing so whatever he is hinting at must be a minor change in performance.

the under cut drives clean air round the "side skirt"
the top of pod drives air to the top of rear of floor etc
the bumps above keep dirty air channels out the back including vanes up there.

he could simply be hinting at something to do with the top of the pod opening to help that air??

 

Do you think we could actually say that last years “zero pod” has already gone? This year is a sidepod, albeit a very unique one in comparison to competition. You can see how much more along the side of the car it runs compared to last year. Whatever we call it, it’s a longer pod this year. (Last years stops at the “AS” of Petronas logo, this year runs along to the “ET”)

I think you’ll see a further evolution to the launch spec - probably a Baku update I’d imagine similar to McLarens upgrade timeline.

Everything on this car looks like it’s a team who have tried to refine and perfect the troubled W13. Line you guys, I just wonder what they modify on the sidepod if they do as Toto says they will and bring changes.

Quite like this view of it being wheeled in on launch day- gives us a nice close up!

 

yes 100% you are right.

its just a vertical slot not a horizontal one like all other teams

the wider top as these air channels off the halo seem to be runs all the way down the body so thats negating having a narrow body anyway.

they seem to have adopted the same policy as everyone else in having clean air low down to the floor sides and then this middle flow of air others are also directing to beam wing or top of diffuser etc.

Last years car for me wasn't actually a no pod design it was more like a pyramid, fat on bottom and tapers in as it went up.

this looks to me much more like an under cut like everyone esle

 

Mate dunno about you but I’m absolutely buzzing to see how this actually pans out! I just hope we don’t have a Red Bull cruising out front.

So interesting to see the Merc design compare the Ferrari and Red Bull direction on track.

I’m also very intrigued by Aston because they have the Merc rear suspension, which may yet prove to be the biggest performance unlock for the works team philosophy.

So with Aston, you get the Merc suspension combined with a more Red Bull-like aero, which I think is a fascinating comparison

 

The engines are locked so reliability terms we should see fairly close to the same performance from each supplier and ferrari will hopefully have fixed their turned down engine..

We don't have a convergence massively in philosophies.

In theory in year two of these regs we should see closer competition. in theory

the reality is mercs needed a fundamental redesign under the bodywork to resolve their stability issues. the Ferrari didn't.

The first test is now the first massive fingers crossed moment to see 3 teams dogfighting from the off.

 

Hi everyone, first post for a while! I’ve been a bit sceptical about what we can learn from the car reveals over the last few years hence I don’t try to read too much into them. However, I found this interesting. Mercedes put this image up in their Facebook feed, comparing the Mercedes engined Sauber C13 and the new ‘23 Merc, for no more reason then they are both black cars with Merc engines. I do like the new cars, but if any two pictures illustrate just how huge and long the new cars are then it’s this one. Look how cute that Sauber is.

 

They really are beasts nowadays. I thought last year they looked really heavy and unresponsive at times on camera and that’s not good (though part of that is because of the woeful FOM cameras that zoom in to capture sponsor logos and thus lose all perspective of speed- but that’s another story).

Initial clips I’ve seen of this year I think this generation of cars have taken a sizeable step forward- here’s hoping.

But that Sauber- what a beauty. Was that 1995?

Something magical looking back at sport in that decade isn’t there? Wonderful stuff

 

‘93 according to the caption, so 30(!) years ago now. The cars were a lovely clean simple shape then. Much prefer this look to the late 90’s/2000s designs with the high pointy noses.

Honestly the new cars look great (especially that Ferrari this year) but when you see them side by side with older cars they are so long in the engine/gearbox area that they’re like trucks.

 

I agree they’ve really refined nicely this season.

Any thoughts on an anticipated pecking order this year Eddie? (Perhaps we should have a thread of its own for that!)

 

Williams won’t be top

 

Well it’s so hard to know how much the teams have shown us so far. Any big new ideas are likely to be kept under wraps for now, hence my not getting too excited by the reveals, especially the ones that are renders or just livery reveals. We’ll learn a lot more once testing starts, which I am much more excited about.

In terms of the big teams though: there’s been a lot made of Toto saying the Merc will be competitive “eventually”. I take this to mean that their first priority has to be getting the bouncing fixed and having a car with predictable stability from circuit to circuit which will then give them a platform to develop performance-wise as quickly as possible. If they can’t do that this season then I would start to worry about this being the start of a long term decline for the team, especially with the engineering staff they have lost. I like the fact that they still seem to be going their own way with aspects of the aero. That shows an ambition to me.

With the Ferrari, if the adage that if it looks fast, it is fast is true then I really look forward to seeing what it can do. It looks quick, refined, and with a coherent and flowing aero package. Last year’s car had so much promise so they have a lot to build on, if their flakey strategy and occasional driver errors don’t cock it all up for them.

Red Bull have to be the team to beat, you’d expect the next iteration of a championship-strolling car to be quick. Have we even seen the car yet though?

As for the rest, the midfield is so close that small gains can make a big difference. I just hope McLaren can give Lando a car he can win races in.