I think the aero bit is one thing bit a huge amount of downforce will be from ground effect and a huge amount with be down to how low the cars can run stably through corners. The new suspension needs, with what are much lower profile tyres, to deliver big time.
He’s learning that Mercedes PR very quickly As we’ve seen this morning already- Merc more than capable of matching the best times and it’s also cooler today, so I don’t buy it at all. Merc love to create this internal underdog mentality (and I don’t blame them- they keep coming back stronger) but at the same time it raises a chuckle from me. The eye catching time of the morning is Verstappens 1:19.7 on a C3 tyre. Please don’t let RBR have a dominant car
Merc are stupid. The come out and say stupid things and nobody listens. I don't know why they bother. I also don't know what ferrari bother either as they ALWAYS do this. out first day setting top times and their unrealistic mad italian fans go nuts and then theres a lynch mob after the first race. Surely they'd be better tooling round doing development work and then ramp up the times after. Merc have done the usual, focused on the science not the headlines.
I’d be surprised if Ferrari have let rip though- they don’t look like they’ve been pushing the limits. One thing I would say is their car looks lightweight from a design perspective and quite agile. It’s so different to the Merc concept it’s fascinating to see how they’ll match up on track.
who knows. its ego to be topping the timing charts and they've done that before. Merc pops up and kills them all last day as per usually.
Yeah exactly- there’s a lot of paddock chatter about upgrades really ramping up in Bahrain testing, so I think what we have in Barca is a good baseline feel for cars but nothing concrete at all for pecking order as that will become clear in Bahrain.
TopClass, You seem to be very well informed on F1 and team details of the new cars.So, I was just wondering if you have heard anything about the Merc. having no side pods for the next test? I have posted this on the Merc. thread,hope that`s how you do it.
Absolutely fine to post on here push but don’t worry use whatever thread you think is best - we’re not a precious bunch on here!! I haven’t heard anything at all on the nature of what they are bringing other than the general chatter that they and Red Bull have a whole lot of new stuff. There seem to be two approaches really- super slim cars of McLaren and maybe Mercedes versus the more pronounced side pods of Ferrari, Aston Martin and Red Bull Im not in the know or anything - I just do plenty of reading to stay as up to date as i can- I’m very much a casual fan than someone with any technical knowledge.
If the rumors floating around do turn out to be true, that's going to be one hell of a change. But given how tiny the intakes are on the Williams, it might not be totally out of the realms of possibility. I'm intrigued, but it's probably going to turn out to be some wild rumor.
I went looking on this but the only images is some guys rendering and there was zero intakes on it so i'd like to see how they can actually cool the car without an airflow with a no sidepod rumour. these rumours abound and mention over a second a lap improvement in speed. So i presume this speculation is based on the width of their side pods now and the small opening everyone is using means there must be dead space there so "severely small" might be more of a discussion point. Given they started up and "shook down" a car with radiators in a certain position it would SEEM at least to me to be a rather radical change to move the whole cooling system after a simulator result so I looked to see what the "really really" might be here. also i just thought that if its that good i sincerely doubt it would get out of merc and wouldn't be round the paddock like this. this is an image someone sketched. clearly this cannot be right? please log in to view this image However this is what merc ran in barcelona. please log in to view this image We can see the small inlets and the "dimple" on the front edge and how already extreme the cut in around the back of this cooling system that the body takes. there is air moving over this, outwashing from the dimple and under along the green stripe to top of floor People seem to be saying the radiators are in a higher position however this must be a fixed position we have already seen? Maybe as if this change gets thrown out their who package needs to go back to "standard" however take a look at this image as it shows the reality of what merc's engine package really looks like so far. please log in to view this image this image taken by someone in barca seems to suggest exactly what merc can achieve here. it does suggest to me that the "excess" over and above the dimple, wing mirror fin etc could all go. IMO the legal space in the regulations give a maximum size for these side pods and positions for inlets etc but the minimum is down to the ability to actually cool the car. Really I think the question is rather than can merc make the side pods even more extreme but actually how will they power the floor and the under wing on the rear wing without directing and funnelling air along that floor with power. If the air doesn't get directed down to the floor, how do they get the vortices to power the ground effect?