Quote:
Originally Posted by F87source
Quote:
Originally Posted by M3WC
That is what I thought last race weekend, in Miami Merc was only down 0.07sec in FP1 and 0.24sec in FP2.
Then race comes along, they are still down well over a 1sec in race pace and qualified behind one of the Alfa's.
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That's because they didn't have any porposing solving upgrades, what you saw there was a lucky setup and the minor mods they did bring actually somewhat calming down the porpoising in an extremely narrow operating window.
This time they actually brought a new floor with a bunch of new features to target porpoising. There are images of them running effectively the lowest ride height possible (the tea tray is almost scraping the ground) and there is zero porpoising. What little porpoising they do have is low in amplitude and very gentle, as judged by the on board and out board analysis on F1 technical (you can barely see it bounce and the only way you can see it is to slow the video down 4x).
So porpoising seems to be resolved on the Merc and they are back in the fight, so the zero pods aren't stupid after all. It's almost like one cannot judge a car concept without seeing the complex CFD data...
However, they will be close but likely they won't be winning just yet because I'm not sure their long run pace is strong enough. Data today shows they have a faster long run than Ferrari but slower than redbull, but free practice isn't too accurate we shall see Sunday. They should make more gains in the next few races as they shed more weight and bring more upgrades, and of course as redbull and Ferrari are forced to slow down developments because of the cost cap (redbull is probably close to exhausting their budget as they have brought new parts every race). |
With the chassis and aero solved, at least for this weekend, it will be interesting to see what Mercedes does with the PU. As I said earlier in the season, I don't think Mercedes has shown what the engine can do at it la full potential. Now that they have a better working car, perhaps we might see Mercedes tweak the PU now and try to claw back into the championship race.