I am hopeful that Ferrari has genuine pace to contend with them. But I do tend to think you’re probably right and come qualifying tomorrow, expecting to see Max on pole slightly ahead of the two Ferraris. But I don’t think they are Mercedes-level ahead of the rest. At least I hope.
F1 2022 Season
- Thread starter pauldyson1uk
- Start date
Mercedes could fix the porposing with a quick change in ride height of the car, all the teams could. However you would loose a certain percentage of the downforce the floor is generating and in F1 every marginal gain counts.
I think Mercedes know the car is generating alot of downforce and there is alot of time to find in the car. According to the simulations. So they are trying to fix the porposing with a long term solution and keep all their downforce. Have their cake and eat it basically. I think from what we know currently, it has the most untapped potential of any car on the grid.
I think Mercedes know the car is generating alot of downforce and there is alot of time to find in the car. According to the simulations. So they are trying to fix the porposing with a long term solution and keep all their downforce. Have their cake and eat it basically. I think from what we know currently, it has the most untapped potential of any car on the grid.
Ferrari looks lovely and balanced but Hamilton just said he thinks they’re currently 9 tenths off Red Bull and around half a second off Ferrari…if that’s the case Max into the distance on Sunday seems to be the likely scenario.
This gp no or they would have got a bunch of better data with no bounce and could have just run heavy fuel to hide performance.
It probably is something they will manage out fairly quickly though I think as it's a known phenonomen of ground effect cars from previous f1 cars and other race series.
For quali though I doubt it but would be great to see a three way fight
Russell has been quoted as saying on long fuel runs they are 1 second off. Also for qually tomorrow alpha tauri and alfa romeo could cause them issues.
Hamilton just quoted as saying, there isnt a short term fix for the issue. Its a longer term problem. The fixes they tried today didnt work.
Hamilton just quoted as saying, there isnt a short term fix for the issue. Its a longer term problem. The fixes they tried today didnt work.
It looked for too easy for them. I really hope the ferraris can give them a run for their money. Shame mcalren are handicapped for this race as they have looked quick in testing.
Can someone remind me what the brake cooling issue is?
Merc are running a very different car for how it handles downforce to everybody else though. The lack of width and airflow changes may be a lot harder to solve without sidepods. It looks truly awful at the moment, and although I'm sure they're hiding some speed they won't be deliberately making it unstable.
I’m definitely not down for Red Bull domination if it’s the case this season, can do without Horner mugging off for most of the year. I would just tune out and catch highlights if it’s worth it.
Ferrari save us.
Ferrari save us.
Everyone else can fix it but Mercedes.
They're not prepared to give up anything in the fixing of. They're not showing us what they supposedly gained at all.
Agreed, but the gain from their design will be downforce. If they need to lose that to fix the problem, they may consider the trade-off not worth it. I think they're probably trying to design the best of both worlds at the risk of having an unstable car for a few weeks.
It looks good in slow corners, which weirdly is what Red Bull have been dominant in, but in straights and fast corners it's visibly looking pretty undriveable.
I imagine they’ll raise the height for this weekend now. Clearly they want to avoid that as it impacts performance. But they won’t have a choice this week as you can’t run a full race bounding up and down.
Because the wheels have shrouds on them now, it makes it harder to dissipate the excess heat generated by the brakes. Mclaren have found that whatever solution they came up with isnt cooling the brakes sufficently and they are cooking themselves prematurely.
The mclaren front brake assembly design needs an entire change. Which will take a few weeks to resolve.
They have a interim solution to use a different material for the brake disc drum which encompassesthe usual, brake disc, caplier, pad etc, but its a band-aid fix. I wouldn't be suprised if after lap 3 tomorrow the mclarens were lifting and costing and using engine braking more to help cool the brakes.
I would have thought so as well, the excessive vibrations could damage lots of other parts of the car.
There was a deleted quote on sky f1 site when Mercedes first unveiled the slimline pods, that in the simulations they found "astonishing" levels of downforce. As others have said, they will live with a few races of pain to gain some serious speed for the rest of the season.
yet here we are end of fp2 and they still look like shit. Give it up man, sometimes the most obvious reason is the actual reason
Had no idea there was such levels of paranoia in F1. Mercedes just look to be struggling to me.
Sandbagging is a thing, but bar a very small handful of people, most can see through it for when it’s real and isn’t.
Is it paranoia when it's been like this for what, 7 years or something? Maybe this year will be different due to the new regulations but paranoia? Hardly
Everything is a conspiracy innit.
I was surprised at that comment as well.
I had hoped that Mercedes would have been able to make some improvement. But Lewis car really does look awful to drive.
There's chatting shite and chatting the shite, most people can tell which is which.
Yeah I thought so too. Hamilton was like a second slower than Verstappen and that doesn't bode well. But I do hope that this is something they can fix within a couple of races and which would provide good advantage for Hamilton in the long run. But it's absolutely devastating for Hamilton to turn up after last season with a noncompetitive car.
Same.
It's worse case scenario. They ruined the sport last year and now I don't want to see them rewarded further.
I hope Ferrari are sand bagging.
I think Hamilton was on softs too, no?
It's more just using history as proof. Mercedes have had habits of struggling the winning at a canter.
Saying that though, the car doesn't look all that happy in places. I don't think they'll be that far off in the end though, just might take 2/3 races to get it sorted.
I could have sworn they were both on softs, but I could be misremembering.
I also was pretty sure his lap time was on softs.
Pretty sure they all ended up putting on softs midway through the session from what I rememeber. Lewis had some issues with the car
Yeah they were, everyone ended up on softs in the second half of fp2 from memory
Yup. Hamilton was asked what was different on Russell’s car as he was so far off his pace. Confirmed they were different setups but didn’t answer specifics.
Lewis Mazepin.
(granted, seems like Lewis was more of a case than Mazepin did last year)
Haha! Hamilton actually had the new floor in FP1 unlike Russell but they went back to the old one in FP2. I get the disbelief everyone has but I do think they’ll genuinely be a fair bit behind this weekend. How long that’s the case for who knows.Lewis Mazepin.
(granted, seems like Lewis was more of a case than Mazepin did last year)
One thing people are forgetting is that the porposing will get worse for Mercedes the quicker they go on the straights tomorrow and Sunday. So, as the entire grid had their engines turned down for fp2 and probably didnt do maximum ERS deployment over a single lap, we never got to see the full extent of the porposing for any team, though especially for the Mercedes.
I wonder if hamilton and russell will even be able to drive the car at maximum deployment i.e going for a hot lap or will Mercedes have to turn the power down for the GP on saftey ground for the drivers and the car itself i.e. too many vibrations.
I wonder if hamilton and russell will even be able to drive the car at maximum deployment i.e going for a hot lap or will Mercedes have to turn the power down for the GP on saftey ground for the drivers and the car itself i.e. too many vibrations.
Dont forget Mercedes have the least amount of wind tunnel and CFD time of any team on the grid this season. The more of their time they use up on porposing issue, the less time they get to work on other improvements to the car and work on next seasons car eventually.
Bettors seem pretty confident of a Max pole and win, Leclerc with an outside chance. Seem to rate Mercedes as the third team with Perez nestled in there too. Alonso as best of the rest followed by Lando. Seems like a fair assessment, let's hope it's a close qualy tomorrow.
Will be interesting to see how Charles defends vs Max. He was too soft when they battled in Austria, and then he spoke out after that about how he would have to change his style when against certain drivers...
If Leclerc and Sainz dont have enough ballsy move in them, there's no chance to beat Max. Sainz particularly, he's never been in this leading position i believe. I think i've never seen Sainz going hard in wheel to wheel battle so far irrc.
Mclaren is so disappointing so far, all talk about positivity and whatnot but they seems to move backward in pecking order, albeit it maybe temporarily.
Mclaren is so disappointing so far, all talk about positivity and whatnot but they seems to move backward in pecking order, albeit it maybe temporarily.
Porpoising is extremely difficult to replicate in any CFD or Wind tunnel scenario, the only way they’ll resolve this is by finding a ride height that stops the purposing and then working on that height with a floor solution to balance out the ground effect.