The result of twelve months intense design and development work, the MGP W02 is the second Silver Arrows car to be launched by Mercedes GP since the team evolved from Honda F1 into the first Mercedes-Benz works outfit since 1955 via a world title and Brawn GP.
The technical specification of the MGP W02 includes the KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery) system which returns to the sport after a one-year absence. The Mercedes KERS system was the first to win a Grand Prix during the 2009 season when KERS made its debut in Formula One. Also new on the car for this season is the adjustable rear wing, operated by the driver to aid overtaking, and Pirelli tyres as the Italian manufacturer becomes the sport’s official tyre supplier.
“The new Silver Arrow for the 2011 season has little in common with its immediate predecessor. Our chassis engineers have taken a fairly ruthless approach and were determined to shave off every superfluous gram and millimetre. What emerged from this process is a compact and exquisitely shaped vehicle that introduces a host of sophisticated solutions and truly reflects the enormous dedication of its constructors” enthused Norbert Haug
“The concept development for the MGP W02 started early and we have set challenging targets for the design, combined with a robust plan to ensure that the pace of development can continue throughout the long 2011 season” continues Ross Brawn. “We have two excellent drivers in Michael and Nico, both of whom capable of winning races in a good car, and we look forward to seeing them push each other and the development of the new Silver Arrow during the season. We want to be setting the standard right from the start but if we are not, we will respond very strongly to get ourselves into the game. Everyone is excitedly waiting to see what the new season will reveal.”
Updates
Mercedes introduced its first major update of the year at the final Barcelona test. The package included a new exhaust solution with the tail pipe on the side of the floor about three quarters of the way along the sidepod.
The W02 also featured a new turning vane on the leading edge of the sidepod. Initially it was not fitted with the device but as more and more teams look to each other for inspiration it seems Mercedes is rather following a trend with this addition.
New configuration above – previous version below
At the second Barcelona test the Mercedes was fitted with a new rear wing, featuring revised endplates with a very different vent shape.
New spec above – old below. The vertical members on the win are gone, whilst the endplates appear thicker.
The reshaped flap and bulge on the endplate also suggests that the DRS actuation may be different.
New spec above also note the revised vent layout, along with the new exhaust position (detailed earlier). An extra gill has been added to the vent by the lower wishbone mount, and a whole new set have been installed above the exhaust outlet. In the old spec layout (below) note the scorch marks ahead of the rear wheel.
The scorch marks on the rear of the W02 are particularly interesting, appearing initially as they do above. When the new exhaust layout was introduced at Barcelona the scorching moved to the top of the sidepod. This is a clear indication of how marginal the thermal management on the W02 is.
One of the reasons for this is the very short wheelbase of the car thought to be as much as 27cm shorter than the McLaren MP4-26 which uses the same engine. Indeed it is probably the shortest in F1 this year.
A further suggestion of thermal management issues can be seen in pictures from the first Barcelona test, and from the Jerez test where the team opened up a gap in the top of the sidepod. This could merely be access for a sensor array, but it is very large, and could be for cooling.
Melbourne
Chassis: MGP W02/01 (Rosberg)
Chassis: MGP W02/03 (Schumacher)
Mercedes was not quite as fast as it had hoped but was clearly on for a points finish. Until someone painted targets on the sides of the cars. Ross Brawn explains what happened next “this has obviously been a very frustrating weekend for our team. Michael’s race was spoilt almost immediately with a collision which eventually caused sufficient damage to force us to retire the car. Nico was running reasonably well, however an over-ambitious move from Rubens, which the stewards also agreed with, brought his race to an end. It’s a disappointing end to a disappointing first weekend of the season. We will demonstrate our strength as a team, put this race behind us, regroup and go forward from here.”
Sepang
Chassis: MGP W02/01 (Schumacher)
Chassis: MGP W02/03 (Rosberg)
Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg swapped chassis for the Malaysian Grand Prix. But the team continued its troubled early season. The MGP/W02 follows a somewhat different concept to other Mercedes engine cars with a very short wheelbase. It has an ongoing issue with its rear wing DRS actuation, hitting Schumacher in Q2, “We had some issues with it and unfortunately that compromised my last run in Q2. The car became difficult to drive, which is a real shame as it had been working very well during the earlier runs” explained the German.
The problem is not that the wing sticks open, rather it seems that it does not fully close, or return exactly to the same position, pr in some other way cause instability in the air flow. Ross Brawn explained the issue to the press on Saturday night. “When you activate the rear wing and the flap goes up effectively the air flow stalls, it separates off the wing, when the flap comes back, then the flow reattaches” explained Brawn. “We’re having some situations where the flap comes back and he flow doesn’t attach immediately – it takes a bit of time before the flow reattaches. We’ve made some modifications since Melbourne, and it looked OK in practice, and it seemed to come back again during qualifying. In Michael’s case in his qualifying lap there were several corners where the flow was unstable, and it happened in Nico’s case as well. Obviously in the qualifying mode you’re operating the RFA ( DRS) at many points on the track, and in the race you’re only operating it in one place on the straight. It’s aggravated when we get into qualifying because when you’re operating it in lots of places on the track in certain conditions we seem to have this separation.
It’s not a new phenomenon. We all design the rear wings to be at the absolute limit of attachment to get the maximum performance from them. We’ve seen that many times, a rear wing that’s perfectly OK, and in a crosswind or an unstable condition you get some separation. I think it is the crosswind and the effect of the yaw angle or angle of flow.
I think that’s the balance you’re trying to strike. Obviously our wing we’ve designed with an evaluation of a huge number of elements, not just downforce/drag, it’s stability, response rate, all these things are assessed in the wind tunnel. But you’re always trying to push close to the limits, and we’re trying to gain as much performance from the wing being activated as we can. The gain in straight line speed for our wing is quite substantial, but we’ve just got this bit of instability. It’s not unique, it’s not new, but it caught us out at the wrong time today. I thought we’d solved it with the modifications we made after Melbourne.
The issue was not performance, the issue was the drivers having a consistent car, because when the flow doesn’t attach, it’s not as though you have no rear downforce, but you don’t have the downforce that you have when the rear wing is working fully. So you get a 2-3% shift in the balance and the car is not as stable as it would be with the wing attached.
The parts of the track where we’ve had the issue are not the parts of the track where we’re allowed to use it. With the permitted zone being the main straight, it’s not an area where we expect to have a problem. But well monitor it. We’ll have the data during the race, so we’ll see whether it’s an issue or not.
We’re still struggling with the consistency of the car and are not giving Nico and Michael the best chance to show what they could achieve. There are times when the car is working well and the pace is evident, however there are too many occasions where things are not functioning properly”
Sepang was always likely to highlight the MGP W02’s ongoing cooling issues. In practice the sidepods were fitted with gills above the exhaust outlets, but in all other sessions they gills were opened up, a clear attempt at cooling the W02’s interior.
To help the driver in the heat an F-duct style intake was added to the nose – though only to cool the drivers not blow the rear wing. Small turning vanes were added to the outer edge of the sidepod.
Despite the front wing receiving very little development so far this season at Malaysia, the slots near the leading edge were opened.
Shanghai
Chassis: MGP W02/01 (Schumacher)
Chassis: MGP W02/03 (Rosberg)
Mercedes has started to get the performance of the W02 as continues to battle the problem of thermal management and inconsistent flow over the rear wing.
Ross Brawn, Team Principal:“We had a very encouraging race today from the point of view of our overall pace and performance. Nico and Michael did a fantastic job in making use of what they had, and our strategy and pit stops were very good. It’s disappointing that we had to start looking at fuel saving with Nico which ultimately cost him at least a podium finish. We need to look into why we suffered so much higher fuel consumption in the race than we had experienced in practice, even allowing for the changes in conditions and grip. There was clearly a problem and it’s very frustrating for Nico and the team. However we can take away positives from this weekend in knowing that if we do a decent job, we can be competitive.”
Brawn also discussed the cooling issues and why in China the opening on the sidepod was absent in Shanghai. “In Malaysia, we were still struggling with cooling, so that meant we compromised what we could do with the car and we spent a lot of time trying to improve that situation. Here, with the lower ambient, cooling is not the consideration, or not much, so we could just get on and sort the car out. We also had a weekend where the car has run pretty smoothly. We had a glitch with Michael’s car in qualifying again. This wing is on the edge of re-attaching when the flap is activated, and on the crucial lap, as is always the case, it did not quite reattach properly at the time we did not need that to happen. So we have a new wing for Istanbul which should resolve that problem properly.”
In China the W02 ran with gills above the exhaust outlet as seen in Melbourne
