But Kyle you didn’t analyse at 6:58 two up photos, where we can see that Merc has two “bath tubes”, one like Ferrari and one above pilots head that goes till the end of the car. Why two?
I’m amazed that anyone is even able to design a car conforming to the rules. They’re so full of jargon and gobbledygook that you’d think they’d spend six months reading over just the section on front wing endplates before they understood what they meant.
The front wing team at merc really seem to be progressive thinkers. Between the slot gap separators last year that Ferrari have now adopted, and the wing tip - end plate interface this year, they are really pushing out some interesting ideas.
Its going to be super interesting to see the 3 different concepts RB, Merc and Ferrari go against each other again. Hoping they have closed up to each other. I feel like Merc had a lot of low hanging fruit to gain from so here's hoping.
I doubt much will change this year cause Redbull seem to have a hint about the technical changes since they introduced them a coulpe of years ago... Do not be surprised if RB come up with the fastest car this year, that's all im saying
@@drummakha2540 most likely they will. They had the best working car last year, and while merc has to fix issues with their concept rb had time to actually make the car faster
@@garrylong2993 Yes, but last year it was supposed o be new tech changes to everyone and help change the grid order but the only thing that change was Mercedes was slow.. lol just look at how they handled the last two years tells you there seems to be an Agenda for RB and Max to take over. I said it before the start of last year's season that Rb will come up with the fastest car and i was not wrong!! I mean, they came up with a PLUG AND PLAY type of car that works in all circus, tire compound, weather, short or long runs for a team that went fighting till the last lap the year before... and also, the tech changes seems to work best for the high raked car which RB is famous for.. it's all too fishy for me anyway
@@drummakha2540 Lot's of speculation based on nothing more than your feeling. It's more likely that BR just chose the best strategy/path from the getgo and that allowed them to hold on to the advantage through the season. It was always going to be RB, Mercedes and maybe Ferrari that would fight for the top spot, but since Mercedes messed up with their aero and Ferrari is Ferrari and does Ferrari things RB walked away. Nothing strange about that!
Kyle, could you please make a video on your thoughts on which aerodynamic concept (from all teams) captivated your attention the most. Which one do you think has the most innovations?
@@jerehada Merc can show their hands much more because their concept is so extremely different from any of the other ones that they don't really have to be afraid of copying. Sure there might be small tidbits but the aero package as whole is not really feasible to be copied by the other teams of which most have commited to the RB design.
@@reveriesduh Bingo. I think it is part of their reason for this strategy also that it may have a higher ceiling than the RB concept, the difference being the RB concept may not be on so much of a 'razors edge' with getting all the tiny tidbits right and race setup completely right. RB has more of a generally safe moderate ceiling concept and Merc have more of a risky design and setup but higher ceiling of performance concept.
Your analysis are always very interesting and detailed. Unfortunately I don't have all the knowledge to understand how vortices work but as you explain it so well the overall effect is pretty clear. I've also seen that they have advanced the cockpit of something like 100mm to the front and redesigned accordingly to that the front suspension in order to move the center of gravity more towards the front.
Thanks Kyle, I was desperately refreshing my browser to see when your post would land...you are the expert, but subjectively the W14 looks much more elegant, probably the best looking car so far. Hope function follows form. That metal stay is an eyesore, though.
It's pretty incredible that insight like this exists that's both super detailed and accessible for laymen like myself. Freaking awesome job, thanks for making these videos.
Just discovered this channel and I really enjoy this kind of analysis! Although the majority of people don’t care about this much detail, I think F1 in general could use a lot more videos like this one. During the season; I find myself always wanting to know more about how the upgrade packages they bring will affect the aero of the car. They are always so vague about it. Thank you for this!
I think you should make a comparison video between the first race spec car and the launch car. It would be great to see the differences explained very well. I think that's a great video idea too
It's so good to get some actual technical insight from an actual aerodynamicist rather than arm chair waffle and details of what Max eats on a Thursday lunch. Keep up the good work and a genuine "thank you" for the content 👍
i know the high bulky section is on a lot of cars but on the Mercedes it looks very aggressive if you’ve seen it from the rear end shot they gave us on their shakedown run. i tweeted at you a few pictures
Thank you for the floor analysis, lovely to see someone that knows what they are talking about. Honestly tiring to see everyone atributing the porpoise to the lack of a big sidepod
The rules are crazy detailed and really tough to even follow all the legality radius etc stuff you mention. It would be nice in your presentation if you could zoom in to the images when you talk about all these Tiny parts
As someone who doesn’t understand all the terminology in the first few minutes I thought this video was going to be too difficult to understand but I think you explained it in a way that I could at least understand the concepts and it was so interesting I watched until the end.
7:00 we can see in the 1st and 2nd pictures the huge difference between the 'released' car (photos 3 and 4) and the 'real' car, I notice that the real car has a sidepod like Ferrari with a deep vein in the middle.
Kyle Engineers: makes a series of insightful 2023 car videos that us mere mortals are lucky to get, topping out with the delightful W14 video. 👍 Alpine: why has thou forsaken me. 🤣
I believe they changed the Center of Mass too because the driver position is closer to the front and the rear portion is more elongated. In doing so and I believe they also changed the position of the PU and the aerodynamic balance more to the front end so they will have more space to work on the rotation of the car with more grip on the front without losing the downforce in the rear ... looks savvy and keen!
Thanks a lot for the series !!! I would suggest a video explaining a generic f1 car design so that we can appreciate more what each team is doing, things like what the strakes in the beginning of the floor do, the purpose of the legality boxes, the functions of the side pods.. I always find myself learning new components along the explanation of each teams solution, so what happens is I don't understand any effect or interaction of that component with other parts that you could have mentioned before or that I should have thought myself. A video with the most important components and regulations woulde be really nice. Thanks a lot again, you are helping us appreciate the sport even more. F1 is a very closed sport and we can't enjoy the sport and the performance of the athletes (and the engineers in this case) until we have a (somewhat) good understanding of the challenges and the rules. Cheers !
What would be really interesting is for Kyle to produce a video that covers what the underside of the floors possibly look like and how underfloor features affect the local and overall negative pressure, or 'suction' as he like to call it. Last year I noticed a picture of the RB underfloor that had some deep depressions that would have added significant volume to the underfloor area. I have wondered if by having such additional volume of negative pressure the car would be less susceptible to rapid pressure changes and hence, less susceptibility to the porpoising effect. Come on Kyle. Explain how the underfloor volume can reduce porpoising.
The same principle that Colin Chapman used to design the Lotus Wobbly Wheel way back. In his case it was to maximize heat dispensation from the (drum?) brakes
All the air coming from the top and bottom of the sidepod end up on floor next to rear wheels, which increases the down force, but all that air bounces off and exit the car through the Wing which is the wing upward force, then the posing will continues at high speed.
Thanks so much for your detailed design analysis. Please do a video about the data from the aero rake track testing, and how it is graphically analyzed.
the w14 video shows the car running in the wet today. I think the large sweep back above the radiators is designed to keep make the air flow spread across the rear wing evenly. You can see the effect when the drs is turned on and off. Pretty decent effect!
Excellent video, there's a nice shot of the Mercedes I guess from today or yesterday in the wet, can certainly see some better airflow structures around the floor edge.
Only tip I can give is show with wich picture you are discussing is to highlight it, jts a bit difficult to see with just your cursor! Everything else is explained excellently!
Brilliant video and analysis, Mercedes took a massive risk last year with a bold complex design. The rest of the grid went for a simpler less ambitious approach. I think the Mercedes philosophy certainly has the most potential. Once they harness it, I would bet my house that they will own the era. I don’t think they made a mistake with the W13, more they bit of more than they could chew in one season. If RBR and Ferrari aren’t at least 0.2 a lap faster in Bahrain, they really need to worry!
Interesting, plus of course the budget caps and restrictions on wind tunnel testing would be hampered their progress. That obviously didn't apply to RBR though. Liberty media You have a lot to answer for.
Hey Kyle, could you please use a virtual laser pointer in your videos? It'll make it easier to keep track of your cursor and where you're pointing. I'm really grateful for these videos.
These cars are the result of attention to some tiny details. Long way from Pete Brock's Daytona Coupe - let's put this 4" spoiler across the back and see how she runs!!! Great video.
His intro is starting to get stuck in my head, I can't help but say it along with him. Maybe in a past life I was an aerodynamicist for Mercedes for the 2018, 19, and 20 Formula One seasons.
I believe they are actually getting round the 50 mm minimum tip chord (and the 20mm concave radius rules by connecting the element to the end plate above z=170 but below z=190. That way none of the rules which only apply in the swept sections below z150 apply. That’s also I believe how they get round having what looks like a larger than 15 mm slot gap at the top of each element.
I really enjoy your video as always, Thanks ! I have a suggestion : for someone like me who is not in aerodynamic engineering it remains hard to see the overall objectives and why some outwash, vortices effects or anything else would make a car faster. I would love to watch video where you explain some of theses more general concept and general objectives. When I started watching your videos I was kind of expecting "here is how they ensure clean air goes underneath the car and how they ensure it goes away as fast as possible to create ground effect". Anyway, thanks a lot !!!
Good points. I too am in the same camp as you. B-Sport, another aero-engineer (who worked for McLaren, and Alpine) tends to give a quicker more direct explanation to what is going on, if u find Kyle's explanations way to nuanced. Most people sub to both these guys, including BRRAKE F1.
Can you do a video about the furniture on the wheel and how the front wing helps them generate outwash with the outer floor fence? The images in the rain show this effect clearly, and I'd like to hear your take on it.
I think the idea for the Mercedes porpoising problem is that because the sidepod is so narrow it adds little structural support to the floor edge to keep it from getting pulled and flexed down by the lower pressure and further sealing the floor
I agree with that. There must be a good reason the Red Bull had three floor stays and an aluminium floor brace. They had identified that having a very rigid floor was important to mitigate the aero-elastic component of porpoising effects (as well as a lot of mechanical suspension measures the Red Bull RB18 had in it's design to mitigate the mechanical side of the porpoising, like the anti-dive front suspension and the sprung bib). IMO, Red Bull set out to "minimise the porpoising instability while retaining the performance" in the original RB18 design (as Pat Symonds said was key to the 2022 regulations), while I'm not sure that Mercedes did that in their original 2022 design. It seemed like Mercedes had just assumed they could run their 2022 car really low to the ground with really hard suspension and it would somehow be fine!
It fucks my mind that this video gives a whole ass detailed explanation as to why its probably not what you are saying that caused porpoise and still you you talked about this
@@mesterorange8181 So first of all: I’m not saying that what he’s says in the video about the porpoising problem is wrong. 2nd: He didn’t even mention the key or possibility to the porpoising problem that I wrote, nor say that it isn’t the case, hence why I commented it as a different view angle. And 3rd: Don’t let a comment with a different opinion or view angle on a RU-vid video bother you so much that you’re writing sad comments like those. Don’t let me ruin your day bro, keep your head up
@@mesterorange8181 Kyle is entitled to his view, but I disagree. Why would Red Bull put an **aluminium brace** inside the sidepod to support the floor, if limiting floor flex was not important to mitigate porpoising? The RB18 was very overweight to start with but that's because including these anti-porpoising measures were a VERY important part of its design. Most people accept that porpoising is a combination of aerodynamic, suspension AND structural. It is only logical that the Red Bull floor was significantly more rigid than the Mercedes floor -- deflection of the Mercedes floor edges out on track was visible even to the naked eye!
@@diogosimoes3618 "He didn’t even mention the key or possibility to the porpoising problem that I wrote" Kyle did say that he didn't think the Mercedes floor lacked rigidity, and he pointed out that everyone apart from Red Bull did not have that many stays or braces hidden inside the wider sidepods anyway. But I disagree with this. It's common sense that an unsupported cantilever is going to deflect more IMO. Now on the W14, the base of the Mercedes sidepod comes out wide and intersects the floor roughly where everyone else's does, whether that is purely for aerodynamics or whether that helps with the structure, who knows. Even if there are no braces, the floor itself within the sidepod can now be made thicker without impacting the airflow over the outside of the car.
shape looks fantastic, all i would change is add a touch more silver on the centreline and turquoise on the wings. i think the all black aesthetic will get pretty tiring, and the bare carbon will be difficult to keep looking tip top over the year.
Hi Kyle, I really enjoy your overview of the cars and find them quite understandable for the most part that someone following the sport can get a overview on the aerodynamics function (not sure exactly what cranking is on sidepod though). Just for some video ideas on the f1 topic, are you able to do any videos on previous generations of f1 cars particular models that stood out (pre hybrid era)? Also, with regards to Mclarens MP4- X, would the aero improvement gains of enclosed cockpits and wheel fairings be more drag reductive then downforce increasing and just as a sorta random ballpark would you think there'd be a couple of tenths or a couple of seconds a lap yielded from those kind of improvements hypothetically?
I was hoping to hear someting on the "bath-tub" features they have on the engine cover. It doesn't seem to be featured on the renders but when the camera panned around you could see the scoop created where the airbox meets the "cannon" atop of the engine cover.
Just wondering if you're likely to cover the Williams car at some point, seeing as they had their shakedown on Monday with the real thing and there were some positive initial comments made
Even with advanced cfd you can't predict all airflow possibilities because you would have to work out the as yet unresolved (even by supercomputers) NS equations. Having said that, merc's last year no-sidepod design provided much of their problems in vertical oscillation, leading to a higher floor and loss of performance to alleviate the porpoising. With the ground effect there's so much suck coming from under the car that they had trouble keeping control of the floor. That's why they put floor-stays, and why they petitioned to allow for the floor-stays to go in. There's a vast area of the floor that because they got such slim sidepods there wasn't much to hold the floor up. Hence, they got more flex, which created a problem to control the aerodynamics in the back of the car. This year they continued their no-sidepod design, we'll have to wait and see if it works for them. Like last year, damping stiffness will be key.
Love this stuff. Thank you for the analysis. Kyle, now 3 weeks later post Bahrain, and the huge gap Merc has to overcome, what are your thoughts? Could the downwards steering of the RB sidepods be helping the underfloor? Maybe the large mass of air steered downwards by the RB sidepods could seal off the floor preventing entrainment of high pressure air circulating around the floor edge? Merc with the "zero" sidpod design doesn't have this. Could it be a factor?
Consider the air flow under the floor. Now think of the compressibility of the flow and the effect of atmospheric pressure on a highly critical system.
You could really see the Mercedes outwash during the filming day in the wet, it was extremely significant compared to the other cars we saw at Silverstone.
Who removed all these rules that were worded to make sure this outwashing was managed? Forget the porpoising as that was there underfloor. Last years Mercedes had a more severe issue with the flexing floor creating aerodynamic instability. The small pod contributed because it couldn't move or control the flow of air and so they ended up with tumbling air. This was why they were having issues in the corners as well as the straights.
My only concern, based on the only other "zero concept" working example - the 2020/2021 Williams, is that along with major drag issues, the car was a dog because of its slabby sides being extra susceptible to side winds, even slight ones. But the w14's curved upper bodywork, to those horizontal canons gives me hope. Both drivers on the shakedown said they were comfort and happy with it, which gives me hope. I just hope the old truism of a f1 car being great in the wet is not great in the dry doesnt apply.
Great video! Would be keen to hear your thoughts on the air intake above the pilot head which I think has changed quite substantially to last year at Merc, as well as the main rear wing design.
Hey, Kyle! I have a question, what do you mean when you say something "brings a lot of loss"? Is that drag? Do you mean just a loss of energy in the airflow? Thanks for the vid!
I really love your channel! Could it be possible for you to give us some insight on F1 aero and general car design process? (How is the work divided, how do you decide which road to pursuit, who has the last say on design approval, how do you balance design and validation process, material selection, aero elasticity analysis and whatever else comes to your mind )
I gotta say, the 22 car makes me think of a Hammerhead shark. I wonder if there’s room in the rules where they could have put a small secondary “pod” behind the main “zero pod”. Like the ventral fin on the shark. 😂
I don’t know it you have mentioned this or not…but the cut out on the floor edge..last yr at one of the wet races…I seen a jet of spray coming out from under the floor…that was diverting a vortex away from crashing into the rear tyre.
Loving your content. Your years experience really shining through in picking out the finer details. If you were a betting man who's your money on this season??
