Mercedes: concave rear baskets and circles “radiant” They have made the W09 a Star

A year has passed and the world is not upside down, because to win in Singapore was again Lewis with the silver arrow shot from pole, after a magical ride in which English has trimmed more than 6 tenths to SF71H Sebastian.

Vettel took a "slap" in qualifying having failed to warm up the tires in the lap because it ended up in the middle of the two Mercedes, to extract the best from Pirelli tires softer compound, They must proceed very slowly before launching.

 

In short, Red for the first time in the year seemed to clear technical inferiority. The Mercedes led the technical innovations such as the rear wing equipped with an additional double blow molding in the lateral bulkhead which Lewis Hamilton has judged important, but not decisive.

"We have brought flashy updates on the car, but we're always working on better understanding of what we can improve, mean, for example, the height of the car, things that seem small, but which they are a big help in adapting to different slopes. We got to a point where if the potential of our car is 100, we can bring out 102, and it is a fantastic feeling ... ".

How to say, the W09 has corrected the shot re-analyzing all previous data GP, finding some keys of important development in order to eliminate the "defects": Mercedes does not exploit the Rake structure except in small part, preferring to have a sliding car soil.

More the silver arrow is able to stay close to the asphalt with the bottom and produces more load. Question of millimeters but can make big differences in performance, on condition of being able to lead a more rigid machine that becomes even more nervous. Lewis succeeds drawing on its huge natural talent, while Valtteri Bottas is more difficult, paying a duty from her partner who is increasingly evident ...

The Mercedes growth was made possible by working on the length of the rear tires: in the interview that Aldo Costa had granted Motorsport.com in Monza on technical Parma he had launched the unmistakable signs ...
"We believe that the cornering behavior in general it is our strong point, while managing the temperature of the rear tires we are working hard: we hope to make progress even in Singapore where we will have some changes designed to this and then to ourselves we are making good progress, but I do not know if it will be enough ".

Apparently it was enough: Mercedes has brought the unpublished baskets of rear brakes, which have been designed to avoid transmitting the temperature to the rear tires through the heat of the disks in Marina Bay, so much so that the technicians of the Brackley team this time did not have to remove the warmers in advance on the hindquarters, as it had happened in previous GP to avoid the dreaded overheating.

The new carbon baskets, which have different cooling ducts, They have a concave shape to create a sort of air chamber with the wall of the rim in such a way that with the rotation of the wheel can also extract the heat to reduce the temperature of the rear tire.

In this regard we have been specifically designed rims OZ Racing that Mercedes debuted at Spa. The particularity of this solution is given by the fact that between one race and the other two have appeared also "teeth" that have the same shape as the final part of the race.

According to well informed, indeed, the "teeth" would cables for which they would have a dual function: in addition to facilitating the extraction of hot air from the rim during the rotation would be able to dissipate the high temperature of the tires working as small "radiators" Additional.

You can imagine what must have been the cost for the complete supply of the circles for two cars, Whereas the very special processing to which the forged wheels in magnesium were subjected, sign that Mercedes evaluated how crucial this change to eliminate one of the flaws of the W09.

Never only OZ Racing wheels are also treated with Polysil Thermal, nanotechnology which allows to reduce considerably the emissivity also.

If Mercedes has capitalized on these changes by focusing on the use of soft rubber tires like to finish the race in Singapore after the pit, Ferrari gambled that sull'ultrasoft, instead, He did not yield the results you expected in Maranello. The purple rubber has struggled to go in temperature in a matter in which Vettel has attempted the undercut on Verstappen and then the German had to manage the tire to reach the bottom without resorting to a second stop after also suffered an overheating of the brakes.

In short, an unfortunate choice, but now that Brackley have corrected the defects of W09 as they hope to bounce back in the department Corse technical leadership? Mattia Binotto not seem worried: the SF71H suffered a misstep in Marina Bay, but there are other developments coming for the final rush…

Of: Franco Nugnes

[Source: ch-it.motorsport.com]