The COAT - Round Two - Williams FW11 vs Mercedes F1 W05 Hybrid

[crmalcolm]

For the forth match in Round Two, we have representation from the Williams and Mercedes stables in the form of the Williams FW11 vs the Mercedes F1 W05 Hybrid.

The Williams defeated the Jaguar R1 and Gordini Type 16 in the first round, by a score of 6-1-1. The Mercedes also picked up 6 votes to beat the Ferrari F2007 in round one.

Williams FW11/B (snaplap.net):
The Williams – Honda FW11 was the Formula 1 World Championship winning car in the season of 1986 and one of the best cars constructed by the British team.

Williams team made a solid base with FW10, a car that won four races in 1985, and the new car was made with an ambition to overthrow McLaren from the throne. The technical director Patrick Head and the chief designer Frank Dernie were at the helm of the team that created this very successful car, while Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet had the task to score as many victories as they can with this car.

The main advantage of the Williams FW11 was a mighty Honda 1.5 liter V6 turbo engine. Furthermore, the aerodynamics of Williams FW11 was a step forward in comparison to other rival teams. Undoubtedly, this car was one of the most memorable and most successful cars of the Formula 1’s turbo era.

The updated Williams FW11B was a car which ruled the Formula 1 World Championship in 1987 and won both Drivers’ and Constructors’ championship titles. After success with Williams FW11 in 1986, the team prepared a new car which actually was a modified and upgraded version of the previous model. Designed by Sir Patrick Head and Frank Dernie, Williams FW11B was superior to the most of the cars on the grid that year. The main advantage was a lighter, less complicated suspension which drew much less power from the Honda engine. That’s why it wasn’t surprising that this car won both titles in 1987. At the same time, it was the last year of Williams’ cooperation with Honda as the Japanese manufacturer left the team and joined with McLaren.

Mercedes F1 W05 Hybrid (grandprixhistory.org):
The 2014 Formula One season marked one of the biggest change in regulations in the sports history and the W05 is the answer to the changes from Mercedes.
The initial engineering conversations between the Formula 1 team at Brackley and the Mercedes-Benz Technology Centre in Brixworth where the engines are made around both the regulations and potential solutions date back to late 2010. Since mid-2011, when the rules for the new V6 Hybrid Power Unit were officially published, Mercedes-Benz claims that it has taken a fully integrated approach to every major performance decision with a clear-sighted focus on maximizing overall car performance.

The result is the new F1 W05 and at its heart, the PU106A Hybrid Power Unit, both designed to meet the challenge of a fundamental change in the philosophy of Formula One. The introduction of a demanding maximum race fuel allowance of just 100 kg per race, coupled with a maximum fuel flow rate of 100 kg/hour, have focused the efforts of the sport's engineers on delivering performance with a set of innovative new technologies that achieve an efficiency gain of more than 30%. This is quite an astounding figure that's been lost in complaint about the "spectacle" and more specifically the sound that the cars produce. “From a technical and also a racing perspective, this is an incredibly exciting time for Formula One” Technical Director Paddy Lowe explained. We are introducing technologies that are new not just to racing but to the wider automotive world as well. The headline is that of improved efficiency and the fact that we will be completing races with advanced Hybrid systems on just 100 kg of fuel sends a great message about the technology that Formula One can deliver. But it is also about the technology that Mercedes-Benz can develop compared with our competition, both for the chassis and the new Power Unit.

In the new jargon of Formula 1 engines have become power units. As exclusively revealed in the latest issue of Racecar Engineering where Peter Wright observes “Mercedes has split the compressor from the turbine, locating the former at the front of the engine and the latter at the rear. In between, mounted in the V, is the MGU-H being driven/driving the turbine and compressor via shafts. This arrangement allows all the cold parts and charge-air ducts to be mounted forward and the hot parts at the rear.” What Write noted has on further inspection provided many interrelated benefits.

As noted by others:

As the air is not traveling through as much pipe work, a reduction in turbo lag means less power needs to be be harvested from the car's ERS unit to keep the turbine spooled off throttle. That in turn improves the efficiency of the car, with more power reserved for performance gain and less fuel consequentially used up.

With the compressor further away from the turbine - which is spun by hot exhaust gases - the W05 has a smaller intercooler, meaning Mercedes are running with smaller sidepods which boost aerodynamic performance.
Furthermore, with the compressor in front of the engine, Mercedes have also moved their car's gearbox forward, improving its centre of gravity and therefore, in theory, its handling.

Motorsports's Mark Hughes in his technical analysis notes that "Its impact is maybe not quite as big as active-ride, but it's certainly a major technical advantage that they've engineered themselves for the rest of the season."

Other changes to the regulations impose a narrower front wing; the removal of the lower rear wing and a reduction in size of the upper wing; and a central exhaust exit, thereby negating the effect of ´exhaust blowing´ over the diffuser which contributed to performance in the past three seasons. Starting at the front of the car the Mercedes nose is perhaps the most conventional looking and perhaps least objection al amongst the current crop of cars. The rear suspension of the car is once again a pullrod layout similar to the W05. Red Bull boss Christian Horner claimed in Malaysia that his team was one second slower along the straights, with track side observers estimating that the Mercedes unit boasts anything between 50 and 70 extra horsepower over the rest of the field. Of course this would also allow Mercedes to dial in more downforce if they chose to do so.

[S griffin]

Bloody hell, two peas in a pod. Williams shouldn't have lost the drivers title in 86, which shows how much better Prost was than Piquet and Mansell. If Prost had been in one of the seats at Williams, it would probably would have been as good a season as Merc had in 2014