Pit Stop – To Brackley and Back at High Speed

Before their next race, the Mercedes-Benz race cars of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher are prepared in minute detail – at home in Brackley, in the heart of the UK.

• Interview with Ross Brawn: “Aerodynamic Performance Dominates the Car”
• Interview with Bob Bell: “In-season Development is Becoming Extremely Important”

For over 60 years, the FIA Formula 1 World Championship has thrilled millions with its lightning-fast cars. Mercedes-Benz has played a major role in the sport’s history, from the 1950s to the present day. Every Mercedes grand prix car comes to life in Brackley. This small town in Northamptonshire, close to the Silverstone circuit, is at the heart of the UK’s Motorsport Valley. The MERCEDES GP PETRONAS facility in Brackley is responsible for giving the race cars a full service after every event in order to inspect components, replace used parts, and integrate new developments.

The most important stage in the development of a Mercedes-Benz Formula 1 race car begins more or less simultaneously with the publication of the latest regulations from the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile). The performance of the Formula 1 cars is optimized using CFD (computational fluid dynamics) processes and wind tunnel tests. CFD supports the design process by calculating the proper geometry for every component in accordance with the desired aerodynamic properties. The CFD results are then confirmed in the wind tunnel. Almost all of the development work in the wind tunnel is carried out on half-scale models.

“Aerodynamic performance dominates the car and is the fastest-changing area of the design of the car in terms of development and the regulations,” says MERCEDES GP PETRONAS Team Principal Ross Brawn. Individual component designs must be continually coordinated with the wind tunnel team. “It’s important to find the right balance between aerodynamic and mechanical development to maximize the car’s performance,” says Bob Bell, Technical Director of MERCEDES GP PETRONAS.

Individual plies (essentially, shapes of carbon fiber) are cut in the Composite Cutting Room from rolls of material; multiple plies are required to assemble a single carbon fiber component. The sterile Clean Room is used to assemble the carbon components: The plies are assembled in the molds in a carefully calculated, predetermined order, to produce the desired structural characteristics for the part. The materials are then baked under pressure, in a vacuum, in the autoclave. The resin in the carbon fiber hardens as the component cools to produce the finished part. Approximately 80 percent of a Formula 1 race car consists of carbon fiber, which offers excellent strength and stiffness, ensuring both safety and performance, for very light weight. The carbon crash structures are designed to optimally absorb and dissipate the energy involved in an accident. The driver sits in a carbon fiber ‘safety cell’ – the monocoque – that offers much better protection than the aluminum construction that was used up to the 1980s.

Safety plays a key role at every stage of the work carried out at the Operations Center; care and precision are at the service of both performance and optimum safety standards. Nearly every component on the car is individually checked during the inspection process before being fitted to the car, and each one is given a specific kilometric life, which is constantly monitored. The FIA regulations also require detailed standards to be met in the development and production of Formula 1 cars. For 2011, Formula 1 cars were only allowed to test for a maximum of 15,000 km before the first Grand Prix, and the car had to undergo over a dozen strength and crash tests before being homologated to race. The limits on track testing mean much development work is done in the team’s state-of the-art driver-in-the-loop simulator.

This allows the engineers to test new components on the car, while giving the drivers the chance to familiarize themselves with new circuits, or fine-tune set-ups to maximize running time at the track. The MGP W02, the race car for the 2011 Formula 1 season, includes innovative solutions to race car performance within the regulations laid down by the FIA. “One of the key principles is that we know that we can’t stand still otherwise we will move quickly backwards through the field,” Brawn explains. A good example is the KERS hybrid system, which, after a break of one year, is now once again permitted under the regulations. MERCEDES GP PETRONAS has co-developed the Mercedes-Benz KERS (kinetic energy recovery system) technology with Mercedes-Benz HighPerformanceEngines. The system improves the vehicle’s ability to overtake another car, by harvesting kinetic energy under braking and using it to provide additional power of approximately 80 hp for 6.7 seconds at the push of a button.

It takes approximately ten months of design and development work at the Operations Center to produce a new race car for the Formula 1 season. The performance of the vehicles is also enhanced between every race, however. “It’s a difficult balance between problem-solving and increasing performance, as you also have to spend time on fixing any issues and reliability,” Bell explains. Highly skilled mechanics use the Race Bay to disassemble, check, and re-assemble the car, including any new developments. Only then is the car deemed ready to leave Brackley. It is transported to the next Grand Prix circuit by custom designed trucks, ready to write a new chapter in the sporting tradition of Mercedes-Benz.

Text: Annika Zuske

Photography: Stefan Hohloch

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