Formula One has been a hotbed for automotive engineering for decades. F1 engineers are the best of the best and currently the best of the best of the best is Mercedes AMG Petronas. Since F1 transitioned to V6 turbo hybrid engines in 2014, Mercedes has won the championship every single year. Some of that comes from a talented driver like Lewis Hamilton. But we've seen other drivers perform very well in the Merc too. Heck, we've even seen other teams copy their car and gain almost a full second advantage.

So what is Mercedes doing differently to make them so dominant? Well, even though their cars change every year, there are some things about the Silver Arrow that stay pretty consistent. Today, we're going to look at what gives them the edge, we're going to break down their aerodynamics, their engine efficiency, and the innovation that they bring to the grid each year.

Thanks to Raycon for sponsoring today's episode of Bumper to Bumper, life can get noisy sometimes, and you just want to take a quick little five-minute break, sit in your nice chair, enjoy the weather, and then some dude rolls up in a black Mustang and just ruins the peace and quiet. Car revving.

"Jerry, Jerry, it's me Nolan," (indistinct), "Jerry don't make me get out of this car men." (chuckles) Having a longer car gives the Merc a big advantage with aerodynamics because they have more real estate to make their aerodynamics work.

Now if you need to channel air from the front wing to the brake ducts and the brake ducts are a few millimeters further back. You don't need as severe of an angle and your winglet to make that correction, you create less turbulence and less stress. It also helps with packaging, the space inside the rear wheels around the back of the engine in the gearbox air needs to be channeled off the sides of the car to the rear wing.

With a longer car Mercedes can sculpt that bodywork around the gearbox more and channel that air better. And finally, you've got the floor. Remember how I said it was acting like a big wing? Well, if your wing is bigger, it creates more downforce.

All of this is totally different to a team like Red Bull, who has been long hailed as the F1 aerodynamics kings. Red Bull cars are short with a high rake to help them get around those tight corners better. But Mercedes technical director James Allison says that, "You can't have a race car that's too fast on a track that's not very fast."

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Formula One has been a hotbedfor automotive engineering for decades.F1 engineers are the best of the bestand right now the best of the bestof the best is Mercedes AMG Petronas.Since F1 transitioned to V6turbo hybrid engines in 2014.Mercedes has won thechampionship every single year.Some of that comesfrom a talented driverlike Lewis Hamilton.But we've seen otherdrivers perform very wellin the Merc too.Heck we've even seenother teams copy their carand gain almost a fullone second advantage.So what is Mercedes doing differentlyto make them so dominant?Well, even though theircars change every year,there are some thingsabout the Silver Arrowsthat stay pretty consistent.So today, we're gonna look at what givesthem the edge, we're gonnabreak down their aerodynamics,their engine efficiency,and the innovation that they bringto the grid each year.(upbeat music)Thanks to Raycon forsponsoring today's episodeof bumper to bumper,life can get noisysometimes say you just wantto take a quick little five minute break,sit in your nice chair,enjoy the weather,and then some dude rollsup in a black Mustangand just ruins the peace and quiet.(car revving)- Jerry, Jerry, it'sme Nolan (indistinct),Jerry don't make me getout of this car men, Jerry.- But thanks to Rayconand their everyday E25 earbud,I can just pop these bad boys inand isolate out the Nolan.- Jerry, Jerry!- And what's even betteris they cost half the priceof those other premium earbuds.So that's pretty awesome.And better yet,Raycon offers a free 45 day return policyso you got nothing to lose goto buyraycon.com/bumper andreceive 15% off your order.My time's up.- Jerry, Jerry!- Now before we get too far into this,I wanna mention thatwhile we did our researchon Mercedes AMG Petronas,we can't say with 100% certaintyhow they're beating everyonebecause if we could,I'd have a job at Alfa Romeo right now,Frederick, my man, hit me upif you need some engineering advice,I got some ideas.This will be a look at whatdifferentiates Mercedesfrom the other cars on the field,why those differences mightbe giving them an advantageand why other teams justcan't shift their plansto match Mercedes.And we're gonna start offin the aero department.Aerodynamics play a big partin F1 and over the years,it's gotten to be a prettycomplicated subject.But before we can start talkingabout what makes the MercedesF1 aero package different,we first need to paint a pictureof what F1 aerodynamicsare like in general.Crash course in F1 aerodynamictheory, here we go.Aero on a modern F1 car consistsof three main things, thefront wing, the floor,and the rear wing.The front wing is where it all starts.It's the first part of the carthat oncoming air hits and it dictateshow the air hits the rest of the carand the front ring is super specific.And this is why you just can't copyanother team's front wingcause it doesn't match upwith the rest of the car.So the front wing has gotto create front end downforcesending the air awayfrom the car.But it's also got a channelthat air to vital componentslike the brake ducksand the side pods at high speedsmake the front wings job even harder.Sometimes a car can go so fastor change the direction of airflow so muchthat it creates a gap in the layers of airsome air strays attachto the body of the car,that's the boundary layerand the rest gets sent over the car.That's what's generating our downforce.And in between, well there's little gapsof nothing creating a vacuumand it sucks air towards itfrom the nice cleanlayers of air around it.And that's known as our laminar air.Some of the laminar air detachesand tries to randomly fill the voids,bouncing all over the place.And this is what's called turbulence.Turbulent air is bad you don't want it,it's unpredictable spoilsthe air's momentum.And it's really, really hard to avoid.Turbulent air it's like whenyou're watching a YouTube videoand then the ad comes in.But what if I told youthat we can make a special kind of airto fill that pocket whilestill acting like laminar air.Well, we've got one of thoseand it's a vortex and vortexis a spiral of air kinda like a tornado.It still acts like laminar air,and if it shot into that vacuum pocket,it can essentially stitch ourlayers of air back togetherand this is why modern frontwings are so complicated.All those little winglets andveins are creating vorticeschanneling air to exactly where the restof the car needs it.So the front wing isdirecting air every which wayand one of the places the airhas gotta go is to the floor.The floor of an F1 caris really important.The center portion is flatfor minimal turbulencebut the front and back are curved upwardsto give the whole car theeffect of a giant wing.The floor has plentyof channeling panels andlittle venturi style funnelsto get the air underthe car moving faster,so suck the car to the ground,and F1 cars even send littlevortices down the sidesof the floor to act likeinvisible side skirtsto seal all that air in.And finally, all this fastmoving air gets to the backof the car and that big owl wang talkabout two different types of wings now.The rear wing is gettingloads of clean airto create massive amounts of downforceto press those rear tires into the ground.The rear diffuser it also plays a big partin the downforce by funneling air outfrom underneath the car very cleanly,even the exhaust itgets some wing treatmentto mellow it out.Mellow exhaust, it's like a quiet fart.(fart sound)Now the rear wing's main job is downforce.But we already know thatdownforce creates drag.Just like with the front wing,the air is being redirectedand can create a vacuum behind the carthat would literallysuck the car backwards.That's why modern rear wingshave those little slitsand cutouts and that's to create vorticesto cancel out low pressure zones.If you look closely,you can actually see thespinning air coming off thetop corners of an F1's rear wing.All of this can vary from trackto track at a high speed circuitlike Monza wings willbe adjusted for low dragand straight line speed.At a high temperaturetrack like Singapore,the wing angles will bechanged to optimize coolingof the engine and the brakes.So that's the basics of aero in F1.But what makes theMercedes F1 car different.The main difference thatsticks out about the Merc isthat it's a long boy, likeyour boy, six foot nine.No I'm not six foot nine.(chuckles)Having a longer car givesthe Merc's a big advantagewith aero because theyhave more real estateto make their aero work.Now if you need to channel airfrom the front wing to the brake ducksand the brake ducks are afew millimeters further back.You don't need as severe ofan angle and your wingletto make that correctionyou create less turbulenceand less stress.It also helps with packaging,the space inside the rear wheelsaround the back of the enginein the gearbox air needsto be channeled off the sidesof the car to the rear wing.With a longer car Mercedes can sculptthat bodywork around the gearbox moreand channel that air better.And finally you've got the floor.Now remember how I said itwas acting like a big wing.Well, if your wing is bigger,it creates more downforce.Now all of this is totally differentto a team like Red Bull,who has been long hailedas the F1 aero kings.Red Bull cars are short with a high raketo help them get aroundthose tight corners better.But Mercedes technicaldirector James Allison saysthat, "What the Mercedes losefrom that long wheelbase,they make up with theaerodynamic benefits."It's a numbers game, so yougotta sacrifice a littleto gain a lot.So Mercedes takes afundamentally different approachto aerodynamics than mostof the other top teams.But the aero isn't what people wereso blown away by let's look atwhat blew them away the mostand that's the engine.Since 2014 F1 has been using1.6 liter V6 turbo hybrid enginesrevving over 12,000 rpmand making 900 horsepower.That alone is pretty wildand what's even wilder is thatthat's the average F1 carand Mercedes is on a whole another level.There are probably a fewsecrets to Mercedes enginesthat haven't been released to the public.Maybe we'll find outthat they had like a littlejarball living inside oneof their turbos spinningit up and his nameis Louis hamsters then.One of the things that's often overlookedabout the Mercedes engine is hidden rightin the team's name Petronas.Petronas is the companythat supplies fuel for the Mercedes team.But not just that, theyalso provide all the fluidsand lubricants for their engine.In 2017, Mercedes achieved50% thermal efficiency,which is crazy that is huge.To put that in perspective,the average engine is luckyto get 25% thermal efficiency.Thermal efficiency is a measurementof how much potential energyand amount of fuel has vs how much ofthat comes out of theengine as usable power.A lot of times thatenergy is lost to frictionin the engine creating heatand good engine oil canreduce that friction.This means that theengine is more reliable,there's less wear on the componentsand it gets better fuel economy.Now I know you're like thinking okay,what do I care about fuel economyin an F1 car while it's racing,but it's more important than you think.The current F1 regulationsrefueling is banned.Current cars can start therace with 110 kilogramsof fuel and if you drive ballsto the walls every singlelap you won't make itto the end of the race.If your engine is more fuel efficient,you can either start withless fuel and be lighterthan all the other carsor you can turn theengine up burn more fueland make more power there's a good chancethat is where Mercedesparty mode comes from,(joyful music)if you watch frickin F1Mercedes have a party modeit is what allows them tousually qualify the fastestcause it just dumps asmuch fuel as possible,I'm guessing into the engine.Mercedes also optimize theefficiency of their turbo.F1 turbos are pretty unique already,they're wired up to the hybrid systemso the turbo can chargethe hybrid power battery.But the system can also work in reverse,the hybrid unit can spoolup the turbo directly.So Mercedes took a lookat this separated turbo,and they realized they canget more gains out of it.They separated the compressorin the turbine even more,they put them on either ends of the Vin the engine block and theyran a driveshaft between them.This got the compressor awayfrom the heat of the turbine,meaning it got denserair going into the motor.And that also meant thatit had shorter pipingto the intercooler on roadcars you'd call this a hot sidein V configuration.Basically, this means thatone section of the caris getting all your hotside and another sectionis getting all the cool side.That way you don't have anyof the hot exhaust mixing with anyof the cool air you're tryingto send into the motor.With better thermal efficiency the engineis also running cooler ifanyone knows or follows F1 knowsthat Mercedes only weaknessseems to be on hot days,but it's almost never the enginethat has an issue its braketemperature or tire wear.2014 was when the new engines came about.And it was when Mercedes startedabsolutely destroying the competition.While running the 2012 and 2013 seasons,they spent their efforts building the carfor 2014 while everyoneelse was working to catch upthe Mercedes engineers hadthe freedom to get creativeand come up with new radical ideas.In 2018 Mercedes came out witha new design for their wheel.It was a designed thatchanneled air through the wheelsto keep them cool and to helpcontrol tire temperatures.What they did was add a set of spacersto the rear wheels.This wheel spacer wasvented just like you'd seeon a drilled rotor.And the idea wasto get more air flowing through the centerof the wheel cooling the rear brake,but also cooling the rear tiresand Mercedes are still finding waysto chase tire management today.In 2020, they came up withtheir most controversialinnovation yet it's called DASand it stands for dual axis steering.And here is how it works.You turn your steering wheel leftand the wheels go left,you turn the steering wheel rightand your wheels go right,you with me so far?Okay, great.We're on the same page.Now you push the wheelin and the wheels tow inand if you pull the wheel towards you,the wheels tow back out.And this tech is so newthat we aren't 100% surewhat advantage Mercedesare getting from it.But there's plenty of theories onhow this system couldbenefit a Mercedes team.One hypothesis is that it canhelp them in the tight cornerswhere they're losing outbecause of their long wheelbase.Having a car with a little bit of towin it can help keep the car straightand stable at high speeds.But if the car has alittle bit of tow out,it can help the car dart into the corners.So say I'm in the MercedesHamilton he retired,okay his sick of winning,so I'm sneaking my waythrough sector two at Cota,the nose diving in just rightthrough eight, nine and 10.Hard on the brakes for turn 11and then stretched out before meis the backstraight by the endof it we'll be approaching200 miles per hourbut my steering is set up quick and dirtyand I don't want thatso I accelerate the cheerof the fans drowned out by the roarof my Mercedes engine.I go with the G forcesand pull my steering wheeltowards me straighteningup the front wheels,increasing stability,minimizing scrub and maximizing top speed.I like this theorybut it would require the drivers make DASadjustments every single lapand that is not what seems to be happeningwhere they seem to be using itis during a safety car periodwhen a race becomes unsafebecause of debris or a crash.A safety car will come outto slow the drivers downand they continue in a paradefor a few laps while the hazardsget everything cleaned up.The problem with that isthat F1 tires are designedto run at high speed.They need heat to stay stickyand if you're going slow,they cool down butwith DAS the Mercedescar can adjust the toeso that their tires scrubthe track just a little bit.This creates friction andfriction creates heat.So when the race starts up again,everyone else is on cold tirebut the Mercedes they can drive offinto the sunset getting first placelike they always do.- I have not seen these yet so...- No.- Boost Creeps hoodie.Who's that handsome boy,man what a good looking hoodie.- We reworked the logoa little bit now it'sin yellow really pop skins that black.We added an arm head so you can flythat Donut flag.I'm gonna rock mine all fall ,all winter.Go to donutmedia.com and get you onethey're probably gonna sell outso I would get it sooner than later.- That's it guys.We did it.We figured it out.We know now why Mercedes is so fastas an F1 team.All we need to do is you needto give me $150 million.And we can go out makeour own Donut F1 team.I'd design the car, I'd engineer it.Zack and his roommatesay would work on it.James would be the team principle.Nolan would be the guythat when you crash he'd pat youon the back like it's okay man.You did a good job.Okay, follow me on Instagramat Jeremiah Burton and followus at Donut Media bye for now.