Along with Aston Martin, Williams and Alpine, Mercedes was the disappointment of the first third of the season. In the first 8 races of the season, the Brackley team scored 71 points less than last season, with a W15 That it should have been the redemption machine and instead it showed itself to be almost worse in performance than the previous ones when compared to direct competitors. However, glimmers of full understanding of the new regulations finally seem to be arriving and this would be a something really important for an F1 which would thus see, perhaps even in rotation as happened in Canada, four teams fighting for the top positions.
Mercedes: the new front wing is a big step forward
The start of the season was not what the Brackley team hoped for, with important correlation problems between factory and track, which even generated unexpected bottoming and bouncing, as well as a balance that was totally absent on the W15. That’s how it started long period of analysis to understand what was still wrong and the first results have been visible on the track for a few races now. “The Mercedes was on average the fastest car of the entire weekend” Lando Norris announced after the Canadian GP race, joined by his TP, Andrea Stella: “Some of the lap times they set in Monaco and this weekend were out of our reach.”
In Brackley they are certain that the new front wing introduced in Monaco with Russell, later seen on both cars in Canada, it’s a big step forward to solve the balance problems of the W15. “The new wing made the car easier to drive, more balanced, and perhaps the car became more driver-friendly, something we were struggling with at the start of the season.” Allison said. The problem with the old specification was that of a balancing practically impossible to be found between low and high speed curves. If you balanced the high speed, at low speed there was some understeer; if you balanced the lows, there was oversteer at the highs. That’s because the innovative but failed Launch Spec front wing was behaving very differently from what the factory gauges showed. “To improve, we could change the mechanical balance, which helps you combat the inherent tendency to understeer at low speeds and oversteer at high speeds. But the more extreme you make it, the more complicated the car becomes and seems to the driver.” James Allison explained very clearly at the Canadian weekend.
In Brackley they believe that, this time, the path taken is finally the same but Barcelona is already a very important exam
The question many are asking now is this: was it just a one-off GP for Mercedes or did the W15 really make up all the ground against the three leading teams? Toto Wolff did not want to say too much: “It’s important not to get carried away by enthusiasm, because F1 is a difficult sport but we have one positive trajectory from the last three races and everything seems to make a lot more sense between factory and track. The rest will be told by the stopwatch.”. Even in the factory there is one important positivity that the path taken is finally the right one, also thanks to more conservative and less innovative solutions which are giving the desired results. However, there is also a certain awareness that Canada is not a completely true image of the competitiveness of the W15 although, comparing China to Canada which saw conditions not too dissimilar except for the quite different layout, Mercedes recovered half a second on Mclaren and Ferrari.
“The changes we have made are making this car better but the Montreal’s characteristics make it seem a little faster than it is” James Allison said. To Barcelona a modified surface will make its debut to adapt to the changes made to the front; not only relative to the wing but also in the corner of the fairing of the front arms which are now less downwash And more upwashwith Mercedes thus continuing to try to streamline the flow for optimize the ride height of the W15 even further. The Spanish GP is a very important test for the Anglo-German team because the Montmelò has all those characteristics that put Hamilton and Russell’s car in difficulty at the beginning of the season, such as a very important set-up compromise between high and low speed, as well as temperatures which could also be high. In short, almost the opposite of the Canadian weekend. “In Barcelona I expect us to still be competitive but not as competitive as in Canada.” commented Allison, DT of the former world champion team.
