After a rather subdued Tuesday and Wednesday, Mercedes emerged with the second fastest time on the final day of pre-season testing.
The headline lap time is slightly misleading in that a mix of C3 and C4 tires were used to set that time, with the latter compound being around 0.6 seconds faster than the former.
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Nevertheless, the final day began to reveal the pace of the new W15 design, which was very different from its two predecessors.
Lewis Hamilton and George Russell commented that in fundamental feel, the W15 was a nicer and more stable drive than what they had to use from 2022 onwards. In particular, the unstable and unpredictable rear end seems to have been tamed. That was part of the new car brief.
Mercedes’ George Russell set the second fastest time on the third day of pre-season testing.
“Compared to last year’s car, the feedback from drivers is very different and more positive, which is encouraging,” said Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin. “The team has worked hard to fix the handling flaws that are essential to the W14, and it’s great to see that we seem to have resolved many of those issues.”
The significantly different bodywork shape and the cockpit, which has been moved further back, are the most visually obvious of the changes made to compensate for the shortcomings of the previous model. But the real change, as technical director James Allison explained, is in how the car’s aerodynamics are defined.
He said: “A fast car is a car that has conceptual strength…things go well or go wrong depending on whether you believe the lap times will come.
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“Downforce gives you lap times. Okay, where? Do you want downforce at 80mm or 30mm? You want the car to be strong in crosswinds. Okay, but is the crosswind 1 degree and the wind speed 15 degrees? How much importance do you give to 15 degrees, 5 degrees, or 0 degrees? These are all conceptual choices, and things like the sidepod concept It’s not a concept, but a deeper conceptual choice of choosing what to value.
“If you create a place to display what you value, where is the treasure buried? – your factory, the efficiency of your factory, will dig it out of the ground for you, but it will be yours.” Only if you are looking in the right place.”
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To aid in that treasure hunt, especially to give the rear of the car a more sympathetic aerodynamic effect, the rear suspension was changed from a pull-rod layout to a push-rod, and the suspension rocker was moved up. It can increase the amount of airflow that an aerodynamicist can work with.
Another feature that aids in the quest for better airflow to the rear of the car is the ingenious front wing design with a cut-out top on the inboard side. Not only does this create a gap to direct the air flow backwards, but the exposed inner edge of the top flap creates a vortex due to the pressure differential acting on the horizontal and vertical surfaces.
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This vortex accelerates the flow through the gap towards the rear of the car. It may also be beneficial to allow air to flow more forcefully around the front tires.
Regulations state that the flap must be attached to the nose, but Mercedes legalized the flap part by using a thin strip to connect it and defining this strip as part of the top element. .
Russell believes Mercedes has taken a good step in understanding their car through testing
While this is perfectly legal on the wording of the regulations, encouraging greater outwash goes against the principle of these regulations, which is to create a friendlier slipstream to make the car more raceable. That’s not likely to stop this ingenious development from being widely studied by all other teams.
At Mercedes, it is now a race against time to more fully understand the car’s completely different characteristics and exploit its full potential.
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“During the testing process we have made good progress in understanding the car,” Russell said. “The challenge over the next few days is to review the results and put together the best package for the race weekend.
“It’s never easy to predict pace from testing, because any team can hide their pace very effectively when they want to.” However, it’s much better than it was 12 months ago. The situation is clear. We have a busy few days ahead of us as we make final preparations for the season opener. ”