Mercedes revealed extreme changes to its initial design ahead of the testing in Bahrain making the competition furious.
The Brackley-based team reinvented its car twice before the Bahrain testing. Mercedes’ W13 was in the development stage in Barcelona. Then the fairing parts went into production.
The Brackley-based team has introduced extreme changes in the design. The new car has no sidepods at all. The cooling inlets present on the left and right of the chassis near the cockpit are in the form of two narrow rectangular vertical slots.
Furthermore, the side panels are no longer wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. Instead, it attaches to the cockpit at the top and widens out at the bottom.
This design has one major advantage. It creates more space on the base plate and allows more freedom for the front diffuser tunnel. This might improve the downforce on the car.
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Eyes on the wing-shaped mirror mount
The main concern for competitors in the paddock is the wing-shaped mirror mount that the Mercedes has designed.
These are horizontal wings attached to the chassis and mounts side mirror on top of it. Officially, it is being considered as the mirror mount but Red Bull does not agree with this.
It is being interpreted as an outwash element as these wings partly point outwards. Red Bull boss Christian Horner said, “These are not mirror mounts, but two wings. They also have vertical baffles built on top. They have nothing to do with the mirror mount.”
The talk of the town in #F1Testing. 🤍🦈 pic.twitter.com/VmaMMC9LGl
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) March 10, 2022
From Red Bull’s point of view, the Brackley-based team has gone too far with their innovation. “That does not correspond to the spirit of the regulations. For us, these wings are illegal,” Horner said.
Mercedes is calm about these criticisms as the FIA has already approved the car.
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Mercedes is the opposite of Ferrari
The cooling elements on the new Mercedes design are placed in two places. The team has taken inspiration from last year’s Alpine. They have created gills just behind at the top of the fairing letting the hot air from the sidepod cooler escape.
The second row of gills has been attached further back in the engine cover for the airbox coolers. However, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff explained that the revamped car might look completely different but it isn’t.
“We just built a new fairing. The innards underneath remained the same. In Barcelona, we simply had more air between the fairing and the components underneath,” he said.
Furthermore, the new sidepod designs are completely opposite of the Ferrari. The 2022 Ferrari car relies on the huge sidepods while Mercedes has none at all.
The Ferrari looks massive in comparison to the revamped Mercedes but the former is definitely fast, an engineer from the Mercedes team said.
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