The German producer has endured a difficult begin to the 2024 marketing campaign the place its new automotive has proven promise but additionally some key weaknesses which have left Lewis Hamilton and George Russell struggling at instances.
Specifically, Mercedes has been chasing solutions about why its automotive just isn’t performing in addition to anticipated in high-speed corners.
A part of the preliminary investigation has concerned the correlation between what the downforce figures that its wind tunnel and CFD simulations are saying ought to be produced and what it’s discovering in actual life.
It centered an excessive amount of effort on making an attempt to higher perceive the phenomenon at play that might clarify why the downforce was lacking.
However deeper evaluation of its W15 has truly thrown up one thing much more intriguing – in that it now believes the downforce is being produced precisely as predicted – however that it isn’t truly bringing it any profit in efficiency.
It’s understood that this discovery has shifted the mindset inside the workforce that the problem could possibly be extra mechanical associated than aerodynamic – which is what prompted it to strive some totally different set-up instructions eventually weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix.
Requested by Motorsport.com about its newest understanding of the automotive, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff stated: “We’re measuring downforce with our sensors and stress tabs, and it is saying to us that now we have 70 factors extra downforce in a specific nook in Melbourne than we had final yr.
“However, on the lap time, it isn’t one kilometre per hour quicker. It does not make any sense. So, the place’s the limitation?
“I feel we needed to tick some few packing containers to know: is there any limitation that now we have noticed? I feel there may be.”
Wolff admitted that the state of affairs was truly laborious to understand and suggests Mercedes had not bought pretty much as good an understanding of issues because it has now.
“Every thing over these two years which now we have seen factors that there ought to be way more downforce than we consider it’s,” he stated. “And now we have measured the downforce and it’s there.
“However we’re simply not in a position to extract the lap outing of it that we must always, and that the simulations present us. It isn’t trivial.”
Whereas the aerodynamics of F1 benchmark Pink Bull have been a component in its success, it’s extensively accepted that the workforce’s strengths are helped massively by its trip high quality – with its suspension techniques being completely suited to the calls for of the present floor impact vehicles.
Wolff thinks that key to Mercedes unlocking what is required from its automotive is in guaranteeing that the mechanical features of the automotive are significantly better aligned with its aero qualities.
“I feel that the automotive is so advanced for us, the place we put it when it comes to the aero steadiness and mechanical steadiness,” he stated.
“These two have to correlate, and we have adopted a sure trajectory during the last years. We saved delivering circles, and we got here to some extent to say, ‘okay, we have got to do one thing totally different right here.’”
Watch: F1 2024 Japanese Grand Prix Evaluation – Regular Service Resumed
