A major storyline in the F1 world with over a week until the Emilia Romagna GP?
A never-ending battle for upgrades in this sport.
McLaren brought a number of upgrades to the Miami Grand Prix that helped Lando Norris take his first F1 victory with a spectacular drive on Sunday. Currently, all eyes are on Ferrari. The Scuderia will hold a shakedown session on Thursday and Friday at its Fiorano test track to upgrade its own SF-24.
How to avoid losing? Mercedes. The Silver Arrows brought some unique upgrades to Miami, including some new details on the W15’s floor (more on that later). A series of upgrades will be completed in Imola. In a post-Miami debrief, Andrew Shovlin, the team’s trackside engineering director, said: outlined what they learned In Miami and what they hope to unravel in Italy.
“We have been able to deliver around half of the update kits to Miami and the other half will arrive in Imola. We are working very hard to bring the developments to future races as well.” explained Shovlin. “Did it perform as expected? Yes, it appears to be delivering all the performance we expected from the floor.”
Regarding the upgrades the team brought to Miami, Mercedes listed four upgrades in its FIA filing, including upgrades to the floor body, cooling louvers, front wing and front suspension. Perhaps most impressive were the changes to the floor body, which the team described as:[c]Affects floor roof volume and floor edge detail (feathers are added to the floor edge wings). ”
Due to FIA regulations, we are unable to share any photos taken of the changes in the pit lane from Miami, but the legendary Albert Fabrega presents them here.
According to the team, this upgrade “…changes increase local floor loads and also improve flow to the rear of the vehicle and the diffuser.” Changes to the floor edges reduce pressure locally, which in turn Increase. [forward] floor load. ”
Shovlin said in the debriefing session that both George Russell and Lewis Hamilton still felt that the W15 was unpredictable from session to session and even lap to lap.
“Also, the handling issues that drivers have to deal with make it difficult to see every performance as a straight forward move.” explained Shovlin. “What we tend to find is that the car can behave completely differently from session to session, and until you overcome that, it blunts the benefits you get more than if you just keep going all the time.” This is because it blunts the benefits that can be gained from seed updates.
“But after the last few races, what we need to do to the car to make it a little easier for the driver to handle, what we need to do to the car to make sure it goes where the driver wants it to go. We now have a very clear idea of what we should do “during the important qualifying laps.”
Speaking in Miami after Saturday’s qualifying, Russell outlined the following for the media: SB Nationthe difficulties they face in getting W15 into its optimal operating window.
“You know, the problem Lewis and I had last year was this kind of mean rear end, and now all of a sudden we’re having trouble turning the car around in slow corners and it’s the front side.” [end] It’s kind of a washout,” Russell explained. “So I think we’ve gone too far in the opposite direction. We need to find a middle ground between where we were last year and where we ended up now.”
Russell then admitted that change won’t happen overnight and unfortunately for Mercedes, the clock is ticking.
“But I think you know the reality of it,” the driver continued. “When you bring an upgrade to a car, it has to be physically pulled out, put into a wind tunnel, manufactured, and then brought into the car. It’s possible that we’ll probably look at it over the course of a few weeks and a few races.”
Hamilton described driving the W15 as living on a “knife’s edge.”
There’s also this fact, as Shovlin explained this week.
The rest of the field is not static
“The problem at the moment is that everyone else is developing their own cars,” Shovlin said. “We saw McLaren have a big package and they look like they’re moving forward.”
Can Mercedes follow suit at Imola?
