Mercedes is the big surprise at Silverstone. The Brackley team put two W15s on the front row with George Russell on pole position alongside Lewis Hamilton who then won his historic 104th GP. The black-silver arrows took their second win in a row: if George’s Austrian win was a coincidence, the seven-time world champion’s win was built on merit.
Mercedes W15: the curvature of the bodywork already appeared in Austria
Picture of: George Piola
The appearance of a rather noticeable curvature in the cover that covers the upper part of the frame had attracted the attention of our George Piola in Austria. At Mercedes they had tried not to give weight to the solution: someone had implied that it was simply nothing more than the vanity panel that hid the air intake for cooling the cockpit in hot races.
Red Bull RB20: Two Mini Periscopes to Cool the Cockpit
Picture of: George Piola
It was enough to look at the two micro periscopes of the Red Bull RB20 to understand that it could not be like this, especially since there were no ducts on the W15. Mercedes, therefore, proposed to Spielberg an intervention in the front suspension that required a swelling of the bodywork to accommodate the new elements.
What is it? James Allison has decided for once to put mechanics before aerodynamics: he has decided on a third larger element, thanks to which it is possible to guarantee greater damping of stresses due to the greater surface available. This is a choice antithetical to the classic philosophy of F1 which favors lightness and the search for aerodynamic efficiency.
Detail of the front suspension of the Mercedes W15
Picture of: George Piola
Bravely in Brackley they went against the trend in the knowledge that a third larger element would have cost an increase in weight and a decidedly more resistant shape. The ability of Mercedes, however, was to go beyond the negative aspects, discovering that the advantage that came from the mechanics was such as to admit no doubts.
The genealogy of the ground effect cars of the “Stella” was born with rigid, very rigid suspensions. The goal was to have “ironing boards” in the hope of being able to run with locked setups that would allow to deliberate on surfaces able to skim the asphalt and therefore able to produce the maximum ground effect.
An illusion that “porpoising” has already demolished at the debut of the W13. The hopping that is generated at high speeds prevents the drivers from tackling fast curves with the gas flat out and, above all, causes the rear tires to overheat due to the sudden loss of grip caused by the sudden and uncontrolled aerodynamic instability.
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
Allison’s engineers, therefore, after racking their brains trying to understand why the data seen in the wind tunnel could not be read on the track (the “porpoising” does not emerge in the wind tunnel because the speed of investigation – limited by regulation – is lower than that at which the phenomenon manifests itself), had the courage to intervene on the mechanical part of the W15 so that with a more open scale of setup adjustments, it was possible to decide on softer set-ups, useful for reducing the “hopping”.
What might have seemed like a gamble, seems to have been the most successful choice, so much so that James himself said in Canada: “Oh God, how could we have been so stupid as not to see the path to follow sooner?”.
The damping of the stresses helped Mercedes find the balance that it had been stubbornly searching for for three years with continuous modifications to the pavement of the ground. The primacy of the mechanics met the efficiency of the aerodynamics, giving results that transformed the W15 from being a “dud” into a winning car.
Suspension detail of the Mercedes W06, Brazilian GP
Picture of: George Piola
But already in 2015 we had seen similar experiments on the silver arrows: in the Brazilian GP on the W06 Hybrid a noticeable transverse curvature had appeared in the area of the front suspension. The technicians had tested a part of the kinematics for the following year in Interlagos, immediately drawing positive indications.
Will we see more “bulges” appear on other cars that are suffering similar problems? We wouldn’t be surprised at all…
#Mercedes #primacy #mechanics #service #aero
