The Mercedes team admit that they were more difficult for some other teams to adapt their car to the requirements of the new technical regulations on aerodynamics. This is due to the concept of the so-called "low rack", i.e. A small angle of tilt chassis to the highway, which all previous years in Brecley was used.
Two weeks ago, the tests found out that the rear part of the Mercedes car is distinguished by the instability of behavior, and although the team remaining before the beginning of the season, the team engineers tried to figure out this, there is no confidence that the problem was completely solved to solve the first stage of the season.
"Probably, changes in the regulations affected us stronger than on cars with a higher rack - in Red Bull for many years already follow this concept," Toto Wolff has said on Friday in Bahrain. - It's more difficult for us to compensate for the loss of the clamping force, but judging by the fact that I have already managed to see, we have to truly acute rivalry. I hope so, because it is just what the fans want to see and we too. "
Make some changes to the design of the W12 chassis, changing its rake, it is unrealistic, for this you have to reconsider the entire aerodynamic concept of the machine. In addition, according to Wolff, the new Pirelli rubber is also affected on behavior of the machine, and not just a low rack.
"This is the last year when the current technical regulation is valid, and we will not be able to reproduce the concept of Red Bull, which some other teams also use. It is impossible physically, we cannot configure our suspension as they do in Red Bull, and change other balance parameters. Consequently, we must achieve a maximum from that car, what we have, trying to apply only the settings that are available to us. "
However, the first workouts in Bahrain showed that the W12 could make less nervous, although experts, watching the work of Lewis Hamilton and Valtter Bottas, came to the conclusion that now for Mercedes cars are characterized by manifestations of insufficient turning - probably this is a consequence of some temporary solutions. Developed to the first racing weekend of the season.
Source: Formula 1 on F1news.ru