Devoid of any wins, the 2022 season so far has not lived up to the expectations of Mercedes. Technical Director Mike Elliott acknowledges this in the podcast Beyond The Grid: when approaching this regulatory turning point, the eight-time reigning World Champion team made a fundamental error in the design of its single-seater, although it does not want to not rant regarding this. And it’s not just a porpoise, which he says is the tree that hides the forest.
Will the brand with the star therefore move away from its current philosophy for its 2023 single-seater? Does it still believe in a 2022 concept whose very narrow pontoons have been noticed? Mike Elliott would like to point out that summing up the concept to the pontoons is extremely simplistic. “To answer this question, you have to define what you mean by ‘concept'”retorts the Briton, who has held the position of technical director for a year.
“Outside [du paddock] of Formula 1, for fans, when people say ‘concept’ they probably mean things like the look of the car and the shape of the sidepods. From an engineering point of view, we develop the car according to what we want to get out of it; So it’s regarding where you want performance, what aerodynamics you’re looking for, how to target them, how to get the best out of tires and suspensions.”
“People have this idea that right from the start, you have this idea of what the car is going to look like, and you’re going to build it. It doesn’t work that way. Rather, you study the regulations, the opportunities in line with this regulations, the things that are going to get in the way of us, and we wonder what are the areas to study and understand. We study them, we understand them, and we start development. The car evolves towards a final solution. It is not , in the beginning, something you expect to see in the end.”
Mike Elliott, Mercedes Technical Director
“If the real question is: are we going to keep the current pontoon geometry, the answer is: we are going to do what the numbers tell us. We have already studied other solutions, we will continue to do so and will choose this which we think will give us the fastest car at the end of the day, whatever it is.”
The 2023 single-seaters will meet a slightly modified regulation. Among its objectives, the reduction of porpoising, with floors with raised edges in particular. But according to Elliott, the impact will be less: “15 mm, it does not fundamentally change the aerodynamics. We will still have ground effect single-seaters, which will still be subject to porpoising: if we are not careful how we manage the aerodynamics , we’re still going to have this problem.”
Apart from these adjustments, 2023 will be the second year of the new technical era, but when asked if this will see a convergence of ideas, Elliott is skeptical. “We mentioned the concept of pontoons”he comments. “If we look Ferrari, Red Bull and we, who are currently the three fastest teams – most of the time, because we have had difficult races – [les voitures] are very different visually.”
“I guess it makes sense to copy the fastest single-seater, which unfortunately is the Red Bull, although it’s not great for me! We’ll see if the other teams do that. But I don’t think the ‘you can copy a car and land at the front, it doesn’t work that way. It’s more regarding trying to understand what people think and what their approach is. There will be a little convergence, and maybe be that the teams will end up at the same level, but I don’t think it will be next year, I think it will take a few years.”
As to whether the path taken by Formula 1, with these new technical regulations, the budget cap and the aero handicap, will make it possible to balance the hierarchy, Elliott is also cautious. “Normally, the longer a regulation remains fixed, the more the teams tend to converge. The budget cap is intended to bring the grid together, but the top three teams have probably never gone so far! time? We’ll see.”he concludes.