Spectacular design of the car
F1 rivals angry at Mercedes ‘spaceship’
03/11/2022 1:47 p.m
The first race of the season is still to come, but Formula 1 already has a lot to discuss. At the tests in Bahrain, Mercedes presented a heavily modified car – the competition had a lot to complain about. And could even force the world champion team to make changes.
Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto frowned, he doesn’t like Lewis Hamilton’s new, spectacular Mercedes at all. “We are surprised. Because the mirror shouldn’t actually be used as an aerodynamic element,” said Binotto on the sidelines of the final Formula 1 test drives in Bahrain: “We should talk about that. Otherwise the mirrors will eventually look like spaceships.”
The new season hasn’t really started yet, but the mind games are already starting. Because in the fight for the world title, Mercedes rivals Ferrari and Red Bull ask: Is the Silver Arrow possibly illegal? “These are not mirror brackets, they are wings. That does not correspond to the spirit of the regulations,” complained Red Bull team boss Christian Horner in the specialist magazine “Auto, Motor und Sport”: “For us, these wings are illegal.”
Horner later said he was “misquoted” and reiterated in a press conference this Friday that the Mercedes was legal. It’s an “extreme” and “radical” design, but “it looks like it ticks all the boxes.”
Competition could force Mercedes to make changes
Compared to the first test drives in Barcelona, Hamilton is driving a fairly different W13 in Bahrain. Among other things, the bolide manages almost without sidepods. The cooling panel is no longer wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, but the other way around. In addition, the prescribed struts for impact protection protrude horizontally from the chassis, to which the rear-view mirrors are attached. And that causes excitement among the rivals – although they don’t yet know whether Mercedes is really fast with this design.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff remains deliberately cool in the hiccup. “When you present innovations, it’s clear that it sparks a debate. We expected that,” said the Austrian and assured that the retreaded Mercedes complies with the (current) rules: “The development process is quite transparent.” The racing team even constantly submitted computer data on the design to the world association FIA. “The FIA and Formula 1 are certainly dealing with it conscientiously. We are in lively exchange,” said Wolff.
And yet Mercedes could face a problem, because a rule change will take effect this year. “At the end of the day we have to be guided by the wording of the regulations and these can be changed with an 80 percent majority,” said Formula 1 sports director Ross Brawn on Sky about the so-called “Super Majority”. So if eight of the ten teams agree to a rule change, Mercedes would be forced to act. Previously, rule changes had to be approved unanimously by all teams.
Wolff makes no secret of the fact that he liked this path better. “I preferred the old regulations. There was nothing you could do about it when a team came with clever innovations that followed the rules,” he said.