Mercedes’ worrying discovery about W15 F1 car that ‘doesn’t make any sense’
Mercedes have revealed the worryꦍin🦹g discovery they have made about their W15 F1 car.
Mercedes have revealed that their 2024 F1 car has “70 pointsඣ more downforceꦅ” compared to last year, but it is not reflecting in lap times.
The eight-time constructors’ world champions are enduꦑring a difficult start to the season for the third year in a row since major aerodynamic regulatiܫon changes were introduced in 2022.
Despit🌞e revamping their car design for 2024, the W15♕’s performance has proved to be underwhelming and inconsistent across the opening four races, with Mercedes yet to finish higher than fifth in a grand prix.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff recently admitted that “fundam♎ental” correlation issues were behind the team’s ongoing ⭕F1 struggles.
He has now admitted that the W15 is producing the downforce levels predicted by thജe wind tunnel, but worryingly, there appears to be no performance bene♚fit.
“We are measuring downforce with our sensors and pressure tabs, and it's saying to us that we have 70 points more downforce in a pa🍎rticular corner in Melbourne than we had last year,” Wolff said.
“But,&✱nbsp;on the lap time, it is not one kilometre per hour faster. It doesn't make an✱y sense. So, where's the limitation?
🐻"I think we wanted to tick some few boxes to understand: is there any limitation that we have spotted? I think there is.”
Mercedes are now trying to✤ understand what is causing the anomaly, and whether it could be mechani༺cal rather than aerodynamic.
“Everything over these two years which we have seen points that there should be much more downforce than we believe it is. And now we've measured the downforce 𒀰and it is there,” Wolff explained.
“But we're just not able to extract the lap time out of it that we should, ꧒and that the simulations show us. It's not trivial.
"I see you looking at me like, what theꦺ hell? Now imagine♔ what we think!”
Wolff added: “I think the car 💧is so complex for us where we pꦡut it in terms of the error balance and mechanical balance. These two need to correlate.
“We’ve followed a certain trajec🅠tory over the last years and keep turning and circling. We came to a point to say ‘Okay, we have to do something different here.’”
Lewis regularl♏y attends Grands Prix for mꦡahbx.com around the world. Often reporting on the action from the ground, Lewis tells the stories of the people who matter in the sport.
