What Mercedes upgrades say about its F1 development path

Although it was helped in part by a smooth circuit, which reduced the occurrence of bouncing, the promise shown by the car changes has left it confident that it is now on the right development path with its car.

As trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said: “The route that we want to take now is becoming increasingly clear. And that’s encouraging from a development point of view.

“I think this update is the first one along the line that we started to create in Barcelona, and it’s encouraging to see that it has worked.”

So let’s take a look at what Mercedes brought to Silverstone and what that tells us about where its focus is right now.

While the list of new items noted in the pre-event automobile display was extensive, a change made to its front wing was not mentioned so did not have much focus on it.

It escaped attention largely because there were no new parts involved. The change is visually disarming, the diveplane, which has been moved down to a lower position on the endplate, is the same item. You can even see the scars on the wing where the diveplane once lived.

This change might seem quite small, but its repositioning will result in the wing performing quite differently. For example, both the passage of the airflow and how the pressure builds across the surface affects their interaction with the other surfaces, such as Mercedes’ unique flap and endplate interaction below.

This is not only decisive in the performance of the front wing but the ongoing effect the airflow’s passage has downstream, with the wake generated by the front tyre affected by the directional change.

The floor, which we’ll cover shortly, has garnered more attention, owing to the problems that Mercedes has encountered this season.

However, the changes made to the car’s front end should not be downplayed either, as it is certainly significant when we consider how it will set up flow structures that will also be beneficial downstream.

The changes are also unique to the Brackley-based squad, proving Mercedes is still somewhat swimming against the current with these new regulations in its attempt to find performance where others have not.

This will be in lock-step with its decision to favour the zero-pod solution in some ways, but its rivals will undoubtedly look at this and see if there are aspects that might also help them unlock performance with their own solutions.

Mercedes W13 suspension detail