How Red Bull’s F1 rivals have pushed to wipe out its top-speed advantage

On a number of occasions, Max Verstappen could not be challenged for overtakes on the straights, and found it fairly easy to breeze past other drivers if he needed to. Rivals knew they had to respond to this for 2023, and so have set about improving the efficiency of their cars and wings to reduce drag.

Mercedes found it needed a pretty big step on this front from its draggy W13, but found itself at the pre-season test in Bahrain still down in the speed traps. A look at what everyone was doing showed rivals were employing medium downforce packages and, in some cases, even trying out some of their lower downforce assemblies.

Mercedes, on the other hand, opted to run the entire test with its high downforce rear wing – a tactic that it had employed last year until a more trimmed-out version appeared in Miami.

Clearly aware that it would lose out to the opposition if it stuck to that tactic again, Mercedes had a new, lower downforce, rear wing ready for action for Bahrain.

While the design language of the wing might be familiar, especially if compared with others, you’d have to go back a number of years to find the last time that Mercedes used a spoon-shaped rear wing design.

Mercedes F1 AMG W09 rear wing Azerbaijan GP

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

The spoon-shaped mainplane design was part of a suite of rear wing solutions that Mercedes used during the early stages of its successful period from 2015 to 2018.

It allows cars to enjoy both good downforce and low drag. The central, deeper portion of the wing produces the performance, while the outer, shorter chord portion of the wing blends with the endplate to reduce the drag.  

The new Mercedes design, much like the Red Bull, bears its underbelly to the oncoming flow – similar to how the central section of a higher downforce wing would.

Interestingly, note that the leading edge of the upper flap also has a thicker surface until it meets with the tip section. The cut-out in the upper rear corner of the endplate also returns, as a means to help control the tip vortex. 

As per how Mercedes built its wings during 2022, the new version does have an interchangeable panel section here, meaning that the team could make quick changes to adjust how the wing performs.

There’s always a trade-off when making decisions based around the amount and type of wing being used at each circuit, as while using a lower…