Last year, Mercedes handily beat Ferrari, Red Bull, and everyone else in the Formula 1 Constructor’s Championship. That marked six years in a row for the Silver Arrows, with no other constructor really coming close to catching Mercedes. With that kind of success behind them, and a major rule change slated for 2021, we wouldn’t have been surprised to see Mercedes roll out a mild evolution of last year’s W10.
Yet that’s not what we got. As we saw with the new car’s dual-axis steering (DAS), Mercedes made substantial changes with the W11 to maximize performance. In a new video, the team’s technical director James Allison walks through all of the other ways Mercedes has gotten more speed win a year without any change in regulations.
Up front, he notes that the suspension has been reworked into a more technically challenging layout. He notes that this contributes to better aerodynamics, cheekily leaving out how it also allows them to incorporate DAS.
The sides have also been reshaped, with the crash structure lowered to improve the car’s aerodynamics. This change, Allison notes, is something other teams had already done. Mercedes knew that relocating it would make the car faster, but it required substantial reengineering. In a weird year like this, he notes that it was tempting to skip serious structural changes. But with Ferrari finding speed toward the second half of last season and everyone hungry to unseat Mercedes, the engineers decided that they couldn’t sit still in 2020.
That also involved “finding lot and lots of fresh horses from this power unit,” though Allison doesn’t explain how. That’s impressive, considering how fixed-fuel regulations have been stagnant for years and Mercedes was already delivering insane power. Lastly, the rear suspension has been reworked to provide “more aerodynamic opportunity” and downforce. Allison won’t say exactly how or show it on camera, though, suggesting that Mercedes has another sly improvement up its sleeve.
“Because we’re a little bit coy about it, you’re not going to see all of the detail” he says. “But I can tell you that the rear suspension on this car is extremely adventurous.”
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