Adrian Newey has reportedly said that there is one innovation in the new Mercedes W15 that he finds “interesting”, although he did not specify what it was.
Mercedes failed to win a grand prix last season and, after two years of struggling with ground-effect aerodynamic cars, they have brought an almost completely new car to the track this season.
What immediately attracted attention was the radical legality ploy of the W15's front wing.
Adrian Newey takes a closer look at the W15
The car features a front wing that connects to the nose with a second flap and a fourth flap with what appears to be legality wires.
Questions arose about the legality of the design, or at least the spirit of how the rules were intended.
And that may be where Red Bull design guru Newey is paying more attention to the W15.
According to the BBC's Andrew Benson, “Newey said at the launch of his car that Mercedes had an “interesting'' innovation, but did not say what it was.'' I suspect he was referring to the front wing design. ”
However, the design has reportedly been given the green light by the FIA.
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According to formu1a.uno, “Officials from the two teams acknowledged there was little reason for the W15's front wing to be considered illegal,'' and that the front wing design had received the “green light from the FIA.'' It is said that there is
The Mercedes design focuses only on the flap design and is therefore permitted under Article 3.9.1 of the Technical Regulations.
It says, “The rearmost part of every closed section must be visible when viewed from below,'' and “The rearmost part of every closed section, except the last closed section, must be visible when viewed from above.'' “Sometimes it should not be visible.”
Toto Wolff hopes Lewis Hamilton and George Russell will close the gap on last year's sole champion Red Bull in this season's W15.
“Last season we had a big gap between Red Bull and the rest of the teams, and we had to fight hard against Ferrari, McLaren and at times Aston Martin. At the beginning of the season we were in the chasing pack, trying to get one step closer to Red Bull. I hope so,” he said.
The W15 was driven at the Sakhir circuit on Wednesday, with George Russell driving the car on the first day of testing.
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