While at the rear of the car Mercedes has gone for fairly conventional setups on its low-downforce rear wing , at the front it has taken it all to the extreme with its endplate , which offers a hint of how it intends to move forward with the W13.
Having suffered from the negative effects of porpoising since the beginning of the season, Mercedes clearly intends to better manage the way the car behaves so that it can bring it closer to the ground.
It is clear that the geometry of the upper wing of the front wing has been revised, and the section that was previously trimmed back to its normal curvature (you can move the arrow to compare the new specification of the wing on the left, with the previous one on the left). the right).
However, it is the outer corner of the front wing where the team seems to have given their changes top priority.
Not only has the leading edge of the mainplane been turned up, but a novel approach is being taken to the design of the intersection between the finned section and the endplate, in an attempt to recapture some of the outwash lost under the new rules.
The winglets have been swept forward very aggressively on the outboard section, so the rear lower edge of the endplate is completely separate from the flaps.
That has forced the team to add some metal to the frame to prevent the fins and/or endplate from flexing more than static testing allows.
It’s certainly an interesting interpretation given how it will drastically alter the behavior of the airflow, not only altering the wake of the tire, but also creating a domino effect on the other flow structures downstream.
Given the extreme nature of the design and given that most teams had converged on very similar concepts up to this point, it is unlikely that when the new rules were created this was not interpreted and will certainly cause other teams to rethink. their future development paths .
Mercedes W13 rear detail
At the other end of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell’s car, the new lower downforce rear wing sees the team continue to use a more traditional mainplane design like we’ve seen in previous eras, with a flat leading edge, rather than the scoop-shaped design we’ve seen some of its rivals adopt.
The beam wing elements have also been revised with a very similar approach, as the upper element chord length has been reduced near the outboard end to reduce the load and drag generated.
