A matter of minutes, that is what elapsed between the first time the renewed Mercedes W13 could be seen on the track and the arrival of rumors or complaints from several rival teams.
As some Mercedes opponents have acknowledged, the German team’s new aerodynamic solutions could be “against the spirit of the new 2022 F1 rules”.
In itself, that sentence is very little explanatory, although investigating the regulations a bit, it seems that everything points to one of the main objectives of the new rules, which is not to hinder the flow of air from the rear of the car so as not to harm to the single-seaters behind.
Finding a way to combat turbulence took FIA engineers a long time before fully drafting the new regulations, discussing several technical options that aimed precisely at this very goal.
The FIA technicians carefully analyzed all the single-seaters in the Barcelona tests, without finding solutions that would violate the spirit of the current regulations, but it will be in these last tests in Bahrain when the work of the delegates will have to be even more demanding.
The F1 2022 cars, as announced in the preview of this last week of testing, in a more or less aggressive way, appeared on the track with innovative aerodynamic parts and, therefore, require a new analysis by the FIA.
According to Mercedes ‘ rivals (it is rumored that Red Bull is leading the complaints), the unprecedented and radical aerodynamic design of the W13 deserves to be carefully analyzed, and hence the requests for clarification that would be reaching the FIA at this time.
It is not the first time that something like this has happened, since if we remember what happened two years ago with the DAS system, it is not the first time that the FIA has received complaints about the legality of some of the solutions chosen by Mercedes.
With the new budget cap, it will be key for the FIA to make a decision on it as soon as possible so as not to run the risk of other teams spending a huge amount of budget on a solution that could be banned later on.
FIA technicians have already had the opportunity to detect the geometries of the W13’s new aerodynamic design during their CAD inspections, but the regulations now also allow them to verify the behavior of the various solutions using CFD simulations.
If some anomalies had arisen, the FIA would probably have already sent a report to the Brackley headquarters, however, the rest of the teams have already expressed their disagreement asking for clarifications from the FIA, who must now express themselves on the matter, making their position clear.
“Ask for clarification is a normal procedure,” they say from Mercedes . The start of this season confirms the rumors that a 2021-style world championship awaits us, which will be fought on and off the track. And with the arrival of a new cycle of technical rules, obviously the chances of putting pressure on an opponent will be much greater than twelve months ago.
