Major Mercedes upgrades will come at Imola and Barcelona, and the Brackley crew are looking forward to the European season, but the team hasn’t given up making minor modifications to its car until the time comes. In this case, they have decided to try to adapt the car to the characteristics of the renewed urban layout of Melbourne.
With the changes that have been made to the Albert Park track, which is estimated to be around 5 seconds per lap faster, the constructors’ world champions have worked to improve the aerodynamic efficiency of the Silver Arrow, in a bid to to reduce air resistance.
Taking a walk through the Australian pitlane, where Formula 1 returns after a two-year absence due to COVID-19, we notice the front wing in front of George Russell’s garage. The flap design has been modified, especially the last two elements, which have been configured to improve air penetration.
The mobile flap, which in Jeddah had a clear curvilinear shape with the largest radius in its central part, in Australia is outlined with different sections. They have also added a small nolder, located before reaching the channel that facilitates the movement of air outwards, near the endplates.
In the world of automotive design, a nolder is a small aerodynamic part (which can be in the form of, for example, a strip, a boss, or a profile) that is integrated into the bodywork or other aerodynamic element (as, in in this case, it’s the spoilers) perpendicular to the direction of air travel, in order to further manage and refine the airflow.
If we look at all the cars, the W13 is one of the ones that has the most problems with porpoising, so Mercedes has been forced to raise the ground clearance of the bottom. This causes it to lose a lot of downforce to limit the problems caused by the car bouncing at high speeds.
In an attempt to find more downforce, engineers led by Mike Elliott have turned their sights to the wings, making the Silver Arrow less incisive at top speeds.
Waiting for the structural improvements to arrive, the reigning champions are still looking for palliatives to reduce the negative effects observed in the first two races.
