Although much of its work focuses on aerodynamic improvements to tame the rebound effect suffered by Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, Mercedes has not made the mistake of putting all its efforts on that one issue. Instead, he’s made sure to keep development as regular as possible to make sure everything is well-positioned to take advantage when they finally fix their biggest hiccup.
For this reason, taking a look at the configuration of their car at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, it was possible to see a new support that protrudes from its element for the mirrors, something that seems tiny, but that is proof of the mentality that they have adopted the silver arrows.
The new support first appeared below the Side Impact Structure (SIS), which has housed the mirror solution for this course in Formula 1. Like the use by the German team of the arrangement of the segmented tie rods in the SIS arrangement, which is controversial because the teams put a lot of emphasis on its aerodynamic style, and that is its intention.
Just as the parts are used to influence the passage of airflow across the SIS surface, a feature used by AlphaTauri, this new arrangement fits within the limits set by the regulation. This means that while it might bring some debate to the paddock as to whether or not they are needed to act as a mirror mount, it is entirely legal within FIA regulations.
The change is minuscule and probably inconsequential from a performance point of view, as much of the W13’s lap pace relies on porpoising , but the German team is clear that it will continue to update its car as much as possible at the moment.
When asked by Motorsport.com why Mercedes had created something that seems so insignificant to the overall problems they face, engineering director Andrew Shovlin said: “It’s a very, very small change, but when you have a car The one that’s hard to work with and not fast enough, you don’t want to focus everything on tunnel development because that’s wasted time.”
“If you stop for a month, you’ll be the equivalent of that behind in terms of development at the end of the year,” he continued. “So one of the challenges that we’re facing now, which is new for us, is that we’re trying to figure out the big things with rebound, fundamental issues, or the driving of the car itself, while also making sure we that we can continue to perform”.
“We try to avoid doing things that can be confusing, but we look at the pieces and we think we can put certain elements in and we know the effect will be a very small step in the right direction,” Shovlin said.
“These kinds of parts are insignificant, but typical of the kind of things we have to keep doing to make sure we don’t get stuck,” said the technical manager.
Modification of the mirrors in the Ferrari team
Mercedes hasn’t been the only team to modify the design of its mirrors, as Ferrari also made changes in Baku for a small aerodynamic gain, following in the footsteps of many others on the grid with a similar solution.
Instead of having a sinuous fixing point on the transition side of the cockpit (inset), there is now a vertical surface at the top that intersects the horizontal section of the mirror stay. However, it does so in a way that generates a fin to help guide the flow of air.
