It had to face the reality that new regulations seemed to be more of a hindrance to low-rake runners than their high-rake counterparts.
While compatriot Aston Martin continues to struggle to maximize its package, Mercedes has made significant strides with its car.
Because although Lewis Hamilton’s W12 was still referred to as a “knife edge”, the car has become noticeably more stable over time – and that has brought it closer to Red Bull.
The team’s development and setup focus was clearly on the rear of the car. The team evaluated two options for the rear wing during Imola’s Friday free practice sessions.
Both had slightly different levels of downforce, but perhaps more importantly, they had different support column designs.
This is not a new tactic for Mercedes as it has spent a good portion of last season running similar tests to understand what tradeoff fits their qualifying and race requirements, which affects DRS.
Another area where the team wanted to improve their stability issues was a revamped strake design for the diffuser.
The layout of the strakes was largely carried over from last year’s design, but with a lower 50 mm cut to comply with the new regulations.
For Imola, however, a change was made to the secondary line of strakes, swapping out the L-shaped design used in Bahrain for a full-length version (highlighted in green below).
Mercedes W12 diffuser comparison
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
In the meantime, the surface coating of the diffuser transition also appears to have been modified for the second race of the season, possibly to maintain flow and stabilize the performance of the central section of the diffuser.
Mercedes AMG F1 W12 diffuser comparison
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
Red Bull 2021 nose change
Red Bull spent a significant amount of its time battling a correlation problem early last season when it found its real-world performance mismatched with information from its simulation tools.
One of the key changes the team experienced during this phase was a change in the philosophy of the nose design, where the team switched to the almost universally adopted Cape solution.
The team alternated between a narrow and wide pillar mounting position during this time, but the rest of the assembly remained relatively unchanged.
Red Bull Racing RB16B front wing
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
After issuing its development tokens on the back of the RB16B, you’d be mistaken to think that the nose saw no action, but a sizable chunk of the body was put on the cloak behind the nose box.
Once that section of the cloak is placed on the car, it slides in to meet the chassis. The new body fills part of the gap that the airflow would have filled quickly before.
Red Bull Racing RB16B front nose comparison
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
Z-shaped bottoms
A change in regulations always seems to us to offer different technical solutions to the same problems, and this year there are two different concepts for floor cutouts.
Falling on one side of the fence is a group of teams who have followed the intentions of the regulations using a fully tapered bottom edge, while on the other side a group uses a Z-shaped cutout.
After testing, there was a 60/40 split in favor of those who used the fully tapered solution. In the second race of the season, this split was 70/30 in favor of the Z-shaped solution, with Alpine taking it over in Bahrain and Ferrari and Williams arriving in Imola with their own version.
Ferrari SF21 floor
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
Ferrari’s takeover of the Z-shaped cutout has resulted in the team pulling the trio of winglets into the ditch halfway along the cutout, at least for a short time. However, to match the Z-shaped section of the floor, a large strip was added upstream (arrow).
This combined strake arrangement is used by all teams, although some have broken the strake into shorter sections (more like fins) as it seems to affect the direction of airflow over the top of the floor, forcing it out and out in the way of the airflow generated by the recess.
The result of the Z-shaped cutout is that part of the floor is returned parallel to the centerline of the vehicle, giving the aerodynamicists a behavior similar to the previous regulations, albeit within where it would have been.
This of course gives up some of the total available footprint, but if that footprint improperly controls airflow and pressure distribution, it will not be beneficial anyway.
The accumulation of fins and ribbons making their way onto the floor section next to the sidepod (like the ones Alpha Tauri added below this weekend) help reduce the loss of the slits and fully closed holes in this region previously but banned for 2021.
AlphaTauri AT02 bottom detail
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
Interestingly, Ferrari tossed its trio of winglets halfway across the floor when it launched its new design, while the other team switched to a Z-shaped floor cutout in the second race of the season.
This shows how different each interpretation of the Z-shaped cutout is, as their length is very different, meaning that the taper in front of the rear wheel is also a different length.
Williams, with its longer, tapered section on the back of the floor, still needs the trio of outwardly angled winglets to achieve the desired aerodynamic effect.
Meanwhile, at the point where the cutout is formed, the team has been using the strake method, although Williams chose to split hers into three smaller fin-like sections.
Williams FW43B floor detail
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
Of course, there is still a subdivision in the way each of these teams deal with the Z-shaped cutout and the various aerodynamic tools at the edge of the floor as we can see in the image below, with the yellow line highlighting how different the individual teams are approach is.
You will find that some teams have a longer section that tapers towards the front of the floor, some have a larger cutout in the middle, and some have a longer section that tapers towards the back of the floor.
Overall, the Z-shaped cutout appears to have prevailed, with the three remaining teams likely working on their own interpretation for the upcoming races to further improve their level of performance.
The post How Mercedes went around the corner with its razor-sharp W12 first appeared on monter-une-startup.
