On the eve of this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix, Mercedes showed off their long-awaited upgrades for their troubled 2023 F1 car which includes new sidepods, front suspension and floor.
A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
Upper pictures are Austin. Not very revealing photos from Fabrega, but more photos will follow over the course of the weekend and later which could tell more about which way the floor has gone.
Looks pretty similar but it seems they mayne did away with their lazily swept under floor fences and gave them a more dramatic curve.
Evidence of this could be how the new floor fence exits have shifted forward.and seems slightly increased in length along the floor edge.
Could create a shift in aero balance as well.
Having more downforce generated here should free up the front wing to do more flow conditioning to the floor which in turn should produce more downforce everywhere else.
Yea after seeing the new floor I’m not buying Allison’s 1 tenth of a second laptime gain. It’ll probably be more than that and I expect them to be the second quickest team in Austin.
Yes, it may not look much from the outside, but appears a substantial shift in the development direction they're working on.
I think it was misunderstood when I've written previously about MB not needing to concentrate on race placement success for the remainder of this year, that's obviously important I can see that. But the biggest "prize" now available is on track development, improvement, raw track time etc for understanding the movement in design philosophy for the coming chassis.
There's subtle difference, but ultimate prize IS next year, not now.
JA has eluded to this in his recent delivery I know.
It'll be an intriguing step to see what it does here, more potent obviously good. But a good signpost for next step certainly, that's both plus or minus changes. Enough time to work with it this season, rather that get a surprise on next car launch.
Was wondering if this upgrade would address their car stepping out from a lack of rear downforce and seems like it does address it, hopefully it works and the drivers can finally push the car with confidence
