Yes that was a bit of an eyeopener. We could see from the first stage design that they could actually make the airbox tighter.marcush. wrote:last year they introduced their final airbox also not at the season opener..
We are seeing similar from the sidepods this year where there is plenty of scope for development.
Could Mercedes be running standardised sidepods trying to solve their cooling issues before they add the update? This way any idea they have cannot be copied and applied as quickly. Mercedes are the smallest of the big 4, with around 450 staff(last count) so anything innovative needs to work immediatley or risk having other teams use the idea and then better them at it.
Im not expecting a deathstar, but if this blown diffuser calamity came about this weekend I think Mercedes would have been sitting pretty with their current exhaust configuration.
I also hear the FEE is actually not as badly affected as Red Bulls blown diffuser should the ban be implemented at the next race. So if Mercedes do indeed have an FEE in the works its again a positive pointer.
Very interesting how the teams existence was being questioned but 5 weeks ago, and now it seems they are finding their feet nicely. Racing with Mclaren and getting 100% kudos for it, 18 months after doing their own thing... fair play to Merc