Tyler wrote:Let's wait and see with the burnt bodwork - it could just be the paint that's burning and not serious at all.
We'll know soon enough if they start putting gills on the car like last year.
Yes the new guys did join a bit late to have that much influence on the car but Bell as well as the others have a lot of experience - they can surely help move this car forward now and will be involved in any solutions if there's a problem.
Lat year this time was very different - the team didn't even have a Technical Director!
If you take a look at the side of the W03, the exhaust exits pretty far forward. I believe the manifold sits where the burnt part is and the final exhaust comes out like a swan's neck. That makes it pretty clear that there is a lot of heat on small ground causing the paint to burn. We've seen this with RedBull that those surfaces are just covered by black heat resistant bits, where as MGP still try to keep it as silver as possible.
Regardless of what the benefits either exhausts have, I think if MGP went for a RedBull solution, exiting further backwards, this would probably reduce heating a bit. But so far I'm not concerned by the burnt bits...to me it seems to be more a case of Mercedes trying to avoid as many black panels as possible, so it's just a cosmetic thing