Phillyred wrote:"A key innovation of the Mercedes power unit is the siting of the compressor at the front of the engine rather than in the conventional position at the back in unit with the turbine. This feature is shared by all the customer teams, but the W05’s design team has taken spectacular packaging benefit from it." -- From the above article
Maybe I haven't been paying close enough attention, but I thought the factory team was the only Merc powered team to have done this?
No, from PU side. Accordingly homologation rules they are obliged to offer same package to every customer team.
But that doesn't include the chassis side. The difference was made in the engineering process of combining those element way before all customers team. The way how the Brackley and Brixworth work together is true proof of concept of the 1&1 cooperation.
"And if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you're no longer a racing driver..." Ayrton Senna