Mercedes introduces new floor without submitting it ahead of the weekend

Mercedes have not submitted any upgrades ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix, albeit it has emerged that the Brackley-based outfit introduced a lighter floor on their W15 for this weekend’s Barcelona round.

Following their tough start to the season, Mercedes commenced an impressive development push in Imola which was followed by further upgrades in Monaco and Montreal.

However, it was surprising to see Mercedes fail to submit any new parts on their cars at the start of the Spanish Grand Prix weekend. Teams have been required to submit their upgrades on a list that is published by the FIA at the start of every weekend.

When asked about his team’s upgrades for Barcelona, team boss Toto Wolff’s words contradicted with what the list of upgrades suggested: “We brought parts, quite a bit to this race, but maybe not the visible ones.”

“So I think in that fight, you need to add performance every single Grand Prix. And even if it’s just a few milliseconds here and there, but we brought parts,” the Austrian commented.

However, it later emerged that Mercedes brought an upgraded floor, albeit it was the very same specification to the previous version in terms of shape and dimensions.

The upgraded floor was a lighter version of the previous specification, but only upgraded parts with new geometry have to be submitted, hence Mercedes have not made any mistakes.

With the floor having been critical to performance since the introduction of the ground-effect cars in 2022, the reduction of weight of the floor will certainly have its benefits.