Mercedes W10 Launch
Mercedes were the first F1 team (unsurprisingly) to give us a true insight into what the real cars of 2019 will look like as the team revealed its new W10 EQ Power+ contender at a private shake-down and filming day at Silverstone.
Each team is allowed to carry out two Promotional Events (PE) per season which is not considered as ‘testing’ by the regulations. These are limited to only 100km and run on tyres specific for this purpose. They are labelled as filming days, but of course teams use these as an opportunity to do a final systems check before the first pre-season test in Barcelona.
‘The shakedown is a very limited number of kilometres and it is our first opportunity to find out whether everything we did in the factory has actually prepared a car that is capable of going round a track,’ explains James Allison, Technical Director at Mercedes F1. ‘The shakedown is our last significant opportunity to make sure that the all important 8 days of winter testing are as useful to us as they can possibly be. We don’t want those 8 days interrupted by any form of problem that subtracts from our opportunities to maximise our track running. It tends to be that the significance of the achievement of bringing together all of those thousands of bits in harmony for the first time going round a track plays 2nd fiddle to just the mechanics of ‘lets make sure we are ready for the real thing’.’
Last year’s W09 was the last of a two-car concept which started with the W08, also known as the ‘Diva’. The W10 for 2019 will be a new concept, but of course the lessons learnt from the previous years will be carried forward into this year’s design. Handling has been a particular focus area for the W10, with the W09 a step improvement from the W08 (hence the Diva reference), but there was still room for improvement for the W10.
‘We were still not as good as some of our competitors at preserving the performance of the rear tyres [in 2018],’ highlights Allison. ‘We have worked hard on the suspension and aerodynamic characteristics to deliver a car that will be much kinder to its tyres – enough, we hope, to allow us to be competitive at all phases of the race and at each track on the calendar.’
One rule change for the 2019 season is the minimum weight, which has increased from by 10kg from 733kg to 743kg not including fuel. However, this has not stopped Mercedes F1 from minimising weight wherever they can. ‘Weight reduction remains a real challenge on the current generation of F1 cars,’ says Allison. ‘Components that we felt were stripped to the bone in 2018 have been taken, one by one, and subjected to a further round of aggressive analysis to shave further weight from them. Some components surrender what feels like a giant step of half a kilo, others just a few grams, but collectively each of these victories add up to a handful of kilos that have been invested back in the car on aerodynamics, suspension and Power Unit to bring performance.’
The Mercedes W10 retains the same wheelbase and general architecture as it’s predecessors, however further refinement has resulted in tighter packaging of every item. This is evident in the sidepod area, which now features a taller, but narrower inlet compared to the W09.
In terms of the development of the M10 EQ Power+ power unit, there have been no major changes in the regulations that impact the PU’s fundamental architecture. Therefore, this year’s power plant is an evolution of last year’s with some modifications to suit the new 2019 aero regulations and a new derivative of fuel developed by HPP and Petronas.
‘We’ve made changes to the cooling architecture of the Power Unit, which hopefully provide aerodynamic benefit on the car and also provide efficiency benefit on the Power Unit – so, hopefully a win on both the chassis and on the Power Unit,’ explains Andy Cowell, Managing Director at Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains. ‘Right at the heart of the Power Unit is the conversion of fuel into heat release in the combustion chamber and useful work out of the crankshaft. We have made steps on the combustion efficiency and on the ERS system. The marriage between the turbocharger assembly with the MGU-H, the inverter, the cells and the MGU-K: that whole system is now capable of operating more efficiently and helping with energy deployment through a race.’
One 2019 regulation change that does effect the power unit is the 5kg increase in allowable fuel for the race, which now totals at 110kg. With every 5kg of additional weight roughly worth two tenths of a second per lap, minimising this weight is key. ‘If you have got an efficient engine with efficient aerodynamics and you are prepared to do a little bit of lift and coasting, then you have the opportunity to start the race at less than 110kg,; highlights Cowell. ‘There is a natural reward to starting the race a little bit lighter. There is still a competitive edge from making an efficient car – both Power Unit and aerodynamics – and racing smartly to make sure that you have good pace at the start of the race as well as through the race.’
The most noticeable changes for 2019 is the aerodynamics. Not only is the front wing 200mm wider, but only five closed main elements are permitted, with a maximum of only two strakes on the underside of the wing. Although teams have slightly more freedom in this area than the original draft regulations specified, so there may be smaller elements/protrusions on the underside of the front wing. Additional fairings are only allowed for the tyre temperature sensor and the required brackets, but most be simplified.
The bargeboards are another key area of development which continually evolves throughout the season, with the W10 bargeboards reducing in height by 150mm as shown below.
The rear wing has also widened by 100mm and now sits 20mm higher with larger endplates. These endplates will also feature new LED light strips on the trailing edges to make the rear of the car more clearly visible in wet conditions.
Rear visibility was actually one of the key drivers for the rear wing height increase between the draft regulations and the final version that was issued late last year. Originally, the 2019 rear wing was set to be taller by 20mm, however the final regulations specify the rear wing to be 870mm, which is a 70mm increase compared to 2018.
The rear wing endplates of the Mercedes W10 no longer feature horizontal louvres near the leading edge of the endplates and are somewhat simplified with fewer vertical strakes at the rear of the endplates, halfway up, with the same number of strakes at the base, compared to last year. The specifics of the front and rear wings as well as the underfloor and bargeboard area are likely to change for the first race based on data collected from pre-season testing.
‘In the popular imagination the winter is somehow quieter than the racing season but the truth is it is never quiet because you are designing and conceiving the new car during the racing season itself and then the winter is the point where all that starts to come together and all the hardware arrives at the factory,’ highlights Allison. ‘But long before the hardware ever got to the car there were design offices burning midnight oil, releasing hundreds of drawings per day and production guys and planners and buyers working frantically to try and get this huge volume of new material into the factory in time for assembly. Once the hardware starts to pitch up in the factory the torch is handed over to the people that build and test so that pretty much every part of the car has been fooled into thinking it’s on a track and has done thousands of km’s of running under the sort of loads, temperatures and fatigue cycles that it will see when its being used in anger.’
‘Since 2017, this is the second time we’ve had a huge shake up in terms of the regulations,’ highlights Toto Wolff, Team Principal at Mercedes F1. ‘It has all been reset, every team has a chance at producing a front running car and I’m personally very excited to see how some of the teams come out and whether we’ve been able to maintain our position at the front. But the first real benchmark against our own expectations and the competition is going to happen on Saturday in Melbourne.’
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