Disregarding the legality wire on the front wing, the spotlight is on the W15’s front suspension, hailed as one of the most “useful” components on Mercedes’ latest model.
After grappling with challenges for two years, Mercedes has unleashed a significantly overhauled car onto the track for this season’s championship, aiming to narrow the gap to Red Bull.
The initial attention was drawn to the new front wing, featuring a legality wire that Mercedes ingeniously employed—a carbon fiber wire connects the nose to the second and fourth flaps, ensuring compliance with regulations.
Yet, the W15 boasts another intriguing innovation: an adaptable front suspension. Introducing an extra upper rear wishbone leg, this design empowers the team to finely tune the car’s setup for each specific circuit.
According to pit lane expert Ted Kravitz, the design’s versatility extends further. It enables swift adjustments to the setup, accomplished by shifting the inboard end of the suspension leg.
He stated: “It’s great, a relatively quick change from what seems to be a regular amount of anti-dive to a massive amount of anti-dive, is a useful thing to have.
“I think it’s the kind of thing where they know the circuit they’re going to, let’s say one where cars struggle to protect their front tyres such as Hungary or Abu Dhabi, they’d know where they’d want that particular suspension geometry and they’d bring the car with it already fitted.
“But it’s nice to know that they can change it quite quickly.”
During pre-season testing, Mercedes experimented with various configurations of the upper rear wishbone. They initially utilized the higher mounting position for the first two days but then opted to lower it on Day Three.
Tech chief James Allison expressed confidence in the progress of the W15 compared to its predecessor. When questioned by Kravitz about whether Mercedes had resolved their driveability concerns, Allison affirmed; “I think we largely have.
“The bouncing is still a thing that’s going to be a threshold that all the cars in the pit lane will work up against until this generation of car moves on to something different.
“So there is still some bouncing that we can bury ourselves in or come out of just in pursuit of what the right performance compromise is.
“But the sort of horrid snappy rear end, that is happily not troubling us in the way that it did in the past.
“It’s mostly mechanical changes in the car but it’s always a marriage between the aerodynamic behaviour through the corner and the suspension.”
