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The story of last weekend's United States Grand Prix was a painfully all-too-familiar one for Mercedes, one that ended with team principal Toto Wolff saying that “we’re back to underdog status” after perhaps its most frustrating event of 2024.
But tempting as it is to draw the obvious conclusion that this was all the result of an upgrade package that didn’t work, the reality for Mercedes is far more complicated.
Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin summed it up when he said “the update kit has shown some promise, but we’ve not had a single clean session”.
The detail of that package is analysed by our technical expert Gary Anderson below, but the shape of the weekend again pointed to a car that is genuinely quick when in the right window but that slips out of it constantly.
This wasn’t simply a case of Mercedes flattering to deceive in free practice. One of its drivers should have taken pole position in sprint qualifying, with George Russell just 0.012s off Max Verstappen, but for his attacking approach to Turn 1 causing a brief snap at the exit and Lewis Hamilton locking up at Turn 12 having been hindered by the yellow flags thrown for Franco Colapinto’s spin.
Things got harder on Saturday. Hamilton’s sprint was ruined by the failure of a part in a front wheelhub before the start, meaning the car was “massively oversteery”. He finished sixth, one place behind Russell who struggled badly with the front tyres.
Grand prix qualifying proper was the nadir, with Hamilton not quick enough to reach Q2 even before his final laptime was deleted and Russell crashing at Turn 19. He put that down to pushing harder than the car could take, saying “yesterday, things were coming so easily and today were not”.
That also meant he had to revert to the old-specification car, which he took from the pits to sixth in the race while Hamilton spun into the gravel on lap two at the same corner that caught his team-mate out on Saturday.
“I don’t think we have a fundamental issue on the upgrade,” said Wolff. “It’s more interaction on the aero and mechanical stuff. Therefore, we’ve got to continue with the upgrade, it makes more sense [than] not to because there’s a lot of laptime on the table.
“It is more about getting on top of why we have a car on Friday that is by far the quickest, before the Colapinto situation. Then on Saturday, it's transformed.”
Mercedes has made clear progress during the season, but regardless of what upgrade package is or isn’t run the stubborn problem of the car’s performance swinging wildly is the common factor.
That’s not unusual for anyone under this ruleset, but Mercedes has been perhaps the most susceptible to such variations.
Getting to the bottom of exactly what combination of conditions and characteristics is at the root of this will be the key to making more progress and to making the most of the potential performance that has seemingly been added in the wake of the front-wing upgrade introduced across the Monaco and Canada weekends in late May and early June that allowed it to take a leap forward and win three races out of four.
Doing so will be crucial not just for ensuring a strong finish to the season, but also the potential of being more than just an occasional winner at best in 2025.
“Where we are now, clearly this inconsistency that we have with ground effect cars for two-and-a-half years is something that we just need to get on top of it,” said Wolff. “And I don’t think we’re far away; it’s just that step away to try and understand more.
“But it’s not only us. You see the fluctuations in performances between the McLarens, the Red Bulls and then Ferrari [in] all directions. There is some commonality and pattern that we can see.”
GARY ANDERSON'S TAKE
Introducing a raft of upgrades for Austin was a brave move for Mercedes given it was a sprint weekend. But as the season is heading towards its climax, you have to get the parts on the car as soon as possible to use what races are left to optimise the set-up around them and perhaps learn just that little bit more for next season.
The last time Mercedes introduced a floor upgrade, for the Belgian Grand Prix in July, it didn’t stay on the car for long and it had to revert to the older-specification for Azerbaijan and Singapore.
Going all the way back to 2022, Mercedes has had similar problems with the car pace coming or going depending on the conditions. It now has a car that occasionally is as fast as any of its rivals, but too often drops out of that window. So why, after all these races and numerous updates, are the same problems still happening?
Yes, Mercedes has improved and won races but it’s the lack of consistency that worries me. This shows me that the team still doesn’t completely understand the aerodynamic envelope that it is trying to create. While you can keep finding a few kilos of downforce here and there, that can create problems just as quickly as it can add performance.
As I always say, the overall airflow that the car has to work with comes from the wake from the front wing. This revised version of Mercedes’ front wing at Austin is all about allowing more rotational flex from the two rear flaps.
The three green arrows highlight the slot gap separators between the mainplane and the second element. These are rigidly mounted on each end to keep the relationship of these two elements fixed and maintain the slot gap.
The blue arrow highlights the slot gap separator between the second element and the nose-attached inboard third and fourth elements, and are again rigidly mounted on each end.
The yellow arrows highlight the slot gap separator between the third and fourth elements, which are also rigidly mounted on both ends. As you can see on the new version, Mercedes now has two of these, the new one mounted further outboard.
The intention of these being rigidly mounted is to minimise any change in the angular relationship between these elements.
Now for the interesting part: the red arrows highlight the slot gap separator between the second and third elements. It is fastened rigidly to the second element.
The red ellipse indicates the pivot where the separator fastens to the third element and the orange line further inboard indicates the internal pivot pin that maintains the leading edge relationship between the adjustable third element and the inner fixed third element.
Primarily, this is to allow adjustment of the front wing angle: upwards for more front downforceand downwards for less front downforce, which is highlighted with the light blue double-ended arrow at the wing's trailing edge.
This separator highlighted by the red arrow has been moved outboard by a reasonable amount. It is now much further away from the intersection between the inner fixed section of the rear two elements mounted to the side of the nose.
This means that the load on this section of the rear two flaps inboard of that repositioned mounting will be significantly higher at speed and it will allow the flap assembly to rotate downwards more than before and, as the loads will be higher, perhaps offer more control over that rotation.
The purple arrow on the outboard rear lower edge of the endplate is to highlight an opening that Mercedes has created to increase the outwash around the front tyre contact patch.
To show the differences, I have highlighted this cropped version with a purple ellipse.
When we consider that the FIA is trying to come down heavily on flexing and outwash, this front wing development seems to me to encroach further into the grey area on both counts.
The sidepod inlets were also altered to the now-more common roof style inlet. The magenta shading shows the comparison of the sidepod opening. I have highlighted in red the leading edge of the inlets and superimposed the new version onto the old one.
The green arrow highlights the fact that Mercedes has widened the opening, even if the angle of the pictures is slightly different. The blue arrow shows that as well as moving it rearward, it has raised the roof of the sidepod undercut.
The increased sidepod inlet undercut should mean more mass flow over the upper surface of the underfloor. To make more use of this flow, Mercedes has reduced the size of the outer edge vanes and increased the number of them from five to six which are highlighted with a blue ellipse, adding a new one forward of those which is highlighted with a red arrow.
The detail ahead of that new vane has also changed. On the old specification, you can see the outer ends of the underfloor leading edge splitters. On the new specification, you can just about see the end of the second one highlighted with the green arrow.
But that complete edge detail has changed and now it is a row of small vanes to ‘improve’ that extraction. The yellow arrow highlights the blockage from the fairing that covers the lower side impact tube, which is still fairly brutal.
The body profile around the cooling exit and the turbo exit has also changed. It’s just a slightly more compact package, which has the opening shaded in magenta below. This should improve the airflow to the central section of the car and, in turn, improve the efficiency of the rear upper wing and the beam wing.
The beam wing mainplane highlighted with the blue arrow looks fairly similar. However, the beam wing flap, as it could be called, highlighted with the yellow arrow, looks like it now has more shape to it. It’s more twisted going outboard to adapt it to the altered airflow that is now coming around the inside of the rear tyre.
If Mercedes has a problem, which I’m sure all the teams have to some degree, I would question the direction taken with the developments around the front corner of the underfloor.
Yes, the harder you work this section of the underfloor the more downforce you can get out of the complete underfloor assembly, but with this area working so close to the track surface it means that differing ambient and track temperatures can play havoc with the lower edge of the underfloor inlet vanes which, when working properly, shed horizontal vortices.
These vortices re-energise the airflow on the undersurface of the underfloor further rearward. Minimal separation problems in one practice session can very quickly become major separation problems in the next with just a small increase of a few degrees to track and or ambient temperatures.
So until Mercedes better understands how to remember that, it's going to continue experience these big performance swings.
